Attempting to bond two very dominant bunnies!

[Blubell&hoppy]

I adopted bluebell (female mini Rex, neutered) about 4 weeks ago from the RSPCA and she settled in to her new home very well then we rehomed hoppy, a friends rabbit (male lop, neutered) as her circumstances changed and couldn’t look after him anymore. We had a little bunnies date in a neutral area before bringing hoppy home with us and it went pretty well! No agressive behaviour, happy to sit near each other and clean themselves, no chasing. So hoppy came home with us.

We’ve had hoppy a little over a week now and we’ve been putting them together in neutral areas every evening for about 15 minutes but i’m getting the impression that both rabbits want to be “boss” and are being stubborn and neither are giving in. They both hold their noses close to the floor nxt to each other asking to be groomed but bluebell gets impatient waiting for hoppy to groom her and hops away, hoppy gets annoyed that bluebell wont groom him and gets aggresive then fights break out and I have to step in and separate them.

I’m starting to think maybe they will never bond!! maybe I’m just being a little impatient, I was just wondering if anyone has had the same problem? Or if anyone had any tips/advice?

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

It actually sounds like it’s going very well! From the title I figured you’d experienced a few big fights.

What you should do is not let it get to the point where they have a scuffle-you identified what leads up to it(they both try to get groomer, then get aggressive, then they fight) so stop it just before the fight.

You can encourage grooming by putting some mushy banana on their face -I know gross! But apparently it works!

I would also do some stress bonding-you can do this by putting them in the tub and running the vacuum, putting them on a towel on top of the drier while it’s running or going for car rides (bring a friend-you do not want to drive and supervise!)

[Blubell&hoppy]

Thanks for the reply and advice Yeah we’ve had a couple of big fights…me and my boyfriend have both been bit when intervening too :/ i’ll have to try the banana though…bluebell loves a bit of banana we tried putting them in the car…bluebell was very stressed but hoppy didn’t seem bothered at all…he also wasn’t too bothered by the hoover either :/ nerves of steel!

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