Can I put my rabbits in the same cage?

[Silverlava]

I have had KitKat (a spayed female English Spot mix, ~4.5 lbs) since February. We adopted her and she has always been incredibly friendly with people. She did well at group bunny play sessions (~20 or so rabbits all play in the same room) and she was incredibly affectionate, so we decided to get her a friend.

We adopted Milk Dud last Sunday (11/22/15). He is a neutered Polish Dwarf mix. If I had to guess, I’d say he was 5.5 lbs, but he is a bit overweight, and we intend to slim him down. As he’s only been with us 2 days and I don’t want to stress him out too much, we’re on the way to switching him from alfalfa pellets to timothy, and we’ve been giving him plenty of fresh greens & orchard grass hay. Eventually we will reduce the amount of pellets he gets.

At their first meeting, Milk Dud didn’t seem to care about KitKat. She kinda ran around and wanted to be away from him, but he didn’t chase her or anything. After 20 mins, he tried to mount her a couple times, and we decided to end the meeting. At their second meeting, this time in a bathtub, they sniffed and interacted with each other for about 15 mins, then he tried to mount again. After a couple mounting attempts, we ended the session. At their third meeting, we put them on the rug in the living room. It’s a semi-neutral space because that’s where KitKat hangs out when we are home. They chased a little, but quickly settled into binkying and grooming each other. We put them back into their separate cages after about 3 hours because it was 10:30 pm and we needed to get some sleep. Today, I took them out to the rug again, and they ate their morning greens together, they’ve been grooming each other, and there have been no attempts at mounting. Right now they’re laying down sleeping next to each other.

Now, I’ve never bonded rabbits before, but this seems to be a pretty successful bond so far. There’s been zero fighting. The most that has happened is that KitKat ran away from Milk Dud when he tried to mount her. Everything I’ve read says that rabbits will take a month or two to get to this stage of friendliness. You have to do multiple sessions every day in a completely neutral space before even dreaming of letting them interact on a territory one rabbit thinks they own. Am I getting ahead of myself here, or should I try to see how KitKat and Milk Dud react to being in the same cage?

For reference, the cage is a 5.5′ x 14′ X-pen. They have been living in separate X-pens next to each other until now. Neither one has shown or has any history of cage aggression.

[PumpkinPie]

I would wait a few more weeks to assess their behaviors as best as you can. Sometimes everything can seem A-OK and then an attack can be triggered seemingly out of nowhere. Rabbits can be territorial, especially when it comes to their cages. I would keep the bonding sessions going every day and then possibly at night, place their cages next to each other.
Also, if you’d like, it is recommended to share the rabbit’s belongings with each other to get them used to each others scents and also to place the male in the females cage by himself and vice-versa for the same reason.
If after a few weeks, they seem to be getting along fine and there are no incidents, I would do a test of placing them in the same cage (I would place the female in the males cage, as females tend to be more territorial then males) and watch how they interact. Perhaps do some sessions in the cage for a few days and again, if everything goes right, I’m sure they would be mighty happy to share living quarters with each other from then on.

Hope this helped.

[Silverlava]

Good advice. I’ll keep giving them bonding sessions then for another week or two. Their cages are right next to each other at the moment, so I will leave them that way. They currently eat together and their bonding sessions last all day, since I’m home (sick) and they haven’t been fighting or bothering each other.

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