I have two bonded pairs that are 7 months old males; we’ve had them for just over four months now. Just after Christmas we adopted a two year old female. We thought it was best not to bond them straight away so the female could be able to get a bond with us and learn to trust us before putting her in a stressful situation.
At first we put the cages together for a few days this was when we first had her and tater a few days she started making this wingding noise so we thought it would be best to remove her and out her in a different room. This meant that our house was divided. The boys ( Marley and Charlie ) had the living room, kitchen and half of the hallway and the girl ( Lucy ) had the other half of the hallway, study and occasionally she ventured out in the bathroom but not as much. The house was divided by a pen gate so they could still smell and see each other.
Lucy and Marley didn’t seem to like each other at first, fighting through the gate but Lucy and Charlie seemed to hit it off. After a few months Marley and Lucy seemed to have less and less fights through the cage and started to just sniff at each other.
My partner put them all in the bathroom in a pen so they didn’t have much room to they had to interact with one another, at first there was some initial fights which was stopped straight away. They started off with a barrier in between the boys and Lucy as they was closer to one another than usual. Then we started removing the divider so they could interact. Lucy seems to be really nervous and constantly on edge which has come across as aggressive. She’s fine with Charlie unless he sneaks up on her which makes her jump and startle. Whereas, Lucy and Marley seems to be the issue,
After 24 hours Marley has been more curious about her and wants to sniff around which she’s seeing it as he’s going to attack and then starts being aggressive. Earlier on today Marley and Lucy was touching noses and Marley managed to eat next to her five minutes later she lost it. About an hour after that Marley walked up to her and started grooming her face, I was shocked that this was happening… It latest about 3-4minutes and she freaked out and went for him.
Marley and Charlie are really close, they have a lovely bond… They were grooming each other. Marley was cleaning Charlie and Lucy went up to the boys and just sat there. After 5 minutes she realised how close she was and Marley turned round and she freaked again.Ive also noticed when Marley humps or grooms Charlie she make these wingding noises. Which we have heard when she first arrived. She is a very vocal bunny, she likes to talk to her when she wants attention. We decided that we would try and give them the entire bathroom and see how that goes, which went badly. I think it was too early for more space. We are so use to them having so much space that we felt sorry for them when they were confined to such a small space. So we’ve put them back in a small pen with a divider in the middle so they can cool off but can still see and smell each other.
I am new to the rabbit world, I’m concerned that I’m missing something.
Last night the we out a divider In between Lucy and the boys, the boys found a way to get out of the pen and ran into their main room ( the living room )… I thought it could be more boredom than anything but my partner thinks they don’t went to be near together. What do you think? Am I doing something wrong? Should I give up and come to terms they won’t be a trio?
We only started Saturday at 4pm.