BONDING

[Lulu Cuteness]

Hey!, so I started bonding my rabbits around three days ago, both fixed, one boy one girl, the girl is an angora and the boy is a Holland lop. I started out in the bathtub on the first day and everything went great they sniffed each other were grooming themselves, and stella was flopping. the second day went well too! Max (the boy) began to groom stella which you could tell stella rlly enjoyed on account of the continues munching of her teeth and her practically falling asleep next to him. the third went good too! I started out in the bathtub and everything was going great so I decided to put them together into max’s playpen he’s is not a very territorial bunny so I decided it would be alright. (I was a little bit hesitant bc I thought I was moving too fast, but they had gotten along just fine the other times and they have NEVER bitten me or each other) I put them in and for about 10 minutes they were getting along great occasionally walked by and sniffed each other but that’s about it. then max kinda started chasing stella and before I knew it max started humping stella, she did NOT like this and ran away (I let it go on for awhile bc I read that when you are bonding two bunnies you are supposed to let them do that bc they need to figure out who the boss is going to be. Max continually tried chasing stella so I decided to put them back into their separate cages. the next day (today) I put them in the bathtub ( not the play pen again ) and they were doing fine but Max kept acting like he wanted to hump her and started running around humming which is what he does when he’s excited which is when hes around stella or hes about be fed. stella also keeps shoving her head under max’s chin and stomach and nipping at his head. It kinda looks like grooming except one time when max ran away. He looks pretty relaxed when she does it but I’m just hesitant bc I don’t want them biting each others faces. Is the humping okay? Should I be worried about the nipping or do you think she was grooming? Are there any tips for bonding bunnies faster? how do you know when they are ready to live together? thanks, anne.                                                                                                P.S. during this entire time I had one other person in the room with me and I had a dust pan and gloves on. I was watching them very carefully to make sure they weren’t hurting each other.

[Mikey]

Stella wants to he the dom, so that is why she keeps shoving her head under him and nipping at him. This is fine as long as there is no fur pulling, and no biting and holding. He is humping her because he wants to be the dom, and she is running because she disagrees with him. You should stop the chasing as that is more a sign of aggression than a sign of trying to be dominant, and could lead to a fight given that your female doesnt want to put up with it. Stop humping after about 10 seconds so whoever is on the bottom doesnt get too stressed or start a fight

[Author]

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