New Bunny introductions

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 12sd replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 1 month ago by BinkyBunny.

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- 03/19/2008 at 1:58 PM
  BooBooBunny
  Participant
  30 posts
  Hello everyone! Well, I had been thinking of adopting another rabbit for a while to keep my bunny Boo company (everytime I see him laying there grooming his house or his floor or whatever, I think maybe he’s lonley and needs another bun to groom…maybe its just me though, ha) and by coincidence I ended up speaking to someone who has three bunnies they need to find new homes for (I work at the zoo and she had called to see if the zoo would take them, which they can’t). Since I had been giving this serious consideration for a while, I figured why not see if it will work out, and we set up a “meeting” between our bunnies tomorrow to see if any of them show signs of possibly getting along.
  
  My bunny is a neutered 3 year old male, and hes the only bunny I have. (he lived with another bunny before I had him, but by his former parents account they were indifferent towards one another, so who knows…) The person I am meeting with tomorrow has a pair of unneutered males (one 8 yrs and one 2 yrs) who are bonded, and an unspayed female (I forgot to ask the age on her).
  
  I am wondering if anyone with more bunny experience has an opinion as to which of these my bunny is more likley to get along with. My guess would be getting the bonded pair of males to accept him might be rather difficult. He’s always seemed a little dominant to me (hes not afraid to let me know when hes unhappy with me), and I was told the other bunnies are Dutch which I have read are generally smaller than Rex’s (the breed my Boo is) so I am a little afraid there may be trouble when the meet tomorrow, especially since the three others are unaltered.
  
  I obviously don’t expect them to love each other right away, but what signs should I look for to give me clues as to what the best match is? I have read the bonding info here, so I plan to take some gloves with me just in case and see if I can dig up a pasta strainer as a seperator, but does anyone else have any other tips for safety during this little meeting? I’m just nervous becuase I have no idea how he will react! He will already be mad at me for at least a day for taking him on a car ride…
  
  He is my first and only bunny, so this is a new thing for me and any suggestions or info to better prepare myself and my bunny for this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
- 03/19/2008 at 2:11 PM
  Sarita
  Participant
  18851 posts
  More likely the female once she is spayed though. Your right, it does take time.
  
  We usually use a puppy pen at the sanctuary I help at and someone gets in the pen with the rabbit for the initial meeting and stays next to the pen to monitor after the initial round of introductions. Your bunny will probably be stressed after the ride and that is usually a good thing. Some people use those oven mitts to help intervene with rabbit altercations.
- 03/19/2008 at 2:13 PM
  MarkBun
  Participant
  2842 posts
  Signs that bonding is possible:
  Ignoring one another
  grooming one’s self while the other is close.
  Lying down
  Sniffing one another
  
  You can also get the spinning yin/yang which is the prelude to a fight.
  
  Signs that bonding isn’t possible:
  One bun heads right to the other and starts a fight – even when you seperate them and let them go.
- 03/19/2008 at 2:16 PM
  Sarita
  Participant
  18851 posts
  Great points Marksudark! You’ve had lots of experience doing this with Maryann so you would definitely know :~)
- 03/19/2008 at 2:29 PM
  kralspace
  Participant
  2663 posts
  My money’s on the girl bunny!
  
  Marksudark and Sarita are right. Sarita helped my Daisy select Lola last December and it was really interesting. We had an hour and half ride, the last part through fast traffic in Dallas, so he was pretty nervous when we got there.
  
  They brought Lola out first and they did the sniffing, ignoring and a bit of grooming (from Daisy who will groom a chair). The other ladies provoked responses all the way from “ho hum, hi there” to “God I hate you and Im going to pull all your hair out”. The most interesting was the really big golden lop girl who seemed to just want to sit on top of Daisy…lol.
  
  Like Sarita told me, don’t forget to bring your first introduction back for a second look! Kathy
- 03/19/2008 at 4:43 PM
  Scarlet_Rose
  Participant
  4293 posts
  It really is best if you do it when all of the rabbits in question are altered. However, with the female, depending on her personality, is probably more likely of a match than with the two males. However, the female most likely will go through false pregnancy since she is unaltered and even if they got along swimmingly, when she goes experiences false pregnancy she will chase the male away and want to be left alone which could make start over from square one with trying to bond them or they may not bond at all.
  I would suggest that if you want to go ahead with taking her if there is some chemistry, keep them apart until she can be fixed, then try bonding after she has recovered from her spay.
- 03/19/2008 at 4:48 PM
  Sarita
  Participant
  18851 posts
  Do you have a rabbit rescue near you that you could contact to adopt from?
- 03/20/2008 at 11:34 AM
  BooBooBunny
  Participant
  30 posts
  Thanks everyone for all the info and tips! As for spaying, I would want to do that if I ended up adopting her and then start the bonding process once that is done and she was healed, but I would just hate to go through all that only to find out they absolutly hate each others guts, thats why I figured at least let them meet and see if there’s a chance for bonding in the future.
  
  Sarita, I believe we do have a HRS chapter here in ohio (I’m in the cleveland area) that does rabbit rescue, I think I had looked at their website a month or two ago when I began considering getting another bunny. Its just when I happened to talk to this person on the phone when I was at work and she told me how she cant find anyone to take them, and she already talked to the HRS in the area and they said they couldn’t take them at this time, and the APL told her they may euthanize the older male because of his age, even though it was a little sudden I felt like why not see if I might be able to give these bunnies a home if they need one and I was thinking about getting another bunny anyway (I’m a sucker for the animal in need stories , I’m sure I’m not the only one!).
  
  Well I will be taking my bun to this introductory session in a couple hours here, so I guess I will see how things go from there. Thanks again for all the tips, they will come in handy!
- 03/20/2008 at 11:36 AM
  Sarita
  Participant
  18851 posts
  Let us know how it goes.
- 03/20/2008 at 12:13 PM
  kimberleyanddarren
  Participant
  2520 posts
  hows it going?
- 03/20/2008 at 3:30 PM
  Beka27
  Participant
  16016 posts
  hmmm. i live in the west Cleveland area. welcome to the site. i hope things go well.
- 03/20/2008 at 4:56 PM
  BooBooBunny
  Participant
  30 posts
  Well I just got back from the bunny meeting. Everything went pretty well, no fighting at all, a lot of humping though! I did find it strange that my neutered bunny would mount the two males, but when it came to the female she was the one doing all the mounting. It was a little humorous. I think maybe he was a bit exhausted and overwhelmed, he spent alot of time sitting there looking sleepy. But the female seemed pretty pleased with him, doing binkies and lots of “flops”, as I call them, and rolling on her back, and well the humping too (and to my surprise she is quite a bit bigger, so she easily dominated the situation!). But Boo groomed himself around all of them and ate bits of hay, so I figured those were good things right? So I brought the female home with me…and I’m going back to get the two males on saturday. I just felt so bad about the possibility of them being seperated when they’re already bonded.
  
  Anyway, the new bunny (“Bunchkins”) is resting and recovering from the car ride in her own cage (and my Boo is doing the same in his cage). So I’ll deal with getting her acclimated to her new surroundings, and then the two boys in a couple days, and then look into spaying and neutering, and after all that worry about seeing if any want to be roomates with Boo. Strange that I just went from one rabbit to four! Well hopefully I’ll be able to make it all work, I’m sure I will it will just require alot more work for me but thats ok.
  
  Thanks again everyone for all the help, I’ll probably need more advice in the coming weeks and months with my new multi-rabbit household!
- 03/20/2008 at 8:44 PM
  BinkyBunny
  Moderator
  8776 posts
  Wow. It sounds like it went well so far. My only concern is that there ia an unspayed female in the mix and that could set the unaltered males into a spin – have they been housed near each other? The mounting you saw was all about dominance and amazingly your bunny mounted the unneutered males. So, if they allowed him to mount now without incident, then that is a good sign.
  
  Becareful though when you get home that you still introduce them in a a neutral spot, because a bunny back on his own turf may really get tough.
  
  I am actually very surprised as I was very skeptical of this foursome working out with soooo much working against them. The unneutered males with the neutered male with a unspayed female. That is a bunny match made for disaster, but by your accounts it seemed to work out okay so far…go figure!! It just goes to show how unique each bonding relationship really is.
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