1. Bunny Names – Mr. Bunny and Ms. Rabbit.

2. Genders – Male and female, respectively.

3. Ages at the time of bonding – About three years old and under one year old, respectively.

4. Spayed/Neutered at the time of bonding? – Yes.

5. Length of time it took to bond – Just under two months with a three-week break in the middle.

6. A brief description of your method from beginning to end – As was recommended by various bonding guides, I started with very short bonding sessions and moved on to longer sessions. For the first few sessions, I put them in a large bucket and did “stress bonding”. Once they got more comfortable with each other, I moved on to sessions in a neutral blocked off hallway area. After they had a bad fight in which Ms. Rabbit sustained some serious bite wounds, I took a three-week break from bonding. At the end of that break, I started with stress bonding again and then moved on to the small hallway space, and then a large neutral bathroom. After around 15 sessions, I “cemented” the bond by leaving them in the neutral hallway with food, water, and a litterbox for a week.

7. Any unique things that you found worked for your pair (or more) – The “banana method” or “raisin method” – in other words, smearing gooey treats on both bunnies’ heads to encourage grooming – worked great for my pair. Once I started with that method, real grooming followed immediately. Stress bonding for short amounts of time in a small space also worked at the beginning. Once they were a little more comfortable around each other, I also noticed that distracting them with something (e.g., a bowl of veggies or a new toy) would usually prevent them from fighting with each other during long sessions.

There’s a link to my bonding thread in my signature. I posted photos from almost every bonding session and posted details from each session. I hope that it can help other people who are bonding their bunnies. Bonding bunnies takes a lot of time and patience, but it’s definitely worth it!

This is the link to my bonding journal, with some pictures of them *after* I was done bonding them (they fought early on, so I was unable to really photograph or video record the process):

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/117926/Default.aspx

 1. Bunny Names

  Simon and Olive

2. Genders

Simon, male New Zealand White; Olive, Holland lop

3. Ages at the time of bonding

Simon, Age ? 4 months; Olive, 6 months

4. Spayed/Neutered at the time of bonding?

Yes

5. Length of time it took to bond

Approximately one week.

6. A brief description of your method from beginning to end

I let Olive choose her mate Simon at the shelter, where there was a little chasing but no fighting.  However, when I brought them home, they fought in the bathroom, so I took them downstairs to the laundry room.  They fought there, too.  So, I had to come up with something else.  I used the laundry basket to carry them around the house and put them on top of a cold dryer set to “On” for 2-3 minutes at a time several times a day.  Then I let them out in the laundry room again.  There was some nipping and chasing, but eventually, they stayed at opposite ends of the room and groomed each other.  Gradually, they got closer and sniffed noses.  THere was a little lunging, but that dissipated and I got Olive to groom Simon by putting a bit of banana on his head.  That seemed to work, as they quickly became friends after that incident. I still continued sessions in the laundry room for a couple of days, but added the litterbox back into the environment.  Once they were sharing a litterbox downstairs without too much fuss,  I scrubbed out Olive’s X pen area, cleaned the litterboxes, and placed them in there and supervised for a day.  Other than badgering Simon out of the litterboxes (there were two) they got on alright, so I left them in overnight together.  They have been together ever since, and Olive, while bossy over food, grooms Simon and they seem a happily bonded pair.

7. Any unique things that you found worked for your pair (or more) – For example, though “stress” bonding can work well for many pairs, it can cause tension and fighting in others.  Or some will fight over a particular thing,– food, the litterbox, attention, while in other pairs, those very things may strengthen the bond. Feel free to add anything that may have been unique (NOT all are – -some bonding goes pretty much as planned )  

The tub method didn’t work for me–I think the bunnies were already upset with each other and maybe if they had been more value neutral, it would have been ok.  Stress bonding in *short* 2-3 minute bursts in a laundry basket helped. I gradually left them in the basket longer and longer until I felt comfortable with placing them in the laundry room.  I also placed their cages near each other at night so they could get used to each other’s scent.  I used a water bottle spray set to stream to break up fights in the beginning, and towards the end, I would gently place a laundry basket over an overly-anxious bunny if things started to tense up, give them a minute to calm down, and then try again, without immediately removing both rabbits from the area.

 Also, while I don’t think it would have worked early on in the sessions, once they were comfortable enough to sniff each other without lunging or nipping, I tried the banana-on-the-forehead and it led to Olive grooming Simon–which I think was a major breakthrough as up to that point, there had been no grooming at all.  The most important thing was patience and a willingness to allow the bunnies just enough latitude to get to know each other, without ending up hurting one another–both a science and an art, I’ve learned.

Here’s a link to my BB bonding journal: https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tab…fault.aspx

Here’s a link to my videos (all of these should be in the bonding journal): 

Three videos of bonding in a small hallway, after the bathtub stage (I took pictures in the bathtub, but no videos)

http://youtu.be/bv9l4hLPWRA

http://youtu.be/o1rxwi2tbQU

http://youtu.be/HdqK83L6rw4

Two of them in their small nighttime cage, post moving in together.

http://youtu.be/bS8Svn5LBu4

http://youtu.be/t4o04T-tF9o

1. Bunny Names: Otto and Hannah

2. Genders: male and female

3. Age at the time of bonding: Otto – 1, Hannah – 3

4. Spayed/neutered at the time of bonding? yes

5. Length of time it took to bond: one month to living together, but for at least another month they slept in a small cage so they couldn’t chase overnight

6. My method: I started in the bathtub which was very neutral. I stressed them with a laundry basket whenever they got too humpy or started to chase, then put them back in. My first sessions were short – maybe 5-10min – and I worked up to at least an hour. After I felt comfortable with the tub I moved them to a small hallway with carpet. I kept using the laundry basket for times that they bothered each other and I worked up to a few four hour sessions. After that I moved them in together in a small pen, set up in a different room from where they lived before to make it a bit more neutral. I found them scuffling one morning at 5:30am and they started doing a lot more chasing, so after about a month of living together full time I made them sleep in our bedroom in a small cage so they couldn’t get into any trouble (they were fine together while out for exercise or during nap time). After about a month of sleeping in the little cage I let them stay in their normal habitat every night. I was never able to end the chasing completely, but Otto learned how to deal with it (by facing her and asking for groomies, instead of running away) and they weren’t at risk for fighting over it anymore.

7. I found that stress bonding was great – Hannah would get intense on chasing, nipping, or humping and a quick shake with both of them in a laundry basket snapped her out of it. If I hadn’t been able to snap her out of this bhavior, I probably would’ve separated them and ended sessions much sooner – the laundry basket let me keep going until I was ready to end the session on a good note.

1. Bunny names: Wilbur and Totoro

2. Genders: female and male

3. Age at the time of bonding: 6 months and 7 months

4. Spayed/neutered at the time of bonding?: Yes, both

5. Length of time it took to bond: 3-4 days

6. My method was to try to bond them in a way that would be as comfortable and non-stressful as possible, and that would cause them to learn to share peacefully. Before bonding sessions I took fur from brushing and put it in each others’ living areas. First bonding session took place in the bathtub with a towel on the bottom that neither had been in before and their dinner salads, for about 1 hour. At the beginning both tried to mount many times, I let them work that out themselves without interfering unless they mounted each others’ heads. I figured it would be best to let them get it out of the way. By the middle of the session the mounting stopped and they flopped together. Second session I put them in a neutral hallway with liter boxes, shoebox of hay, water, and each of their favorite items. This session lasted for 5+ hours and without mounting. I moved Totoro in Wilbur’s room, completely rearranging everything and mixing all their belongings. The two explored their new set up side by side and the next day they both started grooming each other. The two have still never had any aggression towards each other. Now they are almost always side by side when they aren’t zooming around being crazy.

7. Any unique things that you found worked for your pair (or more):
I found things that normally would be thought to provoke aggression did the opposite for Wilbur and Totoro. Putting Totoro in Wilbur’s territory it looked as if Wilbur was happy to see him rather than concerned with being possessive because she hopped up to him and snuggled. In the first session it seemed that when I sat in the bathtub with them they relaxed a bit more. I think it was important to have the trust of both bunnies beforehand in this case for a more comfortable situation for everyone.

Unfortunately I have a couple short videos of the bonding sessions, but they are very boring, just them hopping around or occasionally asking for grooming or nomming on veggies. https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/118339/Default.aspx I also have more pictures.