A second try at bonding

Forum

OUR FORUM IS UP BUT WE ARE STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF UPDATING AND FIXING THINGS. SOME THINGS WILL LOOK WEIRD AND/OR NOT BE CORRECT. YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED. We are not fully ready to answer questions in a timely manner as we are not officially open, but we will do our best.

You may have received a 2-factor authentication (2FA) email from us on 4/21/2020. That was from us, but was premature as the login was not working at that time.

BUNNY 911 – If your rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped in 12-24 hours, call a vet immediately! Don’t have a vet? Check out VET RESOURCES

The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

What are we about? Please read about our Forum Culture and check out the Rules.

BUNNY 911 – If your rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped in 12-24 hours, call a vet immediately! Don’t have a vet? Check out VET RESOURCES

BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 11sd replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 11 months ago by mint.

Viewing 11 reply threads

Author

Messages
- 12/21/2011 at 1:48 PM
  Tula 'n George
  Participant
  21 posts
  Tula is a female (spayed) mini-lop rabbit, about 2.5 years old. We’ve had her for about 6 months and she is very comfortable in our home and with us. She loves being the center of attention and has been affectionately nicknamed “the monster”.
  
  After much reading online, we decided it would be a good idea to adopt a second bunny, as a friend for Tula. We did this about 2 months ago . We brought Tula to the shelter and arranged a speed-date with a number of different rabbits. She seemed to be most comfortable with George (and vice versa), who is a super sweet, laid-back NZ rabbit.
  
  Despite this first interaction, when we tried bonding them at home, Tula became much more aggressive. We set them up in x-pens beside eachother and tried short sessions in the bathtub and in various neutral areas around the house. Tula really seemed to resent George. If she was anywhere close to him, she would start humping him. She would only stop if we stopped her, either by physically seperating Tula from George or by petting both of them to calm them down. George is pretty laid-back, but he does have his limits. He would start to get stressed out, and occaisional tiffs would start when George would get sick of Tula and decide to nip at her (note – nips have been minor and no injuries have been sustained). We thought Tula would mellow after a few sessions, but even after 2-3 weeks of trying this, she was still humping and showing no signs of slowing down. At that point, we decided to separate them in different rooms, since we were going away for a week and wanted them to be able to freely roam while we were gone (note: we had a bunny-sitter).
  
  So that brings us up to today. George and Tula have now been in separate rooms for about 3 weeks. We were thinking of taking some time over the holidays to try to re-introduce them to each other. I’ve been reading some bonding stories over the forums and have found them useful, so I thought I would post our bonding story to see if anyone wanted to comment/offer advice. I also hope this will be helpful to others in the future.
  
  To start things off, we’ve heard varying things about stress bonding. I know people here tend to recommend it, but I’ve also been told that it’s cruel to stress bunnies unnecessarily. Thoughts? Any other advice would also be welcome. Thank you!
- 12/21/2011 at 2:14 PM
  Monkeybun
  Participant
  10479 posts
  Stress bonding is totally fine, I don’t think it is cruel at all. The idea is for them to seek comfort from each other I would try a car ride, with you in the backseat with the buns, someone else driving. Curvy roads if possible, or lots of speed bumps ;P
  
  Tula wants to be the dominant bun, thus the humping. Once George accepts that, the humping should stop, or mostly go away anyway. Sometimes it helps to just let her start humping, then nudge her off after a few seconds. Let her do the humping, but not enough to stress poor George.
  
  Definitely put their pens back next to each other again. Let them get used to the scents again. And switching their pens every day will help as well, get them used to having each others scent on everything.
  
  Hope this helps! Good luck
- 12/21/2011 at 4:58 PM
  mint
  Participant
  91 posts
  That’s exactly what happened with Puni and Bamboo. Actually I’m still in the process of bonding them now. Puni excessively humped Bamboo and then Bamboo started humping Puni. THey both got sick of each other and elevated to circling and pulling fur. At that point I tried putting them in a laundry basket and stressing them or very firmly not letting them fight. I sometimes yelled at them when I had to run across the room to break up a fight, but this just seemed to make things worse. This was the first week or so.
  
  Now they are quite nervous around each other and nippy, but yesterday instead of being “firm” and stressing them in any way, I pet them when I put them together. I also cooed excessively and told them what little angels they were being. So every time they approached eachother and I saw that they were getting nervous, I would go over and pet them and coo at them. Well finally I’m sitting there next them and Bamboo started grooming Puni, and she did for about 10 minutes straight. Then they just sat next to each other. First day of no fighting!
  
  I would say the stress technique can definitely work but try other techniques too. Bamboo and Puni are such babies, they just act like babies, so the more mushy approach seems to be working with them. Good luck! Hang in there! It sounds like your are probably going to make it you just need to get them through it.
- 12/22/2011 at 4:50 AM
  LittlePuffyTail
  Moderator
  18092 posts
  I think stress bonding should be a last resort. If that’s the only way to make it work, then a little stress bonding won’t do any harm.
- 12/22/2011 at 9:49 AM
  Tula 'n George
  Participant
  21 posts
  Thanks for all the great advice. We put George and Tula back together in the same room (in x-pens) this morning and much to our surprise, George seemed to be much more bothered by Tula’s presence than vice versa! Our laid-back sweet George was clawing at the rub to try to get at Tula. Perhaps he now feels at home in our house and is resenting having another bunny around. He calmed down after about 10 min and when I left, he and Tula were flopped in their cages. We’re going to try a bonding session tonight, and we will let you know how it goes (perhaps with video).
  
  One quick question: should they learn to share right off the bat? That is, should I put a large, new litter pan in the bonding area (another x-pen) and should they have some veggies to nibble? Before when we did the bonding, trying to share would lead to nips, but only if we were not petting them. If we pet them, they would be perfectly calm.
  
  Also, I like mint’s post above about how petting her bunnies helped them to get along. I would like to try that approach, but I’ve found in the past that as long as I’m in there petting them, they don’t pay any attention to the other bunny. This is probably fine for the first couple of sessions, but eventually I would like them to learn to interact!
- 12/22/2011 at 9:56 AM
  Sarita
  Participant
  18851 posts
  I would not put a litter box in their bonding area just yet. They may actually get territorial about that.
  
  Veggies and treats should be fine though.
  
  I think the first couple of sessions that petting is fine to help calm them down, but you are right, they won’t interact with each other, but it will give them a chance to sniff each other.
- 12/22/2011 at 11:31 AM
  mint
  Participant
  91 posts
  I had problems with a box around too. Treats sometimes helped.
  
  What I did with the petting is I pet them to calm them down. Then i would back off and see how they did. At first they would just sit there. But then they would approach eachother. If it looked like they were approaching aggressively, then I would pet them again. Then after backing off again they would be nicer. I also talked to them nicely the whole time.
  
  Last night I did the same thing and Bamboo groomed Puni again. I started off petting them and calming them, then let them interact. She groomed him and even flopped next to him. I felt like they both needed reinforcement in between their sessions. But inevitably they are very interested in each other.
  
  I am kind of sad that they need that reinforcement now, but after they bond they probably won’t need it as much because they’ll have each other. But it’s better for them to have company.
- 12/23/2011 at 9:12 AM
  Tula 'n George
  Participant
  21 posts
  We had our first bonding session (or I should say, our first second bonding session) last night, and it went okay. I was petting both George and Tula the whole time. Tula mounted and humped George once, for about 5s and while George let it happen, his eyes got really big and you could see his 3rd eyelid. So I decided to prevent Tula from mounting George for the remainder of the session. She and George were pretty calm the whole time. Occasionally they would sniff each other, and sometimes they would try to nip and Tula would try to mount, but I would try to prevent this from happening (and in the process, got one nasty nip myself!).
  
  So I suppose our plan now is to continue with a couple more bonding sessions like this, until they get used to the idea of each other again, and then try to encourage more interactions.
  
  One of the things we didn’t like about the bonding process the last time we did it is that we didn’t like having our bunnies in x-pens all day. What we decided to do last night is the use the x-pens to separate their room into halves – they way they have more room for binkying and for toys, etc. We will switch them between halves of the room so they get used to sharing. Does anyone know if giving them more space will be detrimental to their bonding?
  
  If two of us are home tonight during the bonding, I will take video and/or pictures to post. Happy Holidays to you and your buns!
- 12/27/2011 at 2:55 PM
  mint
  Participant
  91 posts
  Sounds so awesome! Every day with Puni and Bamboo things are getting better. They are getting more and more trusting. I haven’t put their habitats together yet but I can see the end in the horizon, thank goodness. Good luck!
- 12/27/2011 at 5:40 PM
  Tula 'n George
  Participant
  21 posts
  Okay so we’re on Day 5 of bonding. Tula and George really behave themselves when I’m in the pen with them, and they’ll even lick each other if they have a banana incentive. They’ll lie with their heads together very nicely if I’m petting them. Since they were getting along so well with heavy supervision, I decided to gradually start to back off. I’ve started spending more and more time time outside of the pen where we are doing their bonding. Sometimes they ignore each other, but sometimes Tula will be quite aggressive towards our poor mellow George. Here is some video (I’ll try embedding it and see if it works – if not, I’ll copy the youtube link):
  
  This is how Tula begins pushing George’s buttons. It escalates until George has had enough and starts running away.
  
  Tula will then chase George for a while and George will get tired of being chased and eventually retaliate (nip back). The bunnies had to be separated.
  
  After they were separated, they calmed right down, as seen in this video (taken right after they were given a 15s time-out). Later on in this session, Tula even started licking George’s head and ears without a banana incentive (first time!). I just don’t know how to get to this point without having them go through all this stressful chasing and fighting.
  
  I guess I’m wondering if all of this looks normal to everyone else. Tula is a bit of a Diva bunny and I’m concerned that she will continue pushing George’s buttons like this (by nipping, mounting, chasing etc). Also, should I be intervening earlier? I wanted to see if they could work out their differences, but they haven’t been doing a good job of this so far.
  
  One more question – Tula is a licker, and licks me and my husband all the time. George is not a licker, and has never licked us. How can we get George to lick Tula without banana? Will it happen?
  
  Thanks again!
- 12/28/2011 at 7:01 AM
  Tula 'n George
  Participant
  21 posts
  By the way, congrats Mint on the progress with Bamboo and Puni. Do you have a bonding journal somewhere for these two? I hope you keep me posted on how they’re doing.
- 01/04/2012 at 4:36 PM
  mint
  Participant
  91 posts
  Oh I really should do a bonding journal. But yours is great! It’s actually really similar to Bamboo and Puni.
  
  Puni used to do the same thing to Bamboo all the time, and she’d leap frog over him the way your George leap frogs over Tula. They aren’t fighting too badly so your intervention timing looks good. George seems so patient, poor thing.
  
  Bamboo is the groomer of the two, ironically, but Puni just recently groomed Bamboo. It’s definitely more one-sided though. It will happen! My two have been at it about the same time as yours, and I’m still keeping them separated when they are not supervised. They are pretty good for the most part but then they start to get nippy. Keep at it! You just have to get them through it. It looks like it’s happening already.
  
  For me there are good days, then they regress a little, then the next day is good, but overall it just gets better and is moving in the right direction. I’m not there yet but mine are super hyper. I let them have the run of the living room, supervised closely, but the space helps them let some of the steam out. Tula looks like she has a lot of energy. Have you tried space?
Author

Messages

Viewing 11 reply threads

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.