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Hi, everyone! Billy’s new bunny friend (was love at first sight) from an adoption event is coming home tomorrow provided they still like each other. Both of the bunnies are about 4-5 months old. I have been informed about the bonding process quite well from many sources, but I still have a few questions about AFTER the bunnies are bonded. First is bedtime. Billy lives in the family room in a huge x-pen and when we are home, part of the x-pen easily converts into a wide gate to let Billy roam ‘free’, but close enough to keep an eye on him because he still loves to dig at/chew carpet. Billy also has a cage, where he uses his litter box and sleeps in sometimes, which is connected to the x-pen. Usually, when it’s bedtime I put a treat inside the cage or wait until Billy goes inside the cage (he goes in and out often, but I wait until he goes inside close to/after bedtime) and I close the door, set the x-pen back up, put the cage back by the door of the x-pen, and open the cage door to the x-pen. If Billy is not being stubborn, this entire process takes about only one or two minutes. However, this does not seem feasible for two bunnies. I doubt they will both jump into the cage together every night for bedtime. So I need a new bedtime routine. One that won’t have me waiting up all night for both of them to be in the cage at the same time. Lol. Secondly, my Billy has very impressive litter box habits which I am very proud of. He has never urinated outside of his litter box and after his neuter, he has not even pooped out of his litter box! No stray poops at all. That is almost unheard of. My question is, and I’m hoping, will he still have such perfect litter box habits after bonding? Please say yes, please say yes…
My final question is, will Billy still be as affectionate with me as he is now? He climbs me, jumps in my lap, follows me around, comes running when his name is called (by anyone), gives plenty of bunny kisses, loves to be petted for long periods of time, is always excited to see me and runs around me, and he even climbs me and comes onto my shoulder like a baby. I really don’t want to lose that. So please don’t be afraid in answering these questions bluntly because I am still getting the new bunny tomorrow no matter what because I saw how happy Billy was when he got to interact with another rabbit and how sad he was for two days afterwards. I just want to be as prepared as possible. Thank you. -
Congrats on your new bunny! Be sure to post pictures
1. There’s no reason two bunnies couldn’t learn the bedtime routine too. It worked just as well for me when I had a bonded pair as for a single bunny. Watching two bunnies high-tail it to get their treat is twice as cute
. 2. When I adopted a second rabbit, there was a little spike in random pooping/peeing immediately afterwards while they figured out territory etc, but that subsided pretty quickly. Peppy had always been spotless about her litter habits, and remained so. Milo was a little messier with stray poops, but I think that was just him.
3. I was worried about Peppy becoming less affectionate, since she was always a little love bug. I think the best way to put it was that she was just as affectionate, but a little less needy…does that make sense? She loved getting kisses and being pet just as much as before, and would still come check out what I was doing, but I wasn’t tripping over her quite as often.
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