I have started bonding my two rabbits, Lucy and Quinn.  Lucy is a 4-5 year old lop, and she is a very opinionated bun.  I had bonded Lucy to my rabbit Hammer years ago, but he passed away a few months ago.  Lucy was devastated and stopped eating for months, I have no idea how she didnt have major health issues because of it.  But I think she is finallly ready to accept a new friend.  Quinn is a 1 year old bun with a fun, free spirit that I got around December, as some family (teenage girl!) was not caring for her.  She has sucessfully gone through a spay, and is now ready to start bonding as well.  Besides the obvious perks of having a bonded pair vs. two single buns, I am hoping that a new friend will really help Lucy with her lose.  She has always been a sort of sour bunny, but she is definitely sad now that Hammer is gone.  She won’t even use her playtime, she just stays in her cage.  If I push her out of it and close the door behind her she just finds somewhere to hide until she is allowed back in her cage.  So hopefully a mate will help her feel better.

Because this weekend is a long weekend and I don’t have much going on, I plan on doing several dates a day as long as I still see it as a positive thing.  If they become too stressed out then I’ll scale back.  On Thursday night when I went to say goodnight to the buns and close down their room, I thought I was seeing things.  Quinn had jumped into Lucy’s cage.  They sat right next to eachother for a few seconds looking back at me, and then of course came the hair pulling and circling that would be expected.  I was very much surprised that they were both okay, and there wasnt as much hair flying as I would have thought.  Add in the fact that they could have been in that cage together for as long as two hours without my knowing about it.  My boyfriends now knows not to put boxes on the shared wall of their cages, so it wont happen again.  But I was impressed that they didnt do any damage to eachother, so Friday night they had their first official date.  It was about 20 minutes in half of the bathtub, but I didnt allow much movement.  Quinn licked some banana off of Lucy’s forehead. Yay!  But the normal demanding grooms and humping happened.  

Today, in the tub as well, Quinn licked more banana off of Lucy, and Lucy groomed Quinn back!!  When Lucy was being bonded to Hammer, I think she may have groomed him twice in that process, and it sure wasn’t on their second date.  Lucy was also dominate in their relationship, so I’m thinking maybe this means Lucy is willing to concede in the name of friendship with Quinn.  So I think Lucy is doing good.  Quinn however is attacking pretty bad every single time Lucy tries to mount her.  If it upsets her this bad, should I be allowing it?  I’ve not had a bun get that upset when mounted.  Quinn has not yet tried to mount Lucy.

I’ve not been an active member on BB in quite some time, but I do check back pretty often. I remember someone making a “bonding box.”   I think it was a NIC box or something.  Can someone tell me about this or point me in the right direction please?