Keeping bonds for Spay/Neutered pair

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 3sd replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 10 months ago by JackRabbit.

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- 06/20/2015 at 8:25 PM
  jayniedoe
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  2 posts
  I’ve been lurking around the forum for a few months as I did my research on house bunnies before finally taking the plunge and rescuing 2(m/f) Holland Lops. Unfortunately the previous owners kept them in a hutch together without fixing them. :/… So I’ve had them for about a week and I went ahead and got them fixed as it should be. The vet tech advised me to keep them seperate for 30 days which is much longer than I planned. I asked if after 10 days it would be OK to have them play together with supervision and I got a very firm no.
  
  My main concern is that being sepeparated for so long will cause distance in their bond. I don’t want there to be tension because they have changed. I also am worried that they are going to be lonely without eachother. I’m just getting to know these guys and they still are not totally into me yet. Where as before surgery they were a little more outgoing, now they both seem to be sulking. I’m not sure how much is from the surgery, how much is from them being shy, and how much is from missing their buddy. The famle is more dominant and seems to be taking it better with more relaxed body language, though she has reverted a bit on how close/how long she wants our interactions to be. My little boy won’t lay down but is curled up in a little fluff ball. If either of them allow me to pet them a little, they don’t flatten their heads or seem comforcomfortable. They more shorten their neck for the duration and walk away when I stop. Is there something wrong?
  
  Are there certain signs I should be looking for to let me know they’re ready to be together, even if supervised? What can I do to bond with them during this awkawkward time.
  
  As far as health, they are both eating, pooping and peeing. The male is doing more marking and the female is doing a little marking but mostly going in her cage and in a corner where I will put a litterbox tomorrow.
  
  Thanks so much for the advice.
- 06/21/2015 at 5:59 PM
  tobyluv
  Participant
  3312 posts
  Hi and welcome to Binky Bunny!
  
  You want to make sure that both of the rabbits’ incisions have completely healed before you put them back together, but that should happen by 10 to 14 days. It may take the females longer to heal than the males. We adopted a male last month and started bonding him with our female about 2 weeks later – he was neutered the day we adopted him.
  
  I don’t know why the vet tech told you to keep them apart for 30 days. I’ve never waited that long, but some of the other members here may think that a longer period is necessary or better. Hopefully some more people will respond to this thread. It’s true that the male may still have some hormones and baby making abilities for 30 days, so maybe the tech is thinking he may be aggressive until then, but that does seem a long time to wait before rebonding them. Things can change after surgery and there may be some scuffling, humping, etc, so you do have to be careful when putting them back together. Just start out with some short sessions, stay with them, separate them if the normal humping and chasing turns into actual fighting. Hopefully, since they were bonded before, it will go smoothly to rebond them. In the meantime, you can keep their cages or pens next to each other.
- 06/21/2015 at 10:26 PM
  jayniedoe
  Participant
  2 posts
  Thank you for your reply! I decided to take your advice and keep them seperate for 14 days. Starting next week I’ll go ahead and have them play together while I supervise. What I am doing now is placing a large pen in the kitchen and alternating which bunny gets to roam and which one is in the cage. The female acts what I am interpreting as jealous when it is her turn to be locked up. But this way they both get exercise/free time and don’t have to be completely isolated
  Plus they still have their time to “talk” when the free one passes by the cage. They seem more relaxed this way.
- 06/22/2015 at 12:05 AM
  JackRabbit
  Participant
  5451 posts
  I had my bonded pair spayed/neutered the same day and was told 30 days as well. With both fixed, baby making us over, but hormones are not. Your male may try to hump the female and could injure her mostly but not totally healed incision, or they could potentially get into a tussle and one or the other (more likely the female) be injured since her surgery was more invasive.
  
  To keep my pair’s bond intact, I kept them separated but kept their cages next to each other so they could still see each other and smell each other. Except for being able to snuggle, they continued to do everything “together”. They slept next to each other, ate hay at the same time, ran around their cages at the same time. They would also try to pull each others fleece and hay mats into each other’s cages! I actually think Marlee appreciated some time without Moshi binkying into her or trying to hump her! Once their wait period was over, we let them have supervised play time together and never had any problems. They groomed, snuggled, etc. We ended up keeping them separated except for play time for 5 months while we did renovations on the new bunny room and attempted to bond them with our single bun. When our renovations were finished, they moved into the new room together and have lived together ever since.
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