I am bonding my mini lop buck, Fatbit, with my Britannia Petite doe, Saoirse (sear-sha). A few months ago, I was moving too fast with their bonding and they ended up getting into a couple of fights, one of which sent Fatbit to the vet with a pierced ear. Well, 3 months later, they’ve been cohabitating in a wire shelf condo with a shared wall where they can interact 24/7. This has worked great for them and they seem to want to fight less and less as time goes on. I was switching them every day in the mornings but Saoirse said it stressed her out too much and she stopped wanting to come out and play. They take turns having free time out in my room to play, and sometimes Fatbit goes to Saoirse’s door and pines for her attention. She used to nip his nose a lot, but now she will either ignore him or touch noses with him.
Last week, I started to put the ex-pen across the room, giving each bun half the room for themselves and feeding them their dinner salads next to each other in the middle of the room. The first night I did this, one would lay against the pen and the other would come up and nip them so they would move, then the other would take that “spot” and lay against the pen. They went back and forth a couple of times with this until they decided that it was okay to lay together, I was really happy to see that! They did it again tonight and I’m good with keeping this routine going for them as long as I need to. I can even let them both have the room all night like this.
How long and what should I look for to know I can take the next step and remove the ex-pen and let them interact uninhibited (still supervised closely)? Given their past fights, I’m still nervous about this even with all the good signs. Fatbit is a confused little boy and just doesn’t know how to impress Saoirse, he gets frustrated with her when she ignores him and walks away. He will still grunt and nip at her when he’s feeling frisky. If he says something rude to her, she gets offended and she’s the better fighter and I don’t want either of them to get hurt again. They have gotten better at listening to voice commands, they know what “NO!” means.
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