Do you have a bonding journal going, Willow Lien? I’d love to see how it works for you! How old is your younger one?

Cadbury got neutered yesterday – surgery was very uneventful and he’s already back to normal. He’s also gone from 2.8 lbs when I found him to 3.9 lbs a WEEK later at the vet, so I guess I’m getting the big bunny I always wanted! He’s already almost bigger than Ms. Rabbit!

The night before he was neutered, I let the old pair hop around the hallway his cage is in so that they could see each other through cage bars. Ms. Rabbit was mostly unfazed and laid back down to fall asleep. Cadbury stared at them wide-eyed for a few minutes, then went wild trying to get closer to them. Mr. Bunny spent a few minutes grunting and chinning everything, then started wildly mounting Ms. Rabbit. She didn’t seem too fazed by it, but I didn’t want them to get hurt, so I brought them out of the hallway. They laid back down and started licking each other afterwards.

So I think, based on this, I can probably expect a lot of territorial/dominance behavior from Mr. Bunny. Fortunately, I think their bond is strong and old enough (knock on wood) that the pair won’t be messed up from the bonding. What Cadbury does when there’s no cage bars remains to be seen!

I’ll probably continue letting them see each other a bit after Cadbury recovers. Then in maybe 3-4 weeks I will put them together in a bath tub to start off.

Oh, I know that feeling! This is honestly the only pet forum I can say I’ve been on where there aren’t any my-way-or-nothing pet care Nazis. I wouldn’t post a journal like this otherwise. Bad experiences myself with going against the general sentiment – on another rabbit forum, I was literally publicly used as an example of an irresponsible pet owner because I said trancing was alright sometimes. Whatever works for your individual animals and is compatible with your lifestyle is a good way to care for them!

She sounds precious! It’s awesome that she is already so fond of your other buns, too. I think my Cadbury is liking the looks of the other bunnies, but I’m not sure if he wants to interact with them or just hump them at this point, lol. The forced snuggling sessions sound interesting. That’s kind of what I did when I was bonding Mr. Bunny and Ms. Rabbit. They started biting each other every time they were in a bigger space, so I would put them in a bucket barely bigger than they were. I haven’t seen a lot of folks use methods like that – most people use either pens or big bath tubs for bonding, it seems.

I actually learned a ton about bonding methods volunteering for the HRS for 5 years. The HRS co-founder lady and the other one who did bonding usually just put trios/groups all together in a big pen. She would sit there with a heavy-duty squirt bottle and watch them like a hawk for about 6 hours, then head home if they didn’t fight. Basically, she skipped directly to the “cementing” process some people do at the end of bonding, after letting them work their own issues out for a while. The whole thing worked very well, but was the polar opposite of what almost all rabbit websites will tell you to do. I’d try it myself, but I have to deal with fragile elderly bunnies, so I’m sticking to the supervised bonding method.

Lol Willow Lien…I hope you can get your little one spayed soon!

Bianca, I’m happy to hear your pre bonding is going nicely too. It sounds like we are in pretty much the same situation. I saw that you posted a journal a bit ago as well – will give it a read! Hopefully we’ll both have a nice trio in a few months!

I’ve let them see each other through cage bars for the last 2 days, now that Cadbury is mostly healed up. Mr. Bunny continues to take one whiff of Cadbury and immediately relentlessly mount Ms. Rabbit. Meanwhile, Ms. Rabbit seems to not really care about Cadbury, and she doesn’t respond negatively to the humping (though I think she gets tired of it when Mr. Bunny starts latching on with his teeth). I guess it could be worse – they could be aggressive toward each other, which they so far have not been – but I don’t want her worn out by the nonstop humping. I’m thinking that, until I put them together without cage bars in a couple of weeks, I’ll start just letting Mr. Bunny and Cadbury see each other. Ms. Rabbit and Cadbury seem to have no issue with each other at this point, and I’ll be bonding him with Mr. Bunny first anyway. Hopefully, just having Mr. Bunny get more used to Cadbury’s scent will cut down on the humpiness a bit.

Sorry for the lack of updates –

I started bonding Mr. Bunny and Cadbury about 1 1/2 weeks ago. That has been going extremely well. There was a bit of biting and lunging for the first little bit, but after the second session, they seemed to get more used to each other. As of the last two sessions, there has been plenty of mutual licking. Mr. Bunny’s main issue is that he gets very unsettled by how hyper Cadbury is – poor boy forgot he used to be the same way!

I also started doing sessions with Ms. Rabbit and Cadbury today. I was very pleasantly surprised. Ms. Rabbit say in one spot with her eyes closed and both ears trained on Cadbury while he jumped around the pen like a madman. Eventually, he got pretty worn out and laid next to her, demanding some licks. She licked his ears out very nicely and then they fell asleep together. No biting and no humping!

I’m thinking that tomorrow, I will put all three bunnies together in the small pen I’ve been bonding them in. They’re acting extremely nicely as pairs, so now I think I need to see how Mr. Bunny and Ms. Rabbit interact with Cadbury around. Overall, this is working out way nicer than I thought it would!

Small update on the trio –

They’ve had several sessions with all three bunnies since I posted last. I’ve started moving them into semi-neutral space, since there was minimal aggression in the neutral territory. Cadbury has started humping Ms. Rabbit very incessantly. Luckily, neither she nor Mr. Bunny seem to mind that – but I feel bad for the poor old girl! Besides that, I think they’re mainly just trying to learn to trust each other. Mr. Bunny in particular gets very unsettled by how active Cadbury is, and he’ll cling to me for the whole session if I sit in a pen with them, so I’m trying to not step in unless there’s a lot of biting.

I had to take both of them to the vet today – Ms. Rabbit to check on her eyes, and Mr. Bunny because he’d lost a good deal of weight. All seems good for the most part – Mr. Bunny’s exam and bloodwork were clean, no sign of cancers or kidney disease, so he likely just needs a high calorie diet. Ms. Rabbit is on two eye drops now, since she developed ulcers in both eyes. But they should be in good shape to continue bonding.

Tonight I am going to move them into a large semi-neutral room and see how they do. If there’s no major fighting, I may try to leave them together all night. I’d really like to get Cadbury out of his cage soon so he can be free run with the other bunnies.