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- This topic has 10sd replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by
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Good evening fellow bunny lovers! First time poster here.
My girlfriend and I decided as of yesterday it is now time to take the plunge and introduce our rabbits to one another to hopefully create a life bond. A brief background to our rabbits:
Taffy: female, 1 year old, spayed – lionhead x Netherland dwarf.
Rolo: male, 6 months old, neutered – minilop
They have been living side by side in adjoining hutches ever since we got Rolo four months ago so they are very accustomed to the presence of each other. Over the last couple of weeks we have also been toy / bowl / litter swapping every couple of days to firm their presence a little further. There has been no aggression shown to each other during the pre-bonding stage.
Introductory Session (15 minutes):
Our first 15 minute ‘introduction’ session (yesterday, 17/08/17) we decided to go down the ‘stress bonding’ route by putting both Rolo and Taffy in the bathtub. Unfortunately, Taffy and Rolo are polar opposites when it comes to their personality in the ‘normal’ stressful situations; Taffy acts in the usual stereotyped way for stressful situations and hated the bathtub as soon as her feet touched it due to the lack of grip and moved no more than 4 inches for the whole session. Rolo on the other hand took borderline enjoyment in being able to slide around at full speed (essentially a one rabbit bobsled) and was entirely unfazed – he is also like this in the carrier on car journeys, even directly after his neutering OP he was exploring his carrier on the way home and on his back legs looking around.
For the first couple of minutes both Taffy and Rolo ignored each other as expected followed by consistent humping by Rolo. We moved him away when trying to head hump but other than that left them both to it; there was the odd fur tug by Rolo but it was not extensive, near the skin or particularly aggressive so this was also left. The session ended after Rolo flopped next to Taffy and we put them next to each other whilst head rubbing for a couple of minutes. No fighting, circling, chasing or aggression occurred during this session. Rolo showing all the dominance.
We decided to move away from the bathtub for session two as we felt there was no benefit to be had from it. There was too greater contrast in their confidence in which Rolo was benefiting too much from having no fear of the bathtub whilst Taffy refused to move; during one hump Taffy looked to move away but after three steps with her front paws pulled back as she did not like the lack of grip.
Session Two (20 minutes):
(Today, 18/07/17) The initial set up was a neutral 2×2 run on carpet. The first couple of minutes both of them ignored one another. This was then followed by about 10 minutes of on-and-off Rolo trying to hump Taffy. This bonding session was when, as first time bonders, both my girlfriend and I were slightly confused about the progression. Neither Rolo or Taffy showed any territorial instincts or seemed bothered about the presence of one another and both of them were happy to groom themselves. We also counted that Taffy flopped fourteen times and Rolo once in the space of twenty minutes. However, Taffy shows a great deal of reluctance to let Rolo near her, he can approach to within an inch of her (both flopped and sitting) but the moment it looks like he is going to try and hump Taffy or puts his nose near her she runs away; Rolo chases Taffy when she runs away to try and hump her but only ever lasted one or two seconds maximum. We put food into the run halfway through to try and coax them both together but Rolo decided to eat all the food (LOL); Taffy did not eat anything but did approach Rolo once and there was no ‘territorial’ reaction from Rolo over the food and he was happy for her to be near him / the food. We finished with them both next to each other and Rolo resting his head on Taffy’s whilst petting them both for a few minutes; as soon as Rolo looked as if he wanted to hump Taffy we ended the session. Apart from a fur tug twice from Rolo there was no aggression, fighting, circling or extensive chasing. Rolo again the dominant rabbit.
I felt that fact even though Taffy refused to let Rolo near her that the fact she flopped fourteen times and groomed herself was a huge positive in the second session which was really first ‘real and fair’ session. However, it also seemed slightly problematic that Rolo cannot approach Taffy without her running away – not particularly far as it was only a 2×2 run we opened. Will this possibly rectify itself moving forward and they have been with each other longer? (Obviously we will continue the process in the meantime.) Any advice / constructive criticism from anyone moving forward with our process or regarding our previous sessions is most welcome
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Posted By BunNoob<3 on 8/21/2017 8:58 AM
I am so jealous to read this!!!!!!!!! If my bonding experience goes ANYTHING like this I will be ecstatic!! Unfortunately, my Ophelia is a scrapper so I am expecting some fighting…. really really nervous.Sounds like you guys are doing great! Can you do several sessions a day or are you just doing 1 per day? They sound to be doing quite well and you may get away with doing several sessions daily or longer sessions.
I think we were very lucky with Taffy and Rolo when it comes to scrapping! Taffy has only ever shown aggression twice in the ten months we have had her and that was only when her hormones kicked in (once was simply territorial and the other when I accidentally caught her by surprise when going to stroke her, so got a boxing to the hand). Rolo has never really showed aggression pre or post-fixing over the four months we have had him; he will try to run and headbutt you (very rhino-like lol) if he knows its time for bed but quickly stops when he realises he is not the alpha male. He started with a few fur tugs at the beginning of bonding but I just passed that off as part and parcel of the process.
Session five followed the same pattern as session four, so for session six (30 mins) we extended the run to 4×2 from 2×2. Managed to video some of the interactions so hopefully looking good!
As Taffy was very nervous around Rolo we decided that for a week / two weeks we would only change one variable at a time (environment, area size, items within bonding area etc). At current I’m following a routine that once a variable changes I will keep the same session for two or three sessions (increasing time per session) and then add / change another variable; mainly so I know Rolo and Taffy are consistently happy with each other rather than risk catching them on a ‘good day’ or ‘bad day’ and making a decision based on that one session. If they are happy again with their 4×2 session today I will start introducing food / water bowls, litter trays, toys etc to see how they get along sharing items as well as space.
I think from Friday should everything continue moving along nicely I will move the run back indoors for longer sessions and increase them 15-30 minutes then some overnight sessions until I’m satisfied they can be permanently together without the need of supervising constantly.
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If Rolo starts to get jealous of the pets, offer him some too. It does sound like a promising start!
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