My bunnies hate each other!

So I’d like to have my two bunnies bonded. I know bunnies are happier with a companion, and I know that to get the right companion for your bunny you should take it bunny dating. Well we didn’t get that choice, as our second rabbit kind of fell into our laps when we had to rescue him from being euthanized, then we fell in love with him, obviously!

So we have two males, Gizmo 2 years old now, and Puddles also 2 years old. Both came to us as babies, Gizmo first then puddles two months after. They were both neutered as soon as the vet said they were old enough. We didn’t try bonding until about three months after the neuter.

The bonding started out well, we used our bathtub as a neutral area (they both get full roam of their half of the apartment), we also used a pet carrier to help stress bond. Then we moved onto the neutral floor of the bathroom and they were fine. They nipped each other on the butts sometimes, chased a bit, but overall went fine.

But then in the middle of our bonding them, we suddenly were being forced out of our apartment due to an issue with the building, so we had to find a home for our bunnies. The best we could do was have a family member take them in that was 10hr drive away unfortunately. They looked after our bunnies for a month while we dealt with everything and we eventually found a new home and took the bunnies back.

They were kept separate at our family’s house and given free roam of a large room each, with a gate between the two rooms with chicken wire on it so they couldn’t touch each other. Or family neglected to tell us that Puddles jumped the gate twice while living there and had led to a huge fight between the bunnies. Apparently when family found out, there was fur tufts everywhere and both bunnies were on opposite sides of the room cowering. They have no idea how long they were in the room together either times. But it did happen twice.

So now our bunnies try to actually kill each other when they are by each other, we’ve tried every method we could find to try helping them to bond. I’ve scoured binkybunny, and many other rabbit websites. I’ve contacted people at rabbit rescues like the house rabbit society and nothing has worked.

We cannot get any more bunnies, our lease only allows two. Currently the bunnies are kept completely separate, each getting full roam of half the new large apartment.

If anyone has advice, I’d love some.