If only Basil wasn’t so stubborn!

Posted By Faye on 12/18/2017 9:24 PM

Well stress bonding is basically stressing the bunnies so they can comfort each other when they are scared. So what I did was I put them in a box on top of the dryer or washer because they were scared of the sound. But really anything that scares your rabbit will work. And good job on the other things you are doing ?

I’ll have to think about what scares Basil, other than the prospect of no pellets, as he’s a pretty brave bunny. I’d more likely go for a drive in the car with them in a carrier but I’m wary of Basil deciding to attack Twinkle in the process as I don’t have a second person on hand to split them up instantly in that instance.
I’ll think on it. Thanks for the advice.

Posted By Sirius&Luna on 12/19/2017 6:33 AM

I don’t have any helpful advice, but I will be in a similar situation in a couple of months, as I want to add my third boy to my male/female bonded pair once he’s neutered.

Commenting in the hopes of stealing future advice.

Mikey used to have an all boy trio I believe, and I think there’s a couple of other people here with groups, if you search back through the forum a bit. One of my instagram friends has a newly made group of 5, made up of two pairs and a single, which i’m in awe of.

On the very positive side, your girl doesn’t seem to be breaking the bond between your two boys.

Since Basil is the problematic one, I would keep working on the bonding between Basil and the new girl. If it was me, I would intervene a lot, and stop him lunging so she learns not to be scared of him, and he learns he can’t lunge. Once you’ve got them a bit more settled, then you can take a step back. Personally, I think in the early stages, more intervention is better. It’s good that she isn’t retaliating, but you need to teach Basil that it’s not ok to lunge. Can you try feeding them pellets or something together while bonding, so she can’t hide in a corner? You could also try bonding them in a smaller space, so he doesn’t have the space to lunge, but it could make her feel threatened. Often you have to try out a few options and see what works best for your bunnies.

I’ve been reading advice on bonding a trio for I don’t even know how long – unfortunately I didn’t anticipate Basil continuing to be as aggressive towards her 1.) for so long and 2.) after she’d been speyed and the scent of hormones would fade.

Thanks, I’ll have a look through the history of the forum.

Exactly, she’s the most friendly and sociable little bun, I’d hoped Basil would realise she isn’t a threat when she’s continually lowering her head and trying to become his friend.

Yeah, until I see some progress with Basil I’m holding off on bonding sessions with Twinkle/Ollie because ultimately I’d like the three of them to live together and that just won’t stand a chance until Basil starts to behave around her.

I’ve been trying to continually intervene since I got her home and Basil started acting up, including giving him short time outs in a carrier for plucking her fur. It’s never improved his behaviour so I’ve resorted to chasing him away when he’s been misbehaving towards her. I think he knows what he’s doing is wrong because he’ll dart away when he sees me coming to tell him off, it just doesn’t seem to actually deter him in the future. So infuriating.
I actually put pellets down in a new bowl during the bonding session (all three love their pellets) however neither of them were remotely interested and eating at the time. They wouldn’t even eat their favourite treats.

The smallest space I’ve tried was in the bath – sat in it with them. Twinkle just wanted to hunker down and disappear. Basil wanted to have a strop at her/eye up an escape route. I did try “smooshing” them together and continuously stroking them/ear massages etc which seemed to settle Twinkle a little but Basil just brought out his grumpy face. As soon as I stropped stroking them, Basil would sit up and more or less straight away turn and go for/fur pluck Twinkle. Immediately I intervened to stop it happening, minute or two later pushed them together again and resumed ear massages etc. Stopped a while later, the same aggression came from Basil.

I don’t know if I’m just being too impatient in looking for Basil to be less aggressive towards Twinkle too quickly (rabbits being stubborn creatures after all)… I’m just concerned at how scared Twinkle became of Basil after two bonding sessions with him being horrible towards her.

Ah-ha! So you’re the one whose brain I should pick then

I moved two months ago. So far I wouldn’t say it’s upset either the prebonding or bonding – there hasn’t been any deterioration in behaviour etc, it’s just that Basil has been a pain in the backside with Twinkle since she arrived (in mid-July).
As for prebonding since I moved – from the word go so that’ll be two months of prebonding.

It’s happened briefly a few months ago (by mistake as Twinkle decided to be an opportunist and escape while I was topping up her food bowl and hadn’t locked the pen behind me as I went in…. It didn’t go well once the boys realised she was out beside them – they each had a go at chasing her until I managed to scoop her out the way (fortunately that didn’t take too long). I haven’t tried putting all three together in neutral territory since Twinkle was speyed (in November).

I’ll pursue smooshing at the weekend and as you say, put them away immediately once that’s done. Is there anything I’m looking for progress wise with doing this? As I won’t really be able to observe if Basil is going to start being aggressive towards Twinkle when I’m putting them away immediately…

It has been over a month since she was spayed, almost 6 weeks ago now.
I’ve previously read up quite a bit on the hormones draining side of things and I’ve never seen it suggested that it takes up to 6 months…

I’m unlikely to wait another two months but I’ll keep an eye on Basil to see if he becomes less aggressive.