Fortunately, I have not had this problem, but I will share what I know. First off, are the bunnies both spayed/neutered? They both need to be fixed, not just one. I would also say try taking a break from bonding to relive the stress on the bunnies(and you). So just take a little break and start back up again slowly. You can start off with 3-5 minute bonding sessions in small areas like a bathtub(don’t put one bun in the other bun’s cage!) and work your way up to longer periods of time and larger spaces. Always end the bonding session on a good note. You aren’t going to get anywhere in bonding if the only things the bunnies remember about each other are bad things. You can also try stress bonding sessions where you put the bunnies next to each other in a small bin/box and gently shake it around or put it on top of a shaky washer. This will make the bunnies seek each other for comfort in a stressful situation. If the bunnies start to fight then gently slide a dustpan between them. And unfortunately, if this does not work the other thing I know is that some bunnies just don’t work well together. I hope this helps and that you will be able to get your bunnies to bond! Also, my bun kept jumping out of his cage(an exercise pen) so I took a sheet and secured it with clips over the top of his cage.

Unfortunately, at this point they just might not be bondable. If you’ve tried everything and all sorts of stress bonding, then they may really just be unsuitable for each other. It might be a good idea to rehome the second bun, and in the future if you still want to bond the first bun, you can take them on speed dates at the local shelter to get a feel for who they’d be compatible with. There was a member on here who tried for a few months to bond her buns, and couldn’t make it work due to similar issues, so she had to rehome her male.

Is there a Rescue (or other) that offers bonding services? Would you be okay letting the buns go away for a while??

The benefit of using a service is the environment and people are totally neutral to the rabbits.

This may be my overthinking brain, but with the male buns marking behaviour, I have to wonder if you adopted a female that was thought to me a neutered male? A shelter could make that error if they took it in from someone and took their word at face value. That said, there will be some neutered males that continue to mark. And with bonding, “poop wars” is definitely a thing!!

Oh-in that case, they might have notes on record regarding his neuter. If there was anything unusual like only one testicle present, for example.
Maybe it’s just the way he is though. It can be frustrating, I know! My first rabbit, Jersey, became like this later in her life.

I had a similar outcome when I tried to bond a male to my female. I think that at this point, your bunnies are clearly trying to tell you that they don’t like each other.

I did prebonding for like 2.5 months, and then I tried bonding sessions for a little over a month. Everything was wonderful at first, I honestly thought they were going to be a love at first sight bond. They were so physical with each other, laying all over each other in the tub and I didn’t see any aggression at all. That first session ended up lasting 3 hours, at which time I had to separate them so I could go to bed.

Things seemed to still go well over the next two weeks, with some minor issues here and there, which is to be expected. At one point in week two Quincy let Ophelia mount him and didn’t fight back. That only happened twice though, all other times he would turn it into a fight. But the last two weeks things started to decline. Quincy was just being a jerk and refused to groom, so Ophelia would lightly nip him and then he would freak out and I had to intervene before it escalated. The last week, things were bad. I thought I was hindering their progress by interfering with every nip, so I’d let it play out but it was constantly turning into a chasing match and my final straw was when he was chasing her and I picked her up and he started to attack my feet, circling, grunting, and scratching me.

It was extremely stressful trying to spend several hours a day bonding rabbits when I had work and school as well. I was really depressed that it didn’t work out, and I still feel like a failure. I’m sure I must have don’t something wrong as it was my first time. There wasn’t a lot of neutral space in my apartment since they both were roaming buns and weren’t in cages. I think that might have been my major issue is that pretty much everything was “semineutral” at best.

I loved Quincy to bits, but he clearly didn’t like Ophelia even though she seemed to be in love with him at first. But she got sick of his crap too, so I thought it best to just make sure he went to a good home. I found a girl through my local rabbit rescue who had recently lost her 9 year old bun, so I thought it was a good fit since she had experience caring for rabbits. I have actually seen her around a few times and she’s told me that he is super sweet, friendly, and happy. I think that he does better with humans than with other buns. He’s super accepting of strangers.

So you may yet be able to find him somewhere that he will be happier. It would be stressful to live with another bun that he isn’t getting along with. Good luck!

Posted By BunNoob on 1/26/2018 7:25 AM

I had a similar outcome when I tried to bond a male to my female. I think that at this point, your bunnies are clearly trying to tell you that they don’t like each other.

I did prebonding for like 2.5 months, and then I tried bonding sessions for a little over a month. Everything was wonderful at first, I honestly thought they were going to be a love at first sight bond. They were so physical with each other, laying all over each other in the tub and I didn’t see any aggression at all. That first session ended up lasting 3 hours, at which time I had to separate them so I could go to bed.

Things seemed to still go well over the next two weeks, with some minor issues here and there, which is to be expected. At one point in week two Quincy let Ophelia mount him and didn’t fight back. That only happened twice though, all other times he would turn it into a fight. But the last two weeks things started to decline. Quincy was just being a jerk and refused to groom, so Ophelia would lightly nip him and then he would freak out and I had to intervene before it escalated. The last week, things were bad. I thought I was hindering their progress by interfering with every nip, so I’d let it play out but it was constantly turning into a chasing match and my final straw was when he was chasing her and I picked her up and he started to attack my feet, circling, grunting, and scratching me.

It was extremely stressful trying to spend several hours a day bonding rabbits when I had work and school as well. I was really depressed that it didn’t work out, and I still feel like a failure. I’m sure I must have don’t something wrong as it was my first time. There wasn’t a lot of neutral space in my apartment since they both were roaming buns and weren’t in cages. I think that might have been my major issue is that pretty much everything was “semineutral” at best.

I loved Quincy to bits, but he clearly didn’t like Ophelia even though she seemed to be in love with him at first. But she got sick of his crap too, so I thought it best to just make sure he went to a good home. I found a girl through my local rabbit rescue who had recently lost her 9 year old bun, so I thought it was a good fit since she had experience caring for rabbits. I have actually seen her around a few times and she’s told me that he is super sweet, friendly, and happy. I think that he does better with humans than with other buns. He’s super accepting of strangers.

So you may yet be able to find him somewhere that he will be happier. It would be stressful to live with another bun that he isn’t getting along with. Good luck!

I am sorry it didn’t work out for you 

I read your bonding thread the other day and didn’t know how it ended (maybe you should paste that post onto the end of your thread! &nbsp He sounds like he was a little jealous. Maybe his just happy as a single bunny with his human companion. I had a male bunny called Toby who was like that, and passed away aged 17. So don’t be to hard on yourself. You tried! I hope that I don’t have that happen to me though! But you don’t know until you try!

For the OP I do agree, you have given it a shot and it hasn’t worked. Weather you rehome one of them is your call but I can imagine how hard it must be 

Couldn’t you get a larger pen that is divided in the middle and keep both?