New bunny for Alfie?

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This topic has 1sd reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 4 months ago by Sirius&Luna.

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- 07/03/2018 at 11:12 AM
  AlfiesMom
  Participant
  1 posts
  Hey! This is my first time on this site so hopefully I’m posting this to the right place ?
  
  Two weeks ago I adopted my new bun Alfie. He’s what we think is an American/Lop cross and he’s five and a half months old. He has a very skiddish personality, any kind of noise scared him a lot and he doesn’t like being touched much (he will let me pet him while I’m feeding him his greens but that’s abot it). But he’s also very curious and likes to be around me. He loves it when I lay on the floor near him. He likes sniffing me and climbing all over me and napping near me. Basically I love him to death and want to make sure he has the best life possible.
  
  I was only ever planning on getting one rabbit, however now I am really worried about Alfie getting lonely. I spend lots of time with him every day, he is free roam in my bedroom. But I work a full time job so I am gone from 8:30am-4:45pm every day. I spend a bit of time with him every morning and I spend most of my evening hanging out with him, or near him. I’ve been hand feeding him his lettuce every afternoon so we can bond and everything. Basically I spend as much time with him as I am able to, but there’s some days I have to work later or I have to go somewhere on the weekend and stuff. I just had a three day weekend where I spent all weekend at home getting over a cold, and he seemed so much happier that I was there with him than he did other days when I got home from work. Some days last week I came home and he had done things like chew a big chunk out of my bookcase and dresser even though he has tons of toys. I don’t avtually care about any of that, I’m just really worried that he’s doing it because he is bored or lonely.
  
  I just kind of wanted opinions on whether people think I should get another bun to keep him company. I love rabbits and would love to have a second one, but I’m having a really hard time figuring out if that would be the right move for Alfie or not. I know some rabbits love company and some are more solitary, how do you know if your rabbit would be good with another bunny? I don’t have a rabbit shelter near me that I could do bunny dating with, just the humane shelter.
  
  I’ve actually been contacted by someone who is looking to rehome his 8 month male bunny (he is fixed). Apparently he is really chill and likes to be cuddled and to play and is free roam as well. He seems really adorable and like he would be a good fit for me, but how do I know if he would be good for Alfie? I’ve never seen him wth another rabbit so I have no idea how he would react. They are both fixed and are both young, so would it be possible to bond them?
  
  Any advice on the situation would be amazing!
  
  ?
- 07/03/2018 at 11:40 AM
  Sirius&Luna
  Participant
  2320 posts
  Hi!
  
  It’s great that you’re doing research before bonding. Bunnies can be happy alone if they get lots of human attention, but most bunnies do do better with a bunny friend, so it’s fair to assume that he would most likely not be a ‘solitary’ bunny. The main reason I ended up getting more than one (I now have three, oops) was the thought that once I’d been to work, and factored in sleeping, even if I spent ALL of my spare time with him, he’d still be alone for 16 hours a day. In my opinion, that was too much.
  
  You’re right that some of his destructive behaviour could come from boredom.
  
  The most important thing for bonding is that both bunnies are neutered, which these two are, so that’s a good start! Then it’s important to take it slow. Let the new bunny settle in in a separate room for two weeks, then start swapping them between spaces so they get used to the smell of each other. After a month of that, you can try introducing them face to face in neutral territory, gradually increasing the sessions over a month.
  
  The other important thing is that there’s no guarantee that any two given rabbits will bond. In my opinion, almost all bunnies will bond if you take it slow and pay attention to the steps, but some rabbits do just hate each other. You would need to make sure you had a plan for if they didn’t bond, if you weren’t happy to keep them separate forever.
  
  Some people will tell you that two boys are harder to bond – in theory girl/boy pairs are easiest, followed by boy/boy then girl/girl. But, my female is really difficult and it took months for her to accept the boys, while the boys both loved each other immediately. So personality is really more important than gender
  Their age also works in their favour – rabbits who have spent many years alone can be harder to bond, as can rabbits who have had previous bad experiences with other buns.
  
  I would really recommend looking through the bonding forum for some threads where people have documented their bonding journey. It gives you a good idea of how stressful the process actually is, but it’s also reassuring to read the success stories
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