Bonding 5 Flemishs

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This topic has 1sd reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 7 months ago by jerseygirl.

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- 04/25/2020 at 3:45 AM
  Flemishmommy5
  Participant
  1 posts
  Hello I am new to the group. But I am looking for ideas of how to bond my 5 rabbits. I have a bonded pair. One Flemish one French lop both neutered. They have been a pair for about 7 months but they are 1 and 2 years old. Their bond was super easy never any fighting or pulling hair just instant friends. I have taken in a 1 year old female Flemish she will be fix Tuesday she was kind of unplanned but she was NOT being taken care of right at all. Being fed hot dogs and all that. And she’s slightly cage territorial so I think also why they wanted to rehome her. I have a 7 month old male who is fixed. Has been fixed a little over 30 days. And an 10 week old Flemish male that was a surprise for Easter. 🤦🏼‍♀️
  
  Anyway the female and the baby are in my room separated from everyone else. But my 7 month old is out in the living room with the bonded pair. I tried to introduce them last weekend outside and they all fought almost instantly. I’m wondering if just some more hormones. But my French lop keeps trying to fight through the bars and then goes after the Flemish if the odd one out goes around the cage. So I stopped face to faces till he’s had more time to loose the hormones. I’m going to switch cages. Just haven’t done it yet because I worry about my pair. Eventually I would like to get all 5 together. Or at lest 3 together and my pair.
  so I guess my questions are Should I just wait for everyone to be fixed then introduce everyone at the same time. And do cage swaps After they stop showing aggression when being side by side do face to faces with all 5 at once? Should I split my current pair once everyone’s fixed so they can be side by side? I plan to introduce them on my screened in porch because none of them have ever been on it. Or should I continue to work on just adding the 3rd and do them one at a time to each pair? Or because the French lop won’t stop being a bully and the new one was kinda bulling are they just not going to work? I only gave them the one time to meet.
  
  sorry for the novel. 🙄
- 04/25/2020 at 4:17 AM
  jerseygirl
  Moderator
  22345 posts
  Hoo boy! Interesting time ahead for you!
  
  I think it was a good plan to stop any further bonding attempts with the 7mth old and your pair for now. Definitely wait another month at least. As for how you go about bonding the 5, I really dont have advice on best way to do that but just some thoughts on possible challenges. I did want to firstly advise not to split your bonded pair at all unless they begin to fight with one another and cannot be trusted together anymore.
  
  Some challenges at the moment might be that there are still 2 intact rabbit in the house. So any attempts of bonding with the desexed rabbits could be negatively influenced by that due to their smell. If you have the space, you could set them up in opposite ends of the house. Or, as you said, wait until all are desexed and the hormones have depleted.
  
  I suppose I would attempt the pair and boy again in a month and if that isnt looking promising after a few weeks, the older single girl should be recovered enough to try her with 7-8mth old boy. If successful, you’d have the youngest boy to try to introduce to either M-F pair.
  
  I do recall a story from years ago about how a woman was able to bond a big group. She would have the bonded rabbits on one side of a fence and bring in a new rabbit to live on the other side for 2 weeks. It seemed after that time the group would accept the new rabbit. This may be because it was already a large group and the dynamic becomes different.
  
  You could try something like that, introducing a each new rabbit to your existing pair, one at a time. My only concern with that is – what if you end up with 4 bonded and one that it doesnt work for? Do you get another rabbit for that single one?…. 🙃
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