Don’t stress about the nose nip, these things happen to be best of us. (See my post about “Nose guards” in the habitat section to see my most recent exciting discovery LOL).

For during the actual sessions, I would recommend getting a pair of thick leather gloves. A dustpan can work (or some people will put tennis shoes on their hands), but honestly the instinct for me to just get my hands on them is so strong. I used to also use over mits.. but a big bunny can bite through those. Plus I prefer to reach in and start petting, rather than just shoving something between them. I have also seen people use a colander to allow rabbits to sniff each other safely in first introductions.

I actually prefer a large space over a small one, especially for initial introductions and if I suspect there might be fighting. I know there is a ton of debate on this, but my opinion is that if you are a scared animal, and your options are “fight or flight”, if you give the bunny no room to flee, they will fight. Especially with two big bunnies, you could end up with them locked onto each other in a small space and it could get serious quickly. Not trying to freak you out, but this has been my experience!

So for first introductions I tend to use a large space, and release the rabbits on opposite ends of the enclosure. Then you can watch them approach each other. Most likely they will spend the first few seconds scoping out the space and ignoring each other (that’s a good sign). When they approach each other, watch their ears. Ears back means they are going to do something aggressive. Ears forward means curiosity. In either case, be read to pet them A LOT when they get close to each other. This makes them think the other rabbit is grooming them and helps start you off on a positive foot. You will prob get a sense pretty quickly of how relaxed they are.

The stuffy-surrogate is a very good idea, a lot of people will do that when bonding. They will swap the stuffies the same way they swap pens.

As far as him biting you, the yelping is a good move if you can do it in time. It also seems like a learned behavior from his past life, so he was likely rewarded in some way in the past for it. I think it might work to start wearing some leather gloves when you suspect he might bite, and then do not react or retract your hand when he bites (but do still “squeal”). I recently heard the phrasing that our pets try to turn us into “vending machines” with certain behaviors, so if nipping in the past was the only way he could get people to put him down or leave him alone, it could take some time to unlearn that behavior.

When I was bonding I gave them greens to nibble on (instead of eachother, lol). That being said, I didn’t start with particularly nippy rabbits. For what it’s worth, my big rabbit used to bite my little one if he stuck his nose into her x-pen when they were pre-bonding. He even ended up with a tiny bald patch on his nose for a day or two. BUT when I introduced them face to face she never nipped him at all, so hopefully the same thing will happen to you, fingers crossed.