Spay/Neuter
Bunny 1: Monkey, female, 8 months old. Spayed 3.5 weeks ago.
Bunny 2: Tokki, male, 3 months old. Getting neutered in a few weeks.
Housing
Monkey is free roam. She is allowed in all rooms except for the bathrooms and master bedroom when supervised. When we are out, she has free roam of the spare bedroom, where her bed, litter, food etc is.
I brought Tokki home 5 days ago. At first, I set him up a room in our guest bathroom. Monkey has never been in there, but it is connected to the hallway, which she has free roam of.
I set up a double barrier wall – one part c&c wall and one part wooden panel so they couldn’t see each other.
By the second day, the pooping was getting out of control and Monkey bit us a couple times. So, on the advice of a forum member, we decided to move Tokki into the master bedroom at least until he’s neutered.
Monkey has improved but is still pooping outside our bedroom door. I’m sure she knows he’s in there, even though she’s never seen him.
Bonding background
Not yet started.
Hi everyone,
I’m prepping for my first bond and already getting nervous. I’m describing the situation using the template (above) but my question is: is it okay to have this setup for now? And will Monkey stop acting hormonally once Tokki is neutered?
I just read on another thread that bringing an unneutered bunny into the house can make a neutered bunny start acting hormonally. We thought moving Tokki to a room Monkey has never been into and completely out of sight would fix it, but she’s still being very territorial (circling our feet, grunting and lunging a little – I’m living in fear of being bitten!).
Is it okay to continue with Tokki in the bedroom? Or are they too close? I don’t want to restrict Monkey to her bedroom and the balcony only, but I’m also wondering if this might help. Should I wait it out and see if her hormones subside once she gets used to him or is this going to hurt future bonding efforts?
The other thought we had is whether it would be better to have Tokki live at our office (we own a business that has a living area downstairs) until he’s neutered. He would have company all day but have to be alone all night, so it seems like it would be cruel to me. However, I don’t know if this current setup is stressing out Monkey.
This is my first time bonding bunnies so I really don’t want to get it wrong. I know we’re at least 2 months from bonding given that he won’t be neutered for another 3-4 weeks, so I want to figure out how to handle it best until then.