Awww no sorry you’re having troubles!

It sounds like you were making some good progress.

I have successfully bonded 2 pairs of buns with lots od useful help and info from this forum. So to relay some of the great info, theres a couple of things that I’d say might help.

a- I would give them more time in the pre-bonding stage, generally a minimum of 2 weeks is recommended up to about 4 weeks if you want to be on the safer side so I would probably revert to pre-bonding for some time before resuming any dates.

b- early dates are generally better if you do not add things like food and toys etc, also smaller spaces can work well for early dates, often small bathroom/toilet areas with no food hay or toys with lots of petting can keep them calm and allow them to relax around eachother, you can then gradually increase space and time together. I personally wouldn’t add any food ect till they are flopping/loafing in eachothers presence. Also bonding them in the lounge will possibly make things quite difficult so if you can use the bathroom or kitchen that may help. My last pair had about a month of bathroom dates before we progressed to anything further – but how long you spend in a certain area is highly dependent on the pair and there is no one rule for all.

As a last note there is some guidance on how to handle buns that have had a fight, I’m not too familiar with this so hopefully someone else can advise but if they do have a true fight I believe its generally recommended to seperate them out of sight if possible for quite some time for them to cool down and ‘forget’

Oh those dwarf personalities! Such a joy during bonding! 😆

So a couple things jump out to me!

First is that you haven’t done side swaps, from what I read. Even though they know each other well, they have staked their territories in the house, and know each other as neighbors for the most part. I would start swapping who is in which cage every day or two, and continue that during the whole bonding process.

The next thing that jumps out is that you don’t really have neutral space. Neutral space really is important, so if there is a shortage of it in your home, you can create a neutral area by placing a new tarp or shower curtain on the ground, setting up a pen on top of it, and then covering the pen walls with blankets so they can’t see where they are. If you can do this in an area that isn’t right next to their litter boxes that would be ideal, since buns can smell when they are at “home”.  You definitely should not do sessions in an area where they normally roam together. Bathrooms and bathtubs are really popular bonding locations for this reason, as even free-roam buns don’t spend time in the bath tub, and it’s easy to wipe down a bathroom to make it smell less familiar.

I would completely stop letting them interact in each other’s pens (through a barrier is OK, but watch out for nipped noses). Since they’ve had some tussles you might see a bit more nipping through the fence, which can lead to some hard feelings and make things tougher. You might need to add a second barrier to be a buffer zone, or add some small mesh panels as “nose guards”.

Some scuffling might be unavoidable, but your job is to prevent the fights. So at this point, mounting attempts and circling are leading to fights, so you’ll want to stop those immediately. There may be a while where you basically are intervening constantly, but you will then get to a point where they are more calm together. Make sure to wear thick leather gloves that cover your wrists, and/or use a dustpan to separate them. I’ve also worn oven mitts on my hands in a pinch.

More pre-bonding (side swaps) and a neutral area should also help, because they may feel a more strong urge to mount because they are not in fully neutral space, and the other bun smells more interesting to them.

All of that said, the fact that they didn’t fight immediately in a non-neutral space is actually a great sign! I’m sure you’ll get there with some tweaks to the bonding space!

That sounds like a great plan of action! And I agree, it can be so alarming when they suddenly fight. Also keep in mind that Molly had been recovering from her spay before, so her hormonal fluctuations were likely influencing how they interacted with each other.

And yes bunny bonding is so different from with other animals, it can really be surprising to a lot of people!

I tend to do a lot of petting during the early bonding sessions, especially when I am worried about fighting. Whenever the buns approach each other, you can be right there and start petting their heads so they think they are being groomed. This will keep everyone calm (including the humans!) and can help break a cycle of fighting and chasing. Eventually you do need to ease off the petting, but it helps a ton in the early sessions.

That is super normal behavior! And a sign that switching hutches should help! 🙂  It should help with Molly’s anxiety to be able to really get used to Owen’s scent. I know they have been around each other, but being able to smell the litter box up close is…. different. LOL  On that note, I also usually try to time the swap so the litter boxes are at least somewhat dirty.

I like to wait to start face-to-face sessions until they seem unfazed by the side-swap and you see lots of relaxed behaviors again.  It usually takes around a week for them to adjust, but I’d say people do about 2 weeks of side swaps on average. And you are right to worry about him jumping the fence, I’ve never seen a bun jump or climb as high as during bonding when they are trying to “get at” the other rabbit or get out of a strange pen.

That’s great!!