How long can they last in neutral? Have you tried 24hrs in neutral?

Honestly if they are only now 6mo, they were both spayed quite young, so even if physically there may not be a source of those pesky hormones (assuming successful spays; when they’re done early, sometimes things are missed, as I’ve been told) they are young so it may just take a bit for them to mellow out. Typically females aren’t spayed until 6mo, and so bonding doesn’t really start until the rabbits are 7mo.

Thank you for their history, super helpful! Unfortunately most vets don’t know much about bonding, even the great vets! And yes there is tons of conflicting info on the internet!

I think you probably just moved a bit too fast with the bonding process initially, and possibly with the transition from neutral to their final home. Did you have a “semi-neutral” area as an intermediate between the neutral and final home?  The ideal progression is 48 hours in neutral (with lots positive behaviors and no aggression), then 48 hrs in semi-neutral, then 48 hrs of supervision in the final home. If you don’t have a semi-neutral spot available (I often don’t), then I like to do extra time in neutral, but you don’t necessarily have supervise that whole time. So if they are doing great after 48 in neutral, leave them there for an extra couple days to really let them “cement”. Then when you move them to a new spot supervise for 48 hrs again. Since the have had a couple scuffles, I’d err on the side of giving them extra time in bonding process before you take each step. So say you are looking at them and they seem bonded, I’d add an extra 24-48 hours in whatever that step is if possible just to be extra sure.

If you’ve done most of your bonding in a smaller space, it can also be important not to increase the size of the space too quickly. I usually bond in a larger space so I haven’t had issues with this, but some buns benefit from having their space restricted a bit once they move to non-neutral territory.

Last tip, when you move them to their final home, try to clean and rearrange everything so it’s as unfamiliar as possible to the buns. I like to get a new litter box, rearrange the pen set up so it’s a mirror image to what it was before, new toys, and wipe everything down with vinegar solution. Sometimes I’ve even put baking soda on the carpets and then vacuumed in an attempt to make everything smell as neutral as possible. This is another benefit of having a slightly restricted space when you move them in, because if htey are free roam you wont be able to neutralize the entire room, but you can make their pen area seem more “new”.

That sounds like a good plan! And yes I think that since your space is hard to neutralize that could have contributed to the fights last time.

The nice thing is that once they are doing great in the neutral space for 48 hrs, you don’t have to supervise them constantly there, so you could set them up in the kitchen, supervise over the weekend, then just keep them in the kitchen till the next weekend when you are ready to supervise 24/7 again. Depending on your layout another way to introduce them to their forever home is to gradually expand how much room they have from the kitchen until they are in their forever home area. I used to be in a studio apartment and did something similar with mine.

Oh no, I’m so sorry. 🙁  That’s really tough. I think your suspicion is correct, that the move was just a bit too much since they were a new bond.

I had a bond break on me in very similar fashion. They were seemingly bonded for 5 months, then out of nowhere there was a terrible fight and one bun needed stitches. I was in a somewhat similar situation, I lived in a studio apartment with no space to truly separate them, and no space to have 2 single buns. I opted to return the new bun to the rescue for that reason.

Reading back through your whole thread and remembering that these two have a history of fighting when they appeared bonded, I don’t think I would personally attempt to re-bond these two. You can try… but given their history I would have a hard time trusting them. Rabbits can hold grudges, so it could be that their history is just too much to overcome. Female-female pairs are also tricky and tend to have the highest rates of bonds breaking (source: https://rabbitwelfare.co.uk/rabbit-care-advice/further-reading/owner-rescue-centre-and-veterinary-professional-experiences-of-rabbit-bonding/).

You can certainly keep them both as neighbors though, but should not give them exercise time at the same time. Usually a good set-up for this is side-by-side condos (building up is a great idea, I’ve done this before when I had limited space as well), and then give one bun exercise in the morning, and one in the evening (or one free-roam during the day, and one at night).

You could try a side-by-side set-up for now and see how workable it is. If you feel you aren’t able to give either rabbit a good living situation then you could consider rehoming, but you don’t necessarily need to make that decision immediately.

Again I’m so sorry you are going through this, it’s so heartbreaking!