Posted By DanaNM on 12/05/2017 5:34 PM

Well, you won’t be able to bond them until the new bunny is spayed/neutered, so for now I wouldn’t have her near them. Focus on making she she is healthy as Wick says, as she is so so young….

Once she hits puberty she could cause issues with your bonded pair, so I think it would be best to have her away from then until she is spayed/neutered (I am guessing she is too young to sex accurately), and hormones settled.

After that you can resume pre-bonding and all that… but that won’t be for several months given how young she is.

We had no intentions of bonding them just yet, but we were told numerous times in other groups that babies tend to attach themselves to other rabbits due to social bonding that they gain with their siblings and adults. With no other rabbits around, and her being so young, we were afraid that the lack of proper social interaction would cause issues later in the future. For now, we do have them separated and they aren’t together at all, pre-bonding as you say. However, if this is liable to cause problems, we’re most definitely interested in hearing what needs to be done. 

As for her hitting puberty and causing issues with the bond, I’ve heard this can be a common problem with trying to do trios. I fully understand this, and I believe my girlfriend understands this as well. We’ve been discussing how to handle this situation since we’ve read stories of both success and failure when it comes to pre-bonding young rabbits who haven’t hit the hormonal stage yet. 

Posted By Wick on 12/05/2017 5:16 PM 
I can’t say anything about the bonding, but have you taken the bun to the vet to check health? Being sooo young, I imagine there may be specific dietary supplements you need to consider since he/she is not properly weaned.

From everything I’ve read on line, if they’re not properly weaned and not already eating physical food, they can be fed replacement kitten’s milk or goats milk. However, if they’re already eating physical food, then unlimited young alfalfa pellets should be fed, with a mix of unlimited alfalfa hay and timothy grass. No veggies or treats until they’re around the 5-6 month age due to high risk of enterotoxemia. Normally, they’re already feeding on anything the dam is, plus the milk that is available, but in our case, the baby was a special circumstance. If this is assumed wrong based on people’s experience here, please let me know. We’re taking in all information and using it in our research. 

As for taking her to a vet, we haven’t yet. I plan on doing so this weekend or following week when I’m not at work. She seems to be healthy for the most part. Zoomies, eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating like no tomorrow. All signs of a healthy bun. Better safe than sorry though!

Posted By Wick on 12/06/2017 11:02 AM

Yes, always better safe than sorry. It’s great to hear you’re doing the research, as well as prioritizing seeing a rabbit vet soon to ensure proper care.

In terms of social bonding when young, if you’re present and able to interact, this will do well to keep him/her stimulated. I say this from my experience with Wick. Wick is a runt so he was “shunned” by his siblings and mother. When going to choose him, all his siblings were around the mother interacting, and he was on his lonesome somewhere else in the enclosure. This also kind of explains why he’s not very rabbit like in behavior (i.e. no chewing or real use of his claws). Sure enough, when he met his current parents (me), he loved the attention and is extremely closely bonded to me. Wick has never been introduced to other rabbits, so unsure how this plays out when going to introduce rabbit relationships, but from Wick’s story, I can attest that your rabbit can still thrive without immediate rabbit socialization when young.

Runts and peanuts break my heart. It seems like you lukced out with his behavior though! Similarly enough, it may be that she’s so young, but Nebby hasn’t showed the least bit of interest in cords or wires. My girlfriend thinks it’s because her mouth is too small to interact with the cords or such, or maybe she just isn’t that type of bun. Nebby isn’t fooling me though.  I know it’s only a matter of time before those bunny instincts kick in, or she picks up the habit from her fellow bun family. I am glad to hear that if we interact with her daily, that she’ll more than likely be alright. 

And thank you! Getting rabbits was a new experience I never thought would happen to me, so I was adamant on researching since it’s not a pet that you typically see in households and a lot of misinformation could be spread easily. It’s been quite rewarding, however, seeing our buns thrive, even if they don’t binky as much as you see online (minus Nebby. We can’t get her to sit still for more than a few minutes). 

I know New Zealands are typically expected to get up to 10 pounds in weight/size (I’m actually really excited about this). Is there a picture or page that lists typical bunny weights by age somewhere?