adding a bunny to my household

[Sam Richards]

i currently have 1 bunny, but someday i may want her to have a bunny friend. is there an age that is best to add a rabbit? i’ve had dogs most of my life and they don’t always take a liking to a new puppy. are rabbits the same way?

[BinkyBunny]

Though bunnies do crave companionship, they are usually not fond of
each other at first, and you need to go through a bonding process first. 

It’s like dogs in a way.  One bunny will establish her/himself as the
dominant/alpha, and the other one will have to respect that.  If both are
dominant and one won’t back down, they can seriously hurt each other.

Male/female are usually easier, but it truly comes down to dominant and
submissive and this can happen within the opposite sex and same sex.

You will want to wait  at LEAST a month after surgery.   
It takes time for the hormones that may make them aggressive regarding
territory to die down.

With females, I know some doctors prefer to do surgery no earlier than six
months, while others are fine at around 4 months.   So it depends on
when she has her surgery, and then wait a month or so.

Also, I REALLY recommend having her pick out her companion.   The easiest
bonding session for me was when I took my first bunny, Forrest, to my local
House Rabbit Society.    He speed dated through about 5 bunnies
before he found “the one”.      I remember
the one that I liked, HATED him.   At the time, I wasn’t so rabbit
savvy, and I am so grateful to have had an expert to help me find the right one
for him.   They ended up bonding in just three
days.    That is unusual!   Most of the time it takes
weeks.

You can choose a bunny and bring him/her home to your bunny, but you may not
know what your in for if  either one of them despises the other.

Check out the Bonding section on the site.  Lots of tips on the actual
process.

Oh, and I know plop is not spayed yet, but I forgot to say that the fact she is using her litterbox already is wonderful!!!  She’ll most likely be a very neat bunny then when she is spayed.  (don’t get discouraged if she seems to lose her habits when she becomes sexually mature)

Do you have a rabbit savvy vet yet?  I mean do you know of one who you trust to do the surgery?  Spay surgery on rabbits is not like cats or dogs,  the vet needs to have quite a bit of experience.  If you need help in finding one, just post it as a separate post.

[Author]

Messages