Are they ready to be slowly reintroduced?

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

We’re looking to reintroduce our two bunnies Owen and Molly, but we’ve got 0.0 experience in bonding, and we’d like to go about this carefully. Are they ready for a slow reintroduction?

Background:

Owen and Molly are littermates and dwarf rabbits. We had to separate them on the second day after arriving here, because Owen was mounting her at barely 9 weeks old 🙄 He was neutered at 3 months on December 14th, which is almost 6 weeks ago.

They’re in two separate hutches in the living room and they come out to play in turns. They interact a lot through the bars, it’s very cute to see them groom each other. We’ve seen no signs of rivalry or aggression, and Owen stopped circling her hutch 5 weeks ago.

Molly isn’t spayed yet, but she’s a tiny little thing. On March 14th she’ll be 6 months old. We’ll have to talk to the vet about the right time to get her spayed, because she barely weighs 1 kg.

Technically we could start rebonding next week, because it’s 6 weeks after Owen’s neuter. But how about Molly? She isn’t spayed yet and probably can’t be for a while.

Our plan to rebond them was to let them out in the bedroom for a couple of minutes. They haven’t been there yet, and we wanted to pick a neutral ground, even though they don’t seem to act territorial. Our plan was to distract them with toys and food so they’ve got things to focus on.

Could we start with a first short session next week, or should we wait for a couple of months until she’s had her spay?

[DanaNM]

It would be safest to wait until after her spay, even though I know it’s annoying to wait that long!

The main concern would just be that if her hormones start fluctuating, it could trigger fighting between them, or make their interactions less predictable. It could also be that she hasn’t really hit puberty yet, so things go fine between them, but then some hormones start causing issues and a fight occurs, which would then make it harder to rebond them.

Once she’s all spayed and healed (usually it’s best to wait 3-4 weeks for her hormones to calm down) then you can do some brief re-introductions in neutral territory.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Thank you so much! ^_^ It was a good idea to ask it here, people here sometimes have more experience than a vet in these things. The vet who neutered Owen told us to wait 6 weeks, but she sounded rather hesitant, so I had my doubts.

I just called our own vet and they said that Molly can be spayed in March. We weighed her, and she turned out to be heavier than we’d estimated: 1,2 kg. Maybe she’s just muscular: she looks so tiny but she gets a lot of exercise. At full speed she can leap from floor level onto the back of the sofa.

Onwards to March then! Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have them separated at this time: Molly is making a lot of progress in her confidence. We don’t want her to become timid again if Owen tries to be dominant.

[DanaNM]

Sounds like a good plan! I agree it might benefit Molly (and your bond with her) to have a bit more solo time for her to grow into her confidence. 🙂

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[DanaNM]

Oh, and the amount of time to wait after spay is a bit debated. It takes two weeks just to heal. Some buns seem to need longer for hormones to settle, I think the maximum time I’ve seen recommended is 6 weeks. The rescue I volunteered at usually waited 3 weeks and that seemed to work well (they even thought that having just a tiny bit or hormones left facilitated bonding in some cases). I think it makes sense to start pre-bonding once she’s healed at 2 weeks, and then just see how they are behaving. If there are still tons of hormonal behaviors at 3 weeks, pre-bond for longer. But she seems like she may not really have a lot of strong hormonal behaviors anyway, so she could very well be ready to bond at 3 weeks after spaying.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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