Baby bunnies together or not?

[Simmo]

Ok so i have 2 male brother bunnies living together currently and have been together since birth, right now as of tomorrow they are at 11 weeks old, both unfixed and have found a vet that will neuter them soon as their testes drop, getting checked next friday if dropped yet. They are so great together and havent witnessed any bullying or fighting. Now i am getting mixed comments about if they should be seperated at 12 weeks or not? I dont know what to do because i dont want to unbond them and be harder to bond again after surgery (hopefully the surgery can happen very soon) they both live in a large 2.5metre x 2.5metre playpen. Should i divide the playpen with a fence down the middle now? Or wait to see next week if they can be fixed already? please help i need some pointers.

[Bam]

I’d say divided them no later than at 12 weeks. The fence in the middle need to be double with an inch or so disance between them, or very fine grid to prevent biting through the grids. This will not make a post-neuter bond harder. What will make a post bond (which is a true bond) harder is if they get into a fight before being neutered. Fighting can prevent a true bond from ever forming.

Rabbits can go from sweet and cuddly to a ball of fury in an instant. We cant know if your boys will mature now or much later, but I personally wouldnt risk fighting. Bonding two males can be difficult even when the buns are neutered. A situation like yours has the best chances of working out, provided the buns are separated before any fighting occurs.

Once your buns are neutered, you should wait one months before you start bun-to-bun bonding. Meanwhile you can do pre-bonding, meaning you switch their litterboxes between them, then switch their resp areas between them.

I had two neutered males that I was unable to bond despite serious efforts (they wanted to kill each other). It was both sad and very impractical.

[Simmo]

Ok, thankyou for the info, when you say meanwhile do the prebonding of swapping litterboxes and areas etc, do you mean keep doing that now while they are seperated and prior to the neuturing and also straight after neutering?

[Simmo]

Thankyou for the info, when you say meanwhile do the prebonding of swapping litterboxes and the areas etc do you mean start doing that now when i seperate them and keep doing it up until the neuturing and straight agter neuturing also?

[Bam]

Well, yes you could start now with prebonding, but you might still see a difference in their reactions post neuter-surgery. Some rabbits get a post-neuter craze phase for a couple of weeks just after their spay/neuter. During this phase (which is normal and will end by itself), the bun can get aggressive, territorial and even hyper-sexual. This is the primary reason why you should wait until a month has passed before you put two rabbits together for bonding sessions. The surgical incisions will heal a lot quicker than that.

We have a bonding section where you’re very welcome to post about your bonding adventure! Moderator Dana has lots of bunny bonding experience. She helped me a lot when I recently bonded my two buns, a bond that seems to have turned out very well.

 

[Simmo]

So an update i just moved them into an even bigger playpen and within 5 minutes the more dominant one started latching onto the back of the smaller boy and trying to hump him, smaller one sat there and took it all but i guess the move in enclosure upset the balance so i have no setup a double fence down the middle with about a 200mm gap between them. I guess thats it now? Just wait for the surgeries? Feel so sad seeing them act the way they do as soon as i seperated them.

[Wick & Fable]

Yes, keep them separated from now on. And to clarify, prebonding means no access to each other at all– just swaps, so having them together in an enclosure is not prebonding.

You need to wait for the surgeries and at least 1mo post to ensure recovery and hormone regulation.

Them being separated is much better than the stress and pain of them injuring each other and being in each other’s territory with the animal instinct to defend. They likely aren’t going to be sad at all considering they’re now hormonal.

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.

[Bam]

If humping has begun, its def time to separate them now. I get that it feels sad to separate them, but its only for a short time. If they can be truly bonded its definitely worth it.

[LBJ10]

Yes, humping means it is time to separate. Humping can quickly escalate into fighting, so it’s best to do it now to avoid any incidents. As the others have said, it will be for the best in the long run.

[Author]

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