Back to bonding: Gracie & Archie

[skibunny8503]

So after about a week from stopping their bonding because Gracie was on meds for Coccidia; the two of them are back to square one…kind of.
This is our second day (3rd bonding session) now. I think the separation helped Gracie because she was scared at first and put into a new home and now put into a strange pen with Archie. But she’s been coming out of her shell and running around the living room more and more. I even saw her binky a few times.

So far Archie has been very good, only mounted a few times and tonight he hasn’t done it at all. Good boy! But Gracie seems to want nothing to do with him, she seems like the more dominant, demanding grooming and when he wants to be groomed, she’ll just sit there. Archie wants her to accept him so much that he nudges her or hides under her stomach. If she moves then he’ll follow her right away and bow his head. She has licked him once but stopped like she didn’t like the taste of him haha!

I think it’s going to take longer with her to be comfortable since she was an abused rabbit and seems to jump any time we go to pet her (she thinks we might hit her I think).

I read about the banana trick but we didn’t have a banana so we used a piece of lettuce…boy were we wrong to do that with her. She got all defensive and started mounting him! Never saw that coming! She loves her food, so maybe that’s why she was mounting him but she was mounting him earlier and there wasn’t any food there.

They’re still bonding now, we’re about about an hour and 1/2 now. They’ve both been doing very well and he actually did something funny…he was grooming her head and flopped right over and kept grooming her and she was just grinding her teeth.

[BinkyBunny]

Very interesting about the food. For some bunnies, things like food, toys, litterboxes etc can make them get all whacky because they feel they need to “claim” it right away and even fight for it while others will bond by sharing them. So it may be that you have “claimers”. But this session seems to have gone very well!! The fact she was purring definitely is good as associating him with something positive can only be a good thing. Congrats on that.

Sending continued bonding vibes!

OH, Rucy was not a big groomer of Jack most of the time, though she would clean his ear. They seemed to work out an understanding even though it wasn’t alway equal when it came to grooming.

[Beka27]

Another thing you can do is sprinkle a few drops of water on one of their foreheads. It doesn’t have to be actual food or banana necessarily. It sounds like things are going great. Grooming is something that might come later (if at all) and it’s not always a solid indicator of whether or not they are bonded. Read the other body language.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

True about grooming. The first day we brought Daisy home, she groomed the heck out of Ruffles, we thought he would have a bald spot on his head. But now they don’t groom each other at all. They both get down in the “groom me” position but it seems like neither rabbit wants to claim the submissive role.

It sounds like you have made some serious headway though. I bet it won’t be too much longer before they are in love.

[skibunny8503]

Bonding this afternoon and it’s been about 45 min. and everything going well. I fed them together and they did well. She’s still trying to mount him though….maybe she needs to get it out of her system like he did. At least when he mounted her you could still see her lol! She’s bigger than him and she just engulfs him. They’re still putting their heads together to get the other one to groom them. Archie really wants her to groom him but she’s still uninterested. I tried the water suggestion but nothing out of her.
They’ve been doing very well (with the exception of her mounting sometimes)…maybe we’ll go to semi-neutral territory and see if anything different happens. Right now they’re in our living room where they usually run around but with a pen and a fleece blanket on the floor since she was spraying in some spots but I think she’s stopped doing that.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

We made some serious progress by doing the washing machine thing. My husband called it “six flags for bunnies”. He rattled the basket and really scared the heck out of them (I was a little worried, but I knew he wasn’t going to hurt them). Then we immediately took them to a semi-neutral place (upstairs hallway) and they were snuggle bunnies. Ruff would flop on top of Daisy and they were snuggly for a very long time. Since then, they have pretty much stopped nipping and are more interested in each other. So maybe you should do a different type of bonding experience. I dunno, I’m new at this too.

But totally cute about her engulfing him when she mounts him. That sounds funny.

[skibunny8503]

We put them in the spare bedroom with more space to run around in. No mounting at all! They laid together, been cleaning themselves together. She still hasn’t groomed him though, but it’ll probably take time. We put his litter box in and there was no fighting over the litter box. He went in while she was sitting there and she left to let him do his business. Archie was laying in the bookshelf while she was laying right outside it and my husband sneezed really loud and Archie immediately jumped over her like he was protecting Gracie. They were doing so good that we took the gate down and are letting them have free roam. They’ve been following each other around and she went into his cage with him because I was running the vacuum. Maybe by tomorrow they can be in the same cage (or even tonight…we’ll see). All in all I think everything is going pretty well!

[skibunny8503]

We tried doing a stress session on the washing machine for about 10 min. if that and it didn’t work. Gracie lays in the basket but Archie is all over the place, sitting up and even trying to mount her. We put them in the small hallway we have afterwards and he was still trying to mount her some of the time. We’re starting to get a bit frustrated because it seems like we’re not getting anywhere. Sometimes they’ll be ok and then all the sudden one of them starts mounting the other. He puts his head under hers but she just ignores him and hops away. It seems like they’re really good but I don’t want to put them together if they’re mounting each other (esp. face mounting). We keep trying different scenarios but each time is the same. Should I try the wearing them down approach and leave them in a small pen all day while I watch tv or something? I’m running out of ideas.

[Beka27]

There’s nothing wrong with mounting tho. It’s a natural behavior. My bonded pair does it all the time 9 months post-bonding. The only concern, like you said, is if they mount the wrong way or the bun being mounted gets aggressive and starts biting in rtaliation. Allow the mounting for a short time 20-30 seconds and then push the mounter off.

[skibunny8503]

That’s what we usually do is try to let them mount for a little and then eventually pull them off.  Archie has been pretty good in mounting the right way but Gracie tends to try to face mount him.  I’ve been pushing her off of him and telling her no.  It’s kind of hard to tell her no because she doesn’t get it most of the time…with Archie you can say no or clap your hands and it’ll work but not so much on her.  I have them in the hallway right now and they’ve been in there for about 3 hours now.  They’ve been pretty good, even using the litter together and eating the same hay!  I went to put food in with them earlier and that’s when she started mounting him.  I think she smelled the food but as soon as I turned her around to see the food they ate together and didn’t bug each other.  We’ll see how they do at the end of the day.  *crosses fingers*

[BinkyBunny]

All and all it sounds like this round of bonding is going very well. I have occasionally come across a bonding duo that actually gets worse with stress type bonding. That they turn on each other instead of comfort each other. Though this isn’t he norm, it is something to keep in mind if you find that they become a bit more aggressive during stress bonding

It sounds like with a little more room and some “calm” time, this may be the key to their bonding.

Bonding is one of the most difficult things to advise on because literally each bonding is unique and it’s a whole tweaking process with each duo, trio etc.

Keep us updated.

Sending bonding vibes!

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