Bonding

[Taysmama13]

Hello All,

I apologize in advance for this potentially long winded post. I also feel it necessary to express that I am an extreme noob when it comes to rabbits. I take full 100 % responsibility for my lack of knowledge and possible bad choices. I hope any of you reading this understand that I am coming here for advice because I have read many (too many to have a clear definitive understanding) web pages regarding rabbits, but that doesn’t mean I know anything. Ok, so here goes…

My daughter received the most adorable albino lion head rabbit as a surprise Christmas gift from her aunt. I knew nothing about it until that morning. My daughter named him Kittei. I have no history on him because he was found outside and sent from home to home to home until he made it to my home.  I immediately made him a vet appointment. She is clearly not a rabbit vet, as we argued over many things. Our first issue was the way she grabbed him which was by the ears. Whether you can or can’t, I wouldn’t want a giant lifting me by the ears, so don’t do it to an animal that can’t tell you if it hurts or not. Second was his age. She says no more than 3 months old, however, he was at the home before mine for 3 months and at least 3 months at the home before that. Age is not a big deal. We got him neutered the next day. She told me to wait 10 days and get him a friend to prevent depression. Whether correct or not, it sounded reasonable at the time because bunnies are social animals.

10 days later we adopt DeeOhGee (D.O.G for short) He is a 6 pound chunky brown 2 year old. He was neutered earlier that week by the Humane society. They signed off on his good health (only to find out 2 days later and 200 dollars later that he was running a fever and had a serious bladder infection the whole time)

We brought him home and within minutes Kittei and D.O.G were humping and plucking each others hair out. I read every web page possible and realized I was VERY wrong for putting them together right away. Minus a lot of (and I mean OH MY GOD A LOT!) of humping, it was obvious D.O.G was the leader and  Kittei bowed down and took it (about 20 seconds each time before I stopped it) This happened on and off for the first 4 days. On day 5 I left them in the care of someone whom I thought would give 100 % attention while I was gone for an hour. ( I WAS SO WRONG!!!!) When I returned home, they were both caged and the sitter apologized for the huge fight they got into. D.O.G cornered Kittei in a box and it turned into them both laying on their sides kicking, screaming and biting each other. Fur everywhere! Kittei has a non-bleeding wound on his now hairless paw, D.O.G had 2 bleeding puncture wounds to his neck and cheek.

Now we are on day 10 and they lunge at each other through the gate and cages, bite each others lips and thump and growl at each other except when they are in my bathtub. They groom, lay next to each other, take turns humping each other, eat together and act like the best of friends! I’m so confused. What can I do to get them to be friends out of the tub? After an hour in the tub last night I moved them to my living room and let them sit beside each other with me on the floor next to them, reassuring them and petting them. They were great for about 10 minutes. Kittei tried to hump D.O.G and they started circling tucking their heads under each others bellies and trying to bite. I separated them and got bit in the process. I wave my white flag… Any advice would be appreciated, and again please understand that I own my ignorance when it comes to bunnies. Thanks

Taysmama13

[Sarita]

Welcome – I approved your post but and edited it – here is our rule for Fonts and Colors:

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[RabbitPam]

Hi, Taysmama13, I am so sorry you are having such a hard time with your new bunnies. First, I don’t see my note to you, but we changed your typeface settings because we have problems with legibility, so we just ask that you stick to black type on white background whenever possible. Thanks for that. We approved your post after changing it.

OK, if your second bunny has only been neutered for a week, you must separate them IMMEDIATELY. He has active hormones for a month after the neuter, so he is technically able to impregnate her still if she has reached hormonal age, and she probably has (it’s always much earlier than people think. By the time a female acts hormonal, is a few weeks too late.) So, it would be the best thing to get them both set up in separate habitats now, and let them calm down away from each other for the next 3 weeks at least.

I think you need a much better, new vet asap. This vet is obviously treating these injuries now, but look on the Q&A section of our Forum for the posts thumbtacked to the top for one that says how to find a vet. You want a vet who knows “exotics” (they list that way in the phone book) and you can go to the link to the House Rabbit Society’s webpage that looks up vets by zip code to find those in your area. I would get them both to a second opinion asap to examine their injuries, age, overall health, etc.
If you find that your second little guy is in bad health, you can discuss it with the adoption center to see if you feel the wise choice is to return him, or if you want to nurse him back to good health. You may also want to stay in touch with them in case (and I hope not) Kittei got pregnant, because you will need help adopting out a new litter to homes. Also, the vet they use may be much more experienced, so ask who that is and where they are located.

The bonding fights will definitely continue for a month, so I can’t emphasize enough the importance of separating them at this stage. You can have hope, really! It may be that she is not pregnant, you get a better vet, they calm down hormonally, and you start over slowly while they continue to get used to each other being in the house. Get each one a stuffed toy to sleep with in each cage. The swap them so they can become used to the other’s smell, and take out any residual aggression on the toy as well.

Basically, I’m recommending that you either set up a home space for each bunny, change vets, and let things calm down and heal for a month or more. If you invest in an xpen, then one can live in what you have so far and the other can be kept in the xpen for now. (Clamp a sheet over the top to prevent jumping out.) This way when they do start to bond, you will have the xpen ready for them to share, and not have invested in 2 cages, unless you already own them.

I am so sorry you received that bad advice. Your vet with the ear lifting sounds, well, too inexperienced to continue to use. An easy interview question if you call vets looking for a new one is “do I fast my bunny before a procedure?” It’s a test question because the answer is Never. Feed a bunny up until any procedure as you normally would. This would come up when you are ready to neuter your girl. If she is pregnant, call a very experienced Exotics vet for rabbits to see if she wants to see her right away. Depending on your own views on the subject (it’s sensitive) you may decide to abort a litter and have her spayed then and there. Otherwise, you can get vet help with whatever happens next.

I hope I’ve been of some help. The members here are very experienced, and will be supportive as you sort this out.

[Taysmama13]

First of all I apologize for the font and color of my first post. It’s completely understandable and won’t happen again! 

Kittei is not pregnant….he’s a neutered little boy and DOG is a neutered young man. I will be procuring a Vet that knows rabbits, another disagreement my vet and I had was about feeding Kittei before his neuter. She said no, I said yes. (I read that on the House Rabbit page!) She left the room and when she came back she said I was right and to continue his normal diet. She didn’t apologize for being rude and insistent that Kittei would throw up due to the anesthetic. It’s clear she left the room to look it up on the computer and it’s great she did because now she knows if any other bunny owners go to her, but what if I didn’t know that?!

Anyhoo, now that you know they are both boys and fixed, does your advice change? They get along perfectly in the bathtub but that is not ideally where I can house them permanently.

Also, DOG is 6 pounds..(a chubby bunny) and I find that he wants food constantly. He clangs his dish when it’s empty, immediately eats the 1/4 cup of timothy pellets in the afternoon and munches his hay everywhere, he’ll take mouthfuls with him when he hops around the house. He drops everything and runs back to his cage as soon as I open the greens container. (where I mix up all their yummy green veggies) He gets his veggies twice, sometimes 3 times a day but it doesn’t seem to fill him because when given the opportunity he will eat Kittei’s salad too, and his pellets. Any advice on how to stop a piggy bunny from being all dramatic over his food?

Thank you again for your help!

Taysmama13

[RabbitPam]

Now I should apologize since you clearly used the pronoun “him” but I saw daughter and somehow read it as ‘her’. (Smacking forehead.) I feel like the online version of the bad vet! *blushes*

That does help eliminate the pregnancy risk LOL. The fact that it takes a month for the hormones to calm down actually remains. What it sometimes does is seem to have a surging of final hormones, manifesting in more aggression, until they are calmed down for good. So until they are both past the one month mark, it can be dicey with aggression. After that, they both would not have that as a factor, though it doesn’t eliminate aggression in some bunny’s basic nature totally.

While 6 lbs is not necessarily overweight, it depends on the size and whether DOG has muscle weight or is running to fat. You want to let him have as much hay as he wants, and when there isn’t anything else, eating that is a healthy option for him. Do not give him more pellets just because he begs – they are fattening in quantity. Lettuce is also not fattening, providing hydration for him, but the fruits or carrots are. If he’s dragging the hay around the house, well, maybe you can get him a little hidey house (or cut a cardboard box upside down with a small door opening that is all his own) and stuff it with hay. He might enjoy staying in there to eat hay privately. A small Shop Vac is good for getting up hay around the house – they don’t clog up as much as other vacuum cleaners.

Check out the Diet forum for more tips from members on bunnies that needed to lose weight, or have piggy behavior. I would just mention that we don’t add comments to any post older than 3-4 weeks, because we don’t lock them but we consider them Read-Only at that point.

And you, the internet, and now that vet are right – bunnies cannot throw up. I just hope that the vet doesn’t harm any rabbits since a “little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. I had one cat/dog vet do me the courtesy of turning me away when he felt he wasn’t able to work with my bunny. I was grateful for his honesty.

Bathtub bonding sessions, or baskets on the dryer sessions, are gradual progress in the right direction. Taking it all slowly is necessary when there’s been fighting. For the dryer description, see Beka’s bonding posts about her first work with Meadow and Max. Dear Max crossed the bridge last year, but her technique was amazingly successful. It is motion that simulates car rides, which, when put together in a carrier and taken for a ride, also is effective in making progress in bonding. I would definitely read up on some of the older posts for great tips and lessons in addition to the Info. section I know you’re read.

[Author]

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