Bonding a 8 week old male with a spayed 2 year old female

[Sarah]

Hello everyone! This is my first post to this site! I have been looking on this site and many others but I thought it would be beneficial to just post my own topic questions. Let me give you guys some background info. 

I got my rabbit Penelope about a year ago. When I got her she was already a year old. She is a very sassy bun, still lunges at my legs when I am walking and still nips at me from time to time. All in all she is a good bun though. Is potty trained, and listens to me when I tell her she is doing something bad! She has a three story condo I built for her and she also has free run of my bedroom. I got her spayed about 5 months ago. 

About 3 months ago, I adopted another female rabbit. I tried bonding Penelope with her for about 2 months and it always ended in fights. I had to put her up for adoption to an awesome family that had two kids that were so excited to adopt her, it was the right thing to do. 

I got my male bunny on Saturday. He is 8 weeks old and is in the same room as Penelope but in a different cage and on a table so she cannot even get close to reaching him. Only time she sees him is when she is on the 2nd level of her cage. I have been hearing mixed things about bonding when he is young or waiting until I neuter him. I recently came across some information from Cottontrailsrescue.org. This is a direct quote from them “As a last resort in such situations, it may be worth trying to pair up “difficult” rabbits with a baby rabbit of the opposite sex, but close supervision is essential as a baby would be less able to defend itself if it came under attack. In most cases, the baby does not seem to be perceived as a territorial threat and therefore may be accepted by a domineering adult who otherwise would not allow any adult rabbit on its “patch”. When the baby comes of age, the pair should be well bonded so no major problems should be encountered apart from minor behaviour adjustments. Neutering should be carried out as soon as possible to prevent the problems mentioned earlier.”

Now my questions to you guys is

1. has anyone had any luck bonding a male bunny 8 weeks old with an adult spayed female?

2. I know I need to get him neutered once his testicles drop, but what do you guys recommend and if you have an opinion can you try to find some evidence or credible sites to back up your opinion?

[Tessie]

I know this isn’t what you want to hear but I think most of us here are going to recommend you wait until both are fixed and hormones have died down.

I’m assuming from the article you’ve quoted that you think your girl bunny is ‘difficult’?
Is that just based on your previous attempt, because it seems a bit quick to assume she’s just difficult, haha!

Bonds with babies and adults tend not to work because of hormones, and baby bun’s hyper-activeness. If they do bond they often break up again when puberty hits the young one, and then that in turn makes it harder to re-bond if they have negative experiences together. Hormones get all in the way!

In terms of experience, yes! I tried twice to bond my older, spayed girl to baby boys. It was incredibly stressful, they fought all the time, and my girl bun lost a bit of her ear! It didn’t work out until the second time around, when my boy was fixed.

[Little Lion Head]

I second everything Tessie said–well put.

You’ll likely irritate and stress out your girl if you try bonding the baby to her before he’s worked his hormones out. Good luck!

[Sarah]

Thanks guys! My crazy excitement of getting him and wanting to put them together has gone away. I want to do it right this time so like you guys have stated, I am going to wait until he is neutered. Just wanted to see if anyone has had any success with bonding a baby and an adult before.

[Author]

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