Bonding a free roam rabbit-need help!

[lovethebuns]

Thank you taking the time to read my lengthy post! I appreciate any advice. If anyone knows of a bonding expert I can connect to ( I am in SF Bay Area), please let me know.

My biggest concerns are: male biting female, (this gives me a lot of anxiety), female being too forward and “fast” (dont know how else to describe it lol) toward male to start a relationship,  and how to maintain bond when male was free roam.

Spay/Neuter
Are your bunnies spayed/neutered? Yes
If so, for how long (for each)?

 female- about 2-3 months, male-about 6 months

Housing
Please describe your bunnies’ current housing set-up (living together, as neighbors, etc.).

Currently my buns are in xpens living next to each other with about 6-8 inches of space in between. This is in my bedroom.

Bonding background
Did you allow the bunnies to “settle-in”?  I have given my new bun (female) some time to check out the house with free roam time and me sitting in her pen to pet her or brush her. This has been going on for about 4 weeks, however I am still trying to gain her trust and comfort level with exploring the house. We have had an incident where the resident (male) rabbit jumped over to the bedroom where she was and I slipped on something. This caused surprise and fear for all of us and she has been a little more skiddish since.  She has gets very territorial when I move her droppings to her litter box when I come into the xpen, causing her to lounge and growl at me.

How would you describe your bunnies reactions towards each other (answer for each bunny): shy, scared, curious, calm, aggressive, excited, affectionate, etc.?

Background info on buns first:

Male is 1.5 years old, who has found at a park with another bunny. This was a very traumatic experience for him and he even screamed when the rescue volunteers tried to catch him. It took sometime for him to “get out of his shell”, but foster parent supported him a great deal with this. At adoption and bringing him home, he was scared for a few minutes but immediately connected with me. He was free roam for 3 months until I adopted the female rabbit.He likes his space and prefers to relax and be pet.

Female is 9 months old and was surrendered by a previous owner who had to give her up due to serious life circumstances. She is very curious, bold, and expressive. She absolutely loves to chew on everything and will make it known when she is not happy with something (thumping). She is pooping and peeing all over  the house and expen to mark her territory.

Behaviors:

Chinning wars in the my apartment all day everyday. 🙂

Behavior has varied, but most of the time, my male is very defensive and territorial toward my female. I think this is due to  having been free roam rabbit of the entire house and now  sharing the space and play time. He usually approaches the female during dates by trying to bite her. The last date he growled at her, “hit”her with his paws and tried to bite her butt a couple of times. When she approaches his xpen while she free roams, he will sniff and try to bite. He will also lower his head town to be groomed and does not give in to her request. during the last date however, the male was eating hay with the female, sometimes near her or putting his back in front of her.

Female is excited and affectionate toward the male. She will run to him and always puts her head down for grooming, but he does not respond or will try to bite. She is always trying to sniff him through the xpen and will mirror his behaviors. She has also aggressively groomed him and will mount him several times during dates. At this time, the male is incredibly relaxed due to me petting and will then turn around to bite my female’s butt when he wakes up and realizes what is happening. 

Have you done any “pre-bonding” (cage or litter box swaps, etc.)?If so, for how long?

Yes. I do litter box and food bowl swapping every day. I also try to switch blankets every other day . Now trying to swap the bunnies instead of their belongings every day or every other day.  I have also tried to feed them hay with one bun outside in front of the other buns xpen. Here, I also pet the male bun (whether I am inside the xpen or outside during his free roam time) so that they can be nose to nose.
Have you started sessions yet?

Yes. Sessions are in the bathroom. Usually consists of petting nose to nose (the end up this way) or side by side. 

How long have you been working on bonding your bunnies?

One month

How frequently do you have bonding sessions, and how long are they?

I started with dates every couple days then stopped for about a week and a half.

Have you tried any stressing techniques?

No, trying to avoid that, but considering doing drives as they will have to drive together to the vet anyway when they are bonded.

. . . 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]

Thank you for the detailed info!

So none of this sounds too out of the ordinary! My main recommendation is just to keep at it and work to prevent fighting in the bonding sessions, but a few other things jump out to me. First, it sounds like there wasn’t too much settling in time for the new bun before starting bonding stuff? She also sounds pretty bold and confident, so that may not be as much of an issue. It also sounds like you haven’t done very many days of full bunny side-swaps. I think in cases where one bun is free-roam it is especially important to do the full side swaps for at least a few weeks, or until you see them calm down around each other. In my experience just swapping belongings doesn’t have the same effect really. So I would start those up and maybe even pause bonding sessions for a week or so and then resume.

Lastly, when they go nose to nose and request grooms, try petting both of them and swap scents to make them think they are being groomed. Don’t be afraid to have your hands on them a lot during this phase, because your goal is to help them be calm around each other and build some trust. It does sound like maybe you are already doing some petting?

I do think some stressing could also help. I don’t like to do a ton of stressing, but a car ride together can really work wonders. I like to use a large plastic bin, have someone else drive, and I sit in the back with gloves on and supervise the buns.

Other things to try are to experiment with the space (larger or smaller, new location, etc.). You also could try removing the hay from the bonding area in case the food is making things more tense (I don’t have litter trays, toys, or anything really in the bonding area in the beginning).

. . . 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.  

[lovethebuns]

Hi DanaNM,

Your brown rabbit looks like my boy!

Sorry for the late response, I just noticed this reply! Thank you so, so much for the support! I really appreciate it. I started the swapping since last week and still the same in terms of my male biting. To be fair, I also changed their free roam time. Male is out late evening throughout the night, and female is out morning until dinner time. They spend maybe 2-3 hours in the expen at the same time. This has helped my male tremendously with his frustration to stay in the expen for long periods of time (during the day while female is out, he naps and eats just fine), however I worry that they do not see one another enough.

I am petting during the dates, however I am constantly in this nervous state as I really don’t know how to tell a bite from a nip. As soon as he starts to move toward her I immediately pet him. He does growl still and has tried to bite/nip but didn’t seem are aggressive during today’s date. Today’s date was petting side by side. they were both on scared and breathing fast, more the girl, but I tried very hard to calm them down.

I tried a car ride. The girl did not want to go in. She put her head in between my legs almost as if telling me “please mom, don’t put me in there.” I tried to calm her down and make sure male did not bite her. After a few minutes of monitoring, they did fine. No bites, no scuffs. They both kept their distance, but the girl  went to him for comfort.

My biggest problem is the fear of biting. I know the boy has tried to bite, growled, and smacked her in the face, but I also think my own anxiety and constant blocking or petting( to the point where they hardly interact independently) is adding to the bad behaviors. I feel like I have been stuck in the same bonding phase, and I don’t know how to move forward. I don’t know if it is okay to stop my involvement. I really don’t want the girl to get hurt.

Thanks for hearing all the doubt and worry in this post. This has been a stressful 5 weeks.

[DanaNM]

I think one of the hardest things when you are new to bonding is knowing when to intervene, so you are not alone in that!

So first of all, take several deep breaths! Your own nervousness can in fact make the buns more nervous, so it will help if you approach the dates in a relaxed way, even if you are faking it. If you need to have a glass of wine before the date, then go for it. 😉

Also know that some nipping and biting is normal, and while it’s important to prevent fights, a scuffle is not going to ruin the process (some would argue it’s actually part of the process). There are a lot of different strategies and opinions on how much fur pulling etc. to allow. I personally don’t like to allow much, because I know that some will inevitably happen even though I’m trying to prevent it.  I also know that when you are new to bonding, there seems to be a risk of things escalating to fights more quickly because you are less familiar with the warning signs, so erring on the side of too much intervention at first is OK.

The bun’s ears and tail will give you some clues on when to get involved. Ears forward and tail down is friendly/curious/interested and means the bun is approaching peacefully. They may request grooms, attempt to groom, or just rest near the other bun. Ears back and tail up is aggressive/defensive and mean you should be ready to pet or intervene in some way.

If they aren’t always responding well to petting, a loud noise or a spritz of water can help diffuse tensions (but I’ve never had luck with water breaking up actual fighting).

Growling and the “bop” on the face is all OK and normal. Here’s a quick cheat sheet of what I tend to allow and what I tend to stop:

Allowed:

-mounting (except in case of face mounting, spin mounting bun around so they are in “correct” postion)

-grunting

-lunging

-light nipping (especially if nips are around the bum area, I don’t even mind a little fur pulling if it’s from the bum. nipping around the face I am less tolerant of)

-very brief chases (1-3 seconds), as long as you are in a large enough space. if space is small then no chasing.

-“slow” chasing with ears forward, this is a mounting attempt

Not allowed:

-circling

-boxing

-fast chasing for more than 3 seconds

-hard biting and fur pulling

-fighting (bunny tornado, fur flying, kicking, etc.)

It’s great they did not fight in the car! If you can, I think I would repeat a 10-15 min car ride each day for a few days in a row. Try not to pet them in the car and let them seek each other out for comfort. You can just do that as your bonding sessions on those days. Then after a few days of that, do a car ride first, then go straight into the bonding area and see how they do.

One final thought, be sure you are ending sessions on a positive or at least calm note. So if you find that things tend to go OK at first and then lead to fighting, then you might be pushing sessions too long too fast. I find it helps to set short time goals so I don’t push things too far and end up with a scuffle.

Even if they are just ignoring each other on opposite sides of the pen, that is actually fine and good, because it means they are choosing NOT to fight with each other.

I’d love to see pics of your buns! The brown bun in my avatar is one of my Rainbow Bridge bunnies, Bunston. 🙂 He was THE hardest bunny to bond with Bertha (also a bridge bun, the other one in the picture). They seemingly hated each other at first (and were also my first pair so I had no clue what I was doing), but after 3 months of sessions they “suddenly” decided they were MADLY in love. Sometimes it seems like the toughest bonds end up being the closest once they get there, so don’t lose hope! 🙂

. . . 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.  

[lovethebuns]

This is so, so helpful!  Thank you so  much! I am going to consider your ideas for the next few days, always good to keep at it and try new things. Yesterday they had a marathon. I took them to the rescue about 1 hour away and they did fine in the car ride, at the rescue, and on the way back home. My boy even licked my girl twice during the rides! It was incredible…but then we continued the date and my boy was not happy. He did some light nips at first, however started to growl and “bite”. He does this thing where he goes in fast, growls, and bites. Today, he instantly did that but I kept stoping it. His ears don’t go into a 45 degree angle and tail isn’t up like you described, but it still looks aggressive to me. I think my biggest barrier  is being okay with the potential nipping. Oh jeez. I did feel more confident and was giving him a whole lot of pets and coerced grooming. He seemed to enjoy that and had several mini naps next to my girl. He also stopped himself twice from getting close to her butt or nipping/bitting. My hand was on her to be fair, but I think he is got the message (?)

 

I am going to try the car rides and maybe even have one date somewhere outside of my apartment. Maybe that will give me something different too. Like you said, calming my nerves and relaxing is key. I need to have more faith in the process 🙂

Thanks for sharing your sharing your story. It feels like an eternity bonding these kids, but hearing your story has given me more hope!

[DanaNM]

You’re welcome! Sounds like you have a good plan!

The car-ride session sounds really positive! I think with your two I would work really hard to end things while they are going well. So doing a bit shorter sessions may be the way to go. 🙂

. . . 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]

And yes that 45 degree ear angle is tricky! That usually means the bun is kind of on the fence, and could go either way!

. . . 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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