I should explain the story a little bit first. My black Mini Rex bunny is named Pixie Marie; I got her June 26th of the year 2010 after I graduated from high school that May. The Pet Forum in which I bought her from said that she was already three months old, and since I wanted to give her a special day to celebrate I winged it and said that she was born on April 22nd, I’m actually not sure of the exact date; but this is what we have decided to go with. So for a year she has been my only rabbit; she’s quite the neat and picky rabbit, I might add. She loves her cage to be set up a specific way, and she loves to be petted and talked to. (We have them in cages right now because we don’t have enough room to have them anywhere else, and we can’t keep them as free roam rabbit in this house — I’m not technically supposed to have pets since we rent).
I recently bought a tortoise black Lionhead from the same place. She was taken there by her previous owners for some reason, of course they told the people at the store that she was a buck, but Mom and I looked online and checked her and have confirmed that she is a doe. We had named her Aria Skye, and since she is already a year old I am still learning about her and the way she has been raised from her previous owners. It’s quite difficult, but I’m going to work on training her and hopefully the way we have raised Pixie will work for her eventually as well.
Of course, Pixie is not the happiest bunny since I brought home the new girl.
They are both unspayed doe’s, and I know that it’s going to be difficult since they are both doe’s, on top of being unspayed; but right now, with the price ranges of getting them both spayed is out of my price range, I’m going to have to try bonding them whilst they are unspayed. It’s already presented itself as a challenge, but I really want my girls to be friends and I’m hoping with encouragement and persistence that it will happen. I have the patience to work on them, but not always the time.
At first since we didn’t have enough room or arrangements, Aria’s cage was on top of Pixie’s cage — since Aria’s cage was much lighter. But since I’ve removed the futon in the room — which is why the cages had to be on top of the other — they are now in a corner setting, and close enough for each rabbit to have a good enough scent of each other, but also far apart enough where they cannot really make contact. I am also trying the stuffed animal bonding trick, but I haven’t really kept note on how that is working out.
I have had several un-noted trial sessions with them (but I remember some of the gist of what happened), along with one video recorded session (that I have managed to speed up into an eight minute long video — because I tried pushing the session a little longer than I should have). There first session didn’t do so well, I don’t really have a neutral area for them to be in that’s not busy all the time with foot traffic, nor is it quiet or safe. The first session happened to be in the wrong place though, I know because I had done it in a place that Pixie had already claimed as her territory (which was bad on my part) and Pixie had attacked Aria. The second time I had done it again in the same spot, though this time instead of giving them this closed in gated area right in front of Pixie’s cage I moved a few feet away, and my friend who just so happened to go by Bunny, was there to help me (she has cats — but she was a huge help to me that day). Of course, it had to be cut short because Pixie pulled out one of her nails in the carpet (I had no idea what was going on and I was freaking out and panicking, which was only making things worse for Pixie. But we got it all set, lots of blood, lots of stress, but with the help of my mom, me, and my friend we were able to get Pixie calmed and slowed her bleeding. The third time wasn’t much better, again it was in front of Pixie’s cage in Pixie’s territory (but at the time it was the only place I could think of to try to bond them — bad idea). So after some nipping, and attacking, and humping (from Pixie to Aria), with me interrupting, I separated the two and let them have their peace and quiet for a few weeks, with them coming out at separate intervals to romp around and play.
Each time during these sessions Pixie would lunge forward and try nip at Aria, but I would pull her away. Pixie would get a good hump in here and there, and grab some of Aria’s fur and skin, which would make pulling Pixie away difficult because she had a pretty good grip. I would hold one and let the other roam around, and then I would let go of one for a moment, and if Aria moved just the slightest (a bit too fast to Pixie’s liking I assumed) and Pixie would lunge, nip, and hump. This happened on all three occasions; though I only read a little bit about bonding during these times and I wasn’t sure what the humping meant — but now I know it was just Pixie trying to say that she is the boss, but we didn’t really like her doing the humping thing.
So we tried different place to bond them; the living room near the fireplace (which is lifted off the ground on a little mantel thing — and it wasn’t lit and we made sure they were safe). We used the little x-pen gates to make them their own little bonding space and we put them in their together. At first they ignored each other and romped around, and then Pixie went in for the attack, and started humping her. We pulled Pixie off Aria and then I petted Pixie while Aria was roaming around with curiosity… So then I tried letting Pixie go again and as soon as I did she began humping Aria, again. So Mom pulled Pixie off and handed her to me and I tried calming her, we figure that since we had been doing this for a good twenty minutes we might as well end it. So we got Aria out of the xpen, and put Pixie back in. I held Aria to calm her and then took her back to her little home. I then went back to the xpen and petted Pixie and told her that she couldn’t do that.
I thought we were making some progress because when Aria was playing outside of Pixie’s cage Aria would lie next to Pixie’s cage and then Pixie would lie next to her from inside the cage and limits of the splash guards that she has. On multiple occasions Aria has tried getting into Pixie’s cage, I guess eager for them to get along (since Aria takes everything that Pixie’s does until she’s fed up enough to give Pixie a little nip here and there). I feel like Aria really does want Pixie as a companion, but Pixie is being extremely stubborn.
But whenever we put the two together, Pixie wants to hump her and nip her. On one occasion Pixie got in some scratches, but Aria was fine, just sat there and took it as Pixie did this. Of course, I stopped Pixie and tried calming Aria afterwards. On some occasions, after Pixie has attacked and attempted to hump Aria several times I’ll hold Pixie and Aria will come over and try to get some nips and scratches in; and after a while they try lunging at each other because they’re both fed up with each other (but this is only when I stretch the bonding session on for longer periods than they like).
However, they’re getting better in sessions that are about twenty to thirty minutes long, but any longer than that and they don’t do so well with one another. I am seeing some progress, but I’ve also noticed some behaviors that I understand is probably simply because of them being stubborn — mostly on Pixie’s behalf.
She tends to poop outside of her litter box in her cage more often now, she takes a lot of her aggression and stress out on the cardboard tube in her cage which she used to ignore, she poops in her food bowl and water bowl, and when is out and romping around she poops everywhere inside the xpen (which I have attached to both of their cages — because I’m making them share this new play area, but they are never in it together for now). I understand why the pooping all inside the xpen is happening, but she used to be so good about popping inside her litter box and not in the food bowl or water bowl or outside the litter box. I just don’t want this to become something she does now because she was so well litter trained.
Aria on the other hand also poops a lot out in the xpen, but her litter training is going a bit slow because we have yet to set up her cage the way we really want to simply because we haven’t really had the materials or the time (so I’m still not sure of her litter ways according to the set up we’re hoping to do for Aria). Hopefully things will progress and we’ll be able to get it set up and learn her ways and train her to use the litter box in a better manner and get used to the cage set up (once it’s set up that is). I’m hoping to get in more bonding sessions on Friday’s, Saturday’s, and Sunday’s — I’m hoping to use the bathroom, or maybe some more time in the living room, or kitchen.
I’m going to get a notebook to use as a bonding journal so I can write in it during/after the sessions (the date, the time, what happened) so then I can come on here once in a while and update what happened. I think it may take a while for me to get pictures during the bonding because I want to pay more attention to their reactions and body languages before I spend time trying to capture some bonding moments. This is all I have for now — sorry it’s so long winded.
EDIT: 3:09 AM forum time.
P.S. I’ve already made the decision to do no official bonding, just the simple stunt double stuffed animal until they are both spayed. So we can now stop mentioning the cost/money and all that; I get it. If I knew that would have had such a negative result I wouldn’t have even mentioned the money thing, I understand that it all cost a lot, and just telling me not to bond them while they are unspayed would have sufficed, it wasn’t necassary to throw the price in my face. Thanks <3
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