Bonding Pickle and Sky – First time bonder updates

[PoppyH]

This was my first post, asking for help on how to proceed. Since then I have done two bonding sessions for the very first time. I was petrified(!) but determined to succeed as I want my rabbits to be the best of friends. Scroll down to find out what happened.

Hi everyone, new poster here with something I hope you can help me with. I have a neutered male bunny named Pickle who is almost 2 now. He lives in my room so is very used to humans and very friendly although doesn’t like to be picked up. I wanted him to have a friend, so yesterday I went to pick up a female doe who has been spayed recently. Her breeder is a vet and training to become a rabbit nurse so knows what she is doing. Sky is very friendly and is about 18 months old. Her spay was recent – about 3 weeks. She is fully healed with stitches out. 

I took Pickle to meet her there on neutral ground which was in a run. Sky was submissive. She sat there with her head down whilst Pickle was cheeky and mounted her a few times. They then just went about their business eating some grass and sniffing around. Julie (the breeder) said this was a good sign. Pickle got a bit annoying after a while and started mounting her face to which she responded by an attack on Pickle. We separated them but could see Sky was getting annoyed with Pickle so called it a day on that session. They travelled home in separate boxes. 

At home, I have Pickles cage and a temporary cage for Sky which is next to it. An exercise pen is also on the way. I am swapping them over between cages to get used to each others scent. This is mostly a case of Sky swapping cages whilst Pickle happily hopping in whichever one is open to eat and drink, as he is a free rabbit.

At this point, Sky is obviously very timid as it is a new place with Pickles’ scent everywhere. 

Later on in the day, whilst Pickle is sleeping under my bed I was petting Sky on my lap as she is friendly and likes cuddles. I went to pop her back in her cage but she managed to sneak out under my arm the opposite way. With this, Pickle ran out and Sky ran up to him and it some how turned into a tustle. Fur flew, and there was scuffling everywhere and I got bitten ( when I separated them. I got them back into separate cages. Later, they proceeded to just sniff each other through bars.

Come night time, I had Sky in her temp cage and Pickle loose, free to hop in and out of his own cage. In the morning, I went to say hello to Pickle and noticed he had a scar on his nose!! Being the inquisitive bunny he is, he must have poked his nose through Sky’s bars a little too long and got a territorial nip. This really upset me. I have never seen my boy hurt, and especially as I got Sky as a potential friend for him. Tonight I am going to house Sky in Pickle’s cage as no noses can get through the bars.

This morning I have been watching them with Pickle loose and Sky in his cage. He noses up to there every so often which is often fine. However just a few moments ago they were sharing hay through the bars and Sky got a bit territorial and went for him, which I stopped. Sometimes, when Pickle gets near to her cage, she runs up to the bars with her tail raised.

I have been emailing Julie the breeder who says that Sky was spayed 3 weeks ago so probably has hormones in her system still. Could this be the case? I found her rearranging the cage earlier in a nest-like way (she is NOT pregnant). She also said the tail raising could be a hormonal thing.

She also breathes very heavily which Julie has never heard before, which she says is from stress. She also whines when laying down sometimes which I am taking to be nerves, curiosity or annoyance mixed with hormones.

I am a first time bonder and am scared to proceed. How long should I leave it until I introduce them again in a neutral space (the bath), regarding that Sky’s spay was only 3 weeks ago? I don’t want my beloved Pickle being bitten on the nose again because now he has a horrid scar right on the tip of it and it upsets me greatly to see this. I don’t think it is sore because he doesn’t mind me touching it.

Both rabbits are eating and drinking fine. I just want Pickle to feel happy in his own space and Sky to be less territorial even though the place smells of Pickle.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted lots of detail in there. Julie believes that Sky will settle fine after her nerves and hormones die down. If anyone can suggest where to go now, that would be great.

Thank you

Edit ~ one thing I have noticed about Sky is that she sometimes copies Pickle. For instance, yesterday when Pickle was in his cage he started drinking from his bottle. Sky looked at him, looked her her bottle and started doing the same. Also, a few moments ago, Pickle started shredding his phone-book. Sky looked at him and then started to shred her own phone-book also. Just something I’ve noticed.

[Stickerbunny]

Bonding should ideally not begin until FOUR weeks after a spay, to give hormones time to die down and the girl enough time to heal inside from her spay (fighting/humping can injure a doe if they aren’t fully healed). Also, you should leave at least 3 inches between the pens, so there can be no mating/fighting/biting through the bars. Put a block of wood, or something else solid between so they can’t move the pens closer to each other to cause biting. I would take a break for a week, leave them near enough but not near enough they can get any part of their body through the cage and keep doing the cage swapping, or have a stuffed bunny with the others scent in each others cages.

Her biting his nose if he stuck it into her cage is perfectly normal behavior. Him sticking his nose in if it was close enough is also perfectly normal behavior. The humping is more a domination thing than a mating thing, usually. As for the whining/breathing heavily, Stickers my female, will lower herself and breath rapidly when stressed and sometimes she makes kind of grunty/whiny noises. When she was bonding with Powder, she made the most pitiful crying noise I had ever heard whenever he would try to hump her and when she managed to get away she would stand up begging me to pick her up (and she HATES being picked up). Bonding is very stressful for both of them and you.

If she was just spayed recently and still has hormones, it could have triggered her nesting. Hopefully since she’s spayed it’s just rearranging things how she likes though and not a false pregnancy. I know dogs can still have them after a spay, but not sure about bunnies…. someone with more knowledge will have to chime in there.

[PoppyH]

Thank you so much for your reply. I am so relieved because everything you said confirmed what I was thinking, which means it also confirms I am not wishful thinking! I am new to bonding and by my nature I am a bit impatient  but I know that patience is the key. From now on, I am not going to have Pickle running loose if I am not there to supervise him, even at night. Tonight Pickle will be in his own cage and Sky in hers, and tomorrow they can switch and so on. Problem is I’m a sucker for giving Pickle whatever he wants  He rattles on his cage bars at night because he knows I will usually just give in and let him out but I absolutely cannot do this now as I do not want him sticking his nose where it isn’t wanted – is this the right thing to do? 

Here is what I had going on earlier. 

It is quite hard to see here but the cages are about 3-5 inches apart and cannot come together any more as there are water bottles attached to either cage blocking the way. I wedged a broccoli in-between the cages and they managed to eat from either side. There was no aggressive behaviour from either bun. Is this a good thing to do?

[PoppyH]

Pickle and Sky’s first bonding session!

(Pickle is grey and white, Sky is the coffee coloured smaller one)

After my first post, I was very scared to proceed with bonding especially as it is my first time in my life doing it. But, recently, I have seen improvements in how my rabbits interact through bars. Sky does not run aggressively up to Pickle anymore with her tail up, and is very relaxed around him, and vice versa. SO – I assumed that Sky’s hormones were settling down a bit and that she felt more relaxed in my home. Therefore I decided (before college – bit of a rush) to give Pickle and Sky their first bonding session.

I decided to do it in our bath. Pickle is extremely nervous of surfaces he can slide on and just huddles up to himself on them. 

I put them both in the bath together, at first with a towel but then I took that out. This time it was SKY mounting him, the tables turned. Her breeder did say she was sure Sky would turn out to be the dominant one of the two. There was one episode of circling which I stopped.

Here are some pictures of them on their first session: 

They got on well on this first session. Hooray!!!! When I got home from college I decided to try again. I got them from their homes and put Pickle in first and followed by Sky. She mounted him again which I stopped after a while because I could see he was getting annoyed. Here are some pictures of their second meeting:

They are getting on well again. After a while Pickle started annoying Sky by rearranging the quilt, they got rowdy and it turned into a bit of an attack which I stopped. I had Pickle in my arms and then put him back in the bath so I could end on a good note. For some reason he tried to mount Sky here, maybe he was feeling a bit more confident. About 5 minutes later there was another scuffle and attack, which I separated. I then put them back together and gave them both separate treats to end on a good note.   

I have read online that bonding can take 3 steps forward and seemingly 2 steps back. I will keep trying, this was after all the second bonding session. 

[Author]

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