Bonding Trios

[Bunnymom88]

Hello everyone. I have a bonded pair, male (Tucker) and female (cookie), both altered. They are 2 1/2 and 2 years old. They have been bonded since Cookie was about 12 weeks old. Now i recently have been fostering a male bunny who had to get medical attention from past situations. He is now healed and i would love to make them a trio. For the past month and half, Rocket, the single male, has been in a separate room in a cage. Tucker and cooki have their own free roam bedroom that has a baby gate in the door way. I have let them out to run to visit Rocket in his separate room. They have touched noses and smelled each other through the cage and have been good. Little to no grunting or digging through the cage. Now, I want to take the next step and move him into their room. But, since they don’t have a cage i can’t i the normal prebinding by putting their cages next to each other or anything. I moved Rockets cage into their room and put blanket up around the cage to minimize them seeing each other. But they started pulling the blanket to the side so they could see eachother. The digging and grunt was definelty elevated now that he is in their territory but not terrible. Tucker doesn’t seem to be as aggressive as Cookie. Moving forward does anyone have any tips on what i should do next?

[Sirius&Luna]

I would recommend doing some prebonding, which is normally swapping them between cages, but if the pair don’t have a cage, you can swap litter trays, food bowls, blankets and toys. It’s also important that they can’t touch through the cages, as they could easily bite and box through the bars. I recommend a double layer of bars around the caged bunny. Swap litter trays etc for at least a month, before moving on to actual bonding in a neutral space.

Here’s a post I made recently on someone who was bonding a trio, which is also semi relevant to you:

I recently bonded a trio!

The main thing you need to be aware of is the risk of splitting your already bonded pair. Often, the smell of a new bunny can cause a bonded pair to start fighting, or for one to start bullying the other. You need to keep a very close eye on your pair and be prepared to split them up if you see any worrying behaviour. It is entirely possible that you could end up with three separate bunnies who refuse to bond, but not necessarily likely.

I had to split up my existing pair, as Luna started bullying Atlas when she could smell Nimbus. This meant it was easier to prebond, as I could swap them all between cages without worrying about aggression.

Personally, I started off with the pairing I knew would be easy, the two boys, then once I was confident that I wouldn’t have any problems between them, I worked on the trio as a whole. That way I knew if a fight broke out, I had to focus on removing Luna. Luckily, as I monitored extremely closely the whole time, we didn’t have any fights.

You need to think about the personalities of your rabbits, and think about what will work best for them when bonding. Rushing bonding is the main reason that it fails, and its especially important to be patient when you have more bunnies and are risking splitting a pair.

[Bunnymom88]

Thank you!
Rocket has had his cage in the bonded pair’s room for a week now and they have been surprisingly good… i have found them all laying along the cage together and the bonded pair isn’t showing any signs of fighting. I am going to switch their litter pans tonight and see how that goes!

[Author]

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