Hi Everyone,
Hoping for some advice!
So we have four buns, in two pairs. A bit of a back story, we first got our netherland dwarf Bailey, had him neutered and then shortly afterwards acquired Saffron a mini rex, so the intention was to bond them as a pair. We had to wait a while until she was old enough to be spayed, but they got to see each other etc. Bailey never seemed very keen on Saffron from the start, tried to nip etc. We then rather impulsively rescued another bun Willow, with the intention of bonding them as a trio. The three lived separately until Willow had been spayed (she was left after giving birth and was still producing milk at the time we brought her home). We had by this point tried Bailey and Saffron a couple of times but it hadn’t gone very well, so we were extra nervous about three of them.
Last summer we took them all to a local ‘rabbit whisperer’ for three weeks, who is very experienced, but sadly after those three weeks Bailey just wouldn’t accept Saffron (he would just keep chasing and nipping her endlessly). So we then had Bailey and Willow as a pair, and Saffon on her own. We couldn’t bear to see her alone, she’s so so friendly and needy! So we then found a rescue mini lop, Simba, and brought him back to bond with her. We successfully bonded them ourselves (proud moment!!) fairly easily and so we now have Bailey & Willow and Saffon & Simba!
My question is…. what are the risks of trying to bond them as a four, how to best go about this, and I guess we could end up with 4 separate buns but hopefully that would be worst case? We were advised by the ‘rabbit whisperer (!)’ that bonding them as a 4, rather than a three might be possible as it would diffuse Bailey being agressive to Saffron.
Would love some advice if anyone has any similar experiences. I’m a very experienced bun owner but not when it comes to trying to bond 4, especially as Bailey and Saffron are not keen on each other! Is it worth it or are we best to stick to 2 and 2?!
Thanks so much for reading!
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