Can you tell if it’ll work out from the first meeting?

[Squirtleface]

So I have a year old Holland lop named Squirtle. I bought him from the county fair last year from the 4-H compitions they have. I’m normally a stickler for adoption, all my animals are adopted except for Squirtle, but the problem is I live in a small college town and the closest adoption agency for rabbits is three hours away, which is why I decided to buy him from the fair, because there’s no options up here to adopt rabbits and three hours was too much to travel between work and school.

Squirtle is extremely social. He loves people, he loves snuggling with his teddy bear and he’s constantly following around my parrots and my dog, I swear hes desperate to make friends with all of them and they all find him annoying lol. I’d like to get him a little girlfriend, but again the problem is its too far to adopt and the humane society up here never has rabbits. I don’t want to buy a rabbit at the fair again just because I don’t want to bring in a rabbit he’s never met and hope for the best. I don’t have the room for another rabbit cage/run combo like I have for Squirtle, so I’d have nowhere to put another rabbit if the bonding fails.

I did find a breeder about an hour and a half from me. Shes seems quite reputable and obviously very popular because her babies sell crazy fast. I haven’t contacted her yet, but my idea was to see if I could bring Squirtle with me and meet some of the babies or adults she has available at the time and see if anyone clicks with him. I know bonding can take weeks or months or even a year, but my question is can you tell when two rabbits meet if it’s more than likely going to work out or be a total disaster? I’m just not certain how to go about it.

[HereComesTheBun]

As I currently only have one rabbit, hopefully someone with more experience will see this and give you a better answer. I am hoping to get a second rabbit in the next few months, however, so here’s my opinion according to the research I’ve done.

While it is a great idea to let your rabbit pick out his friend, and I believe you can tell if they get along by first meeting, both rabbits will need to be spayed or neutered first. A rabbit may get along with a pre-adolescent rabbit at first, but once puberty kicks in, the younger rabbit’s smell and personality will change, and the other rabbit might not recognize them. They’ll then have to be separated and rebonded after the younger rabbit is fixed. It sounds like you’ve done some great research on the subject, but I’m just mentioning this because I don’t think that most breeders spay/neuter their rabbits before adopting them out. I would also assume that the adults they had were used for breeding. Maybe not, though! Is there any chance the breeder has any spayed/neutered adults that have been surrendered to them? My rabbit’s breeder took care of rabbits from owners who were no longer were able to take care of them (I’m also 100% pro-adoption, but I’m in a similar boat as you regarding rabbit rescues/shelters close by).

Best of luck!

[kcomstoc]

I will share my experience, Caleb and Gamgee are a fully bonded pair and they are best friends I wanted Caleb (he was a year old holland lop at the time now he is 3 years old) to choose his friend because I wanted to make sure they would bond. So I found a rescue that was close by, I wanted another male and I told them that from the beginning, they tried to insist on a female but also didn’t really mind me wanting a male. Home visit was perfect and everything seemed great but then I get an e-mail telling me that I can’t adopt a male bunny *even though my bunny was neutered* because if I got another male they would “rip each other apart” because it had happened in the past apparently. Needless to say I went with another rescue because I asked for advice here and they said that was ridiculous because bunnies bond by personality not gender.

So second rescue was further away, I contacted them and asked if I could have a male neutered bunny and they seemed very happy to oblige I took Caleb down so that he could pick out his friend *I had a rabbit in mind that I wanted and my boyfriend had a rabbit in mind that he liked but we agreed that which ever bunny Caleb picked was going to be the one we got*. We tried my favorite bunny first, Caleb would hop near him and the other bunny would run away we tried for a little while but it was clear the other rabbit was terrified of Caleb. So we tried a different rabbit and they were awesome together, they ate together, they hopped in the litterbox together and they flopped next to each other it was everything I hoped for.

So Gamgee *formerly Gizmo* came home with us, took about 2 months if I remember correctly to bond them *I have a thread on here if you want to read it* but yes it was “love” at first sight but there were a few things that helped. For one-BOTH bunnies had been neutered for at least a month so all of their hormones were gone, 2-the bunnies got to pick each other out, 3- Both bunnies were adults *I don’t know if that makes a difference other than they were old enough to be neutered/spayed so you don’t have to try bonding while one is still a baby which can be difficult*.

I hope that answers your question, also I LOVE your bunny’s name

[vanessa]

I think you can tell if it will be easy or not. But even difficult meetings can work out with enough time and persistence. I am sure there are people out there with cases where they felt their rabbits wouldn’t bond. I just don’t think it’s a given, but it also depends on how you handle it. I am having a WAY better feelign about my rabbits bonding just through reading other people”s bonding journals, and writing my own. And getting feedback. I was worried after my first week that it wouldn’t work. I called a few humane societies, but none of them did bunny dates. I would have to pick out a bunny and hope for the best. I think it is working out. Bunnies can have setbacks too. And one person’s opinion of whether they are a good match – might not be your bunnie’s opinion. I feel – the best you can tell, is how easy or difficult it is going to be.

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