Edward wont stop humping!

[jellyrose]

Our bonding bunnies are doing pretty well (it’s taken 6months!). I’ve been leaving them alone for short periods in the day now and tried them over night (kindda worked) but….. Edward keeps humping- it was Josephine humping him before. She doesn’t react badly, she just runs away but she always goes back to find him again.  I’m worried tht she might get fed up and start fighting back like Edward did when she was humping him and I don’t want that to happen if I’m not here!!!! Should I just leave them to it and hope for the best? Will he ever stop humping? I worry that he might hurt her as he’s not that gentle! 

[dmh426]

First of all, I am assuming both your bunnies are spayed/neutered!?!? Humping while bonding is the bunny’s trying to see who is gonna be the boss of who. It’s normal. One will have a more dominant personality and one will have the more passive personality. It seems like maybe both your bunnies want to be “top dog” and are still working out the logistics.

[Lucy]

jellyrose- we need to talk.. granted I haven’t had a big fight break out between my bunnies… but there is always a lot of humping going on. FIrst it was Fujoe humping Patina- and I mean like A LOT of humping. It took a while before he could calm down enough to let her groom him. And now he never mounts her… but she mounts him everyday. And it’s a few times a day. He seems to tollerate it- he’ll chase her every once and a while, but she’ll go back and groom him.

I know that I have two dominant bunnies- just one (Fujoe) is more dominant than the other. I think that’s why that she is still mounting him. I would say, don’t worry about it. Let them figure things out- the only thing is that they have a history of fighting. So, I would just make sure that they have enough space when left together, that they can get away from eachother. So, as long as they have a lot of space- they should be fine. I get worried if i leave them together in their cage for too long.

[poopy]

When he’s humping, put HER under a laundry basket with open slots. This will force him to look at her face and see that she is a bunny, not a love toy!

[x liddo bunny x]

interesting poopy, i should do that with emo and mochi. their humping usually turns into a fight after and it is pretty scary… thats y i dont leave them in the same cage anymore but they still get to plkay together. when i am near by

[Gravehearted]

I’ll echo what others have said – if your buns are both neutered – it’s about figuring out who’s boss.  It can take some time to figure it out.  I haven’t heard of Poopy’s laundry basket method before – that’s a new one.

The most important thing in regards to humping  is that face humping is dangerous!  The last thing anyone wants is a trip to the ER with injured bunny privates.  Other things I do, is allow them to hump for about 15 seconds before removing the humper from the humpee. You can also swap them, and drape the less dominate bunny over the other bun sideways – like this (excuse the poopies)

[BinkyBunny]

I’ll also just add to pet the bunny that’s being humped to help comfort. I also do what gravehearted does and separate them after 15 – 20 seconds of humping. I make the humping bunny take a two minute break in between humping sessions.
If you prevent Edward completely or stop him from humping right away, or allow him to hump until they fight, then he may continue to mount. By allowoing mounting, but not allowing it to get out of hand, and comfort the one that’s being mounted, Edward should be able to eventually get his point across without much incident.

At this point, I wouldn’t leave them alone until the dominant humping stops.

[jellyrose]

Thanks for all the advice! I’ve been trying out the sugestions….. Edward was not impressed at having Josephine lying on him but he tolerated it for a few seconds! They actually seem to be doing a little better, less humping and mostly just in the evenings now. I hope they can sort it out! I’m sure that they really do love each other, when we had them separated they both seemed really depressed!

[MooBunnay]

I just bonded two bunnies for adoption, and one, Nick, was an incessant humper.  It really seemed to be a matter of letting him get it out of his system.  Its good news that the girl does not fight back, but runs away and comes back, this is how the pair I was working with was as well, and now they are definitely in love! 

The way we worked with this was letting the buns stay together supervised for a couple hours at a time, when Nick started humping, we would let him do so for a little while, then pull him off her, and force them to lie face to face, while petting both of them. Then we would let them get up, of course, the humping would start again, and we would work through the cycle again. After a few cycles, Nick got pretty tired, and would lay down, they we would put Susan right next to him.  I think the key is letting HIM be the one to stop the humping, whether its from exhaustion or him losing interest!

[jellyrose]

Thanks Moobunny- and congratulations on your new bunny leader status! We are having them out together the whole time we are home and able to supervise…… I’ve been trying to do what you’ve said but she generally runs away from he before I get to them! Then she goes back and shoves her face right up to his and gives him a kiss. It’s like she’s saying "look this is how you should be doing". I think she might be willing to let him be top bunny, but she does still occasionally demand to be groomed first! I hope they sort themselves out. I have my parents coming to stay in a couple of weeks time….. having my mother in my house is stressful enough without having humping bunnies as well!!!!!

[MooBunnay]

Hello again! I saw that you said you’ve been trying to bond the bunnies for six months, how long has the humping been going on?  Is this a more recent thing that they have been together long enough that he gets to humping, or has it been for months? The reason I’m asking is that Nick (or Sir hump-a-lot, if you will) tired of the incessant humping after about of week of bonding.  He seemed to think, well this is old now, and still occasionally humps Susan, but its a much quicker thing.  I would think that the humping is going to start subsiding with time (and I would venture to say will hopefully subside a lot before your mother gets there!) Also, how long are they together at a time? Is it all the time, or for short periods?

[jellyrose]

Ok so humping seems to have settled down a little…. maybe just 3-4 times a day (they are out for about 8-9hrs if we are home).  She is generally not giving him the oppertunity to actually mount her as she just does a little side step to avoid him! He still kind of circles her and rubs his chin all over, she tends to put up with this. But there really doesn’t seem to be any agression between tham now.

Moobunny- when we first started bonding them he was humping her and there was a fight… then she was humping him which resulted in agression every time if we didn’t catch them in time….. We had them separated for a couple of weeks then did a trip to San Francisco with them and they were back together. Since then we havehad no more fighting but he is still doing the humping!

Why is this so complicated!!!!! I really want to be able to leave them together all the time but since both me and my bf work the night shift I really don’t want to leave them alone together overnight for 12+ hrs! IS it harming their relationship that I shut them away separately at night?

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[BinkyBunny]

Maybe what you should do now is while you are home, put them in a the pen/cage together and see if they can hang out in that cage/pen for long periods of time.  

What is the set-up you have right now for them?

[jellyrose]

They each have a dog cage with a litter tray and blanket as their “beds”. We shut them in these when we go out. When we’re home they have the run of the house… the idea is that they will have the bunny room (actually our spare bedroom) to stay in when we’re out.

They managed to spend a whole 48hrs together as my bf was off work just in our bedroom… they messed around all night and kept him awake by jumping on and off the bed! In the day they hung out in the bedroom with me while I was asleep. There was no humping that I was aware of in the day and overnight he was just chinning and nipping her (not hard). We put them away last night as we were both at work and now they’re not speaking to me!

[Lucy]

i know that every pair of bunnies is different. When Fujoe have GI stasis like 6 weeks ago, and we had to seperate the two bunnies to see if he was pooping and eating- when we put them back together there was a lot of mounting. Fujoe and Patina mounting. So I know for me, it’s not a good idea to seperate them, because everytime they get put back together they need to figure out who is top bun.

I’m not saying to just put them together- but really pay attention to them, and see for how long you can keep them together.

[MooBunnay]

When you put them away separately, can they still see each other? Is it possible to put their cages close together so they could still lay next to each other with just the cage between them?  If they stayed together for 48 hours with no fighting, I think they are practically bonded, and if they were mine I wouldn’t be afraid to leave them alone un-supervised, but if you are still nervous, I think the best idea is to make sure they can still see and sniff each other, that will help the relationship continue even when they are apart!  My bonded pair had to be separated for a bit due to Juli needing to recover from an injury, and they liked to sleep as close as possible to each other with just the cage separating them.

[BinkyBunny]

I agree, if they’ve begin together for 48 hours and they are not fighting then this is a good sign. You said he still nipped her, where does he nip her and when does he? Does she do something usually that makes him do that like bow her head or come to close to fast? OR?? And what is her reaction to being nipped?

Also, so if you left them alone together unsupervised, would you be leaving them in a room or in a cage? If you plan on having them stay in the cage when you are not there, and they haven’t stayed in the cage together yet, then you should put them in the cage together while you are home and see how they react. Some bunnies are fine playing out in more semi-neutral territory, but they can still defend “their” place. So in order to make one cage both of theirs,, you will need to see how they react. So when you are home, have them hang out in there – feed them food, make it pleasurable.

Do they go in and out of each others cages now when they are out and about, and if so how do they react?

[jellyrose]

When Edward nips it is usually when he is trying to mount or if he wants to sit where she’s sitting but she has not reacted badly at all… just moves out the way. The idea is that we can leave them together in the bunny room (also the office).. Both cages are in here and normally when they are out the cages are open and they go in and out without a problem…. often they will be asleep in the same one or one in each (no bunny has their own cage… it’s just who gets there first!).
Also at the moment Edward has another respiratory infection (probably the same one keeps coming back)!!!!! So back on the baytril and penG injections, it’s josephine too this time so they are ignoring me together this time!
Thanks for all the help….. the dreaded mother visit is almost over and the bunnies have behaved pretty well…… Josephine was even brave enough to go through my Dad’s suitcase to try to dig out the chocolate he brought me!

[MooBunnay]

Hi! I just wanted to check and see how the kiddies are bonding! Are they together all the time now?  And how is their respiratory infection doing?

I’m bonding a couple of foster bunnies soon – so if you have any tips that worked well to stop the humping other than just letting it out of their system – let me know!

[jellyrose]

Thanks Moobunny…. They are doing pretty well. They hate the oral meds but will put up with it for the little bit of cookie thay get aftrwards! No more snotty noses but still a few sneezes. We’ll keep going with it all for another 2 weeks. I really don’t want to have to go to see the bunny specialist in San Diego for sinus flushing! They are getting on well other wise. Seem to be all loved up! Only one or two humping incidents! They’re pulling at my pant leg right now cause they’re hungry! I’ve been told!

[BunMumTiff]

YAY I cant wait to bond my two buns but they both need to be fixed I wish they would of done it already

[jellyrose]

Whoohoooo! Left bunnies by themselves for the first time over night (BF and me both at work). When I came home this morning- after a stressful night of nail bitting and a 40min drive compressed to 25 (red light what red light?)- they were happily ripping up the news paper I left out for them to read! No bites, no fur balls, no obvious signs of a struggle! They both had a snuggle with me just now, then Edward did a happy grunty dance around me then Josephine.. but no humpping! So I’m tentitivily saying I think we’ve cracked it!  I’m a proud mummy this morning! Just hope it lasts (they’re on their own again tonight!).

 

 

 

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[jellyrose]

And I mean we as in all you guys too!!!!! Thanks!

[MooBunnay]

Yay! I’m so glad they are together now. I think they will be just fine I know the rushed drive home feeling – when my Raymond was sick I would fly home every day after work and in LA with traffic it is very hard to fly ANYWHERE. My horn used to be very sensitive, and if I just tapped it, it would honk, NOW after that ordeal, I have to push it quite hard to get a noise…oops!

Congrats on the sbonding, your buns must be so happy to be in loooove!

[Lucy]

congrats! it was great to get to that point! but just letting you know- my two are totally in love, but there’s still humping going on.. I let them deal it out themselves. but I don’t have to worry anymore about them killing each other.

congrats congrats congrats! I hope they start binkying around for you more- once mine were totally bonded there were more binkies and flops (ooo those wonderful flops!!)

[x liddo bunny x]

YAY!!!!! good bonding good bonding!!!! ur a good mommy ::pats on the back::

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