Four bunnies – pre-bonding questions

[rh]

We have been active in house rabbits communities for a while, so have bonded two rabbits to form a pair more than once.  We also had fostered a trio that was a mother and two sons, and they got along great.

We have four bunnies now, all fixed, in two bonded pairs each of a girl and a boy, and would really like to have them in a set of four.  We already have worked with letting them sniff through cage bars, but have not found the time to start the bonding.

 Question is, should we try to bond in mixed pairs, the boy from one pair with the girl from the other pair, or should we try to bond all four?  I think there might be less fighting initially as the opposite gender mixed pairs have shown less animosity, but my worry is that if we don’t hash out the dominance early, the four may never be bonded and possibly the current pairs could be messed up.

 A few other things – one bonded pair we bonded ourselves, from bunnies that were rescued from outdoors, and the other pair was bonded already, and hand raised from babies.  All four bunnies are around 6 years old, but look younger.  Within the bonded pairs, there is a little nipping when treats are given, but no fighting whatsoever.  Also, there are positive signs when we let the opposite gender bunnies sniff each other through cage bars, but the same gender bunnies scratch and nip at each other through the bars.

 Any advice would be appreciated – we’ve been reading up on bonding again, but are not sure to start with bonding all four or two at a time.

 

[Beka27]

There are different methods. Some people will get them all together once to see what happens. If you do that, I’d have a second person with you to assist. Other people will try to get the two most dominant bunnies to accept each other through individual sessions. The key is to not break the existing bonds. Do you have any neutral spaces in your houses, or at least very seldom-used areas?

I’m by no mean an expert on this topic. I’ve only bonded my pair. But we have had some successful trio/quartets recently. Others should be along soon to offer more advice.

[tanlover14]

Hey there — I just recently bonded my buns into a quartet – I went from a bonded trio to adding a new fourth bunny into the mix.

In my opinion, in the beginning you should try out both situations – group and pairs – to get an idea of what you have to work with. I feel it’s pretty important because I began off with just pairs. But when I put them all together, the dynamics just shifted so much within my group that I felt it would be more beneficial to bond as a group… so to begin off, I think you should do one day of pairs and then one day of all four and see how it goes. Then work off from what you learn about the dynamics among the group. One of my boys was VICIOUS, full-out attack mode to the new bunny when we first put them together (actually, he saw the other bunny and began fighting with his bonded mates so when I mean hate… I mean.. he was NOT a happy camper). When you see the different situations in pairs and as a group, you can also focus on which bunnies you think need stress bonding (whether it’s all or just two who are going at each other while the other two are fine and dandy) and which ones will benefit from a bigger group setting than in pairs. My other boy would groom the new bun by himself but as soon as he was in a group, he felt the need to establish he was TOP bun. You have something to learn from each dynamic – so the more you can observe their reactions to each other in pairs and a group the bigger the possibility of successfully bonding.

I also noticed you said you guys haven’t found the time to start bonding – make sure you have the time before you begin. I had to sleep out with my bonded trio many a night because the intrusion of the new bunny in the group (even without him there) started many a fight. It was exhausting to say the least. And if you end up deciding to bond in pairs, it is a long process to do often. So I would encourage you to really think about the time you plan on spending on this before going head and attempting to begin. I just worry if you don’t have the time to fully do the bond, is it worth putting one of the bonded pairs at risk of splitting up.

Any other questions, just send ’em to me! I would be happy to answer in any way I can!

[rh]

Thank you for the advice. In the past, we have done bonding “dates” for an hour or so, then put the bunnies back into their cages (they have big cages, one is a three-level Rabbitat which is 22″ x 50″ cross-section and the other is a homemade version that is more of a three-level split) and continued alternating who is out (in a two-room area – we *were* going to have a computer room, but it is a bunny room). We both work so we can’t risk letting them out together during the day, and in the past when we seemed to make progress.

It’s very difficult when both people work and in the beginning, we are too freaked out to let only one of us try to bond. Kudos to anyone who can bond multiple bunnies with one person.

[tanlover14]

Haha! My boyfriend and I only added bunnies with us both acknowledging that I would be the only one bonding. It was extremely stressful and exhausting. I’m happy to hear you guys do longer bonded sessions! I’ve never had much luck with short ones (15 min. sessions) because every time I put the buns back together they have the same disagreements all over again – seemed pointless to me. And it created more stress for me. So if they were fighting or arguing, I’d move them somewhere more stressful where I could really stress them out until they accepted being close to each other during the stressing for a good half hour at the very least. But I think that’s why I’ve had such good progress since I’ve attacked the bonding so aggressively. It’s like they picked up on the fact that they were going to have to be together so they better figure something out Hahaha!

You’ll laugh to know – we are going to be attempting to add a fifth to our quartet in a few months. We rescued a bun from a horrible pet store and we can’t let her go. Haha! So we are going to make our clam bigger! Maybe we’ll end up doing the bonding process together! I love having someone to swap ideas and look for help with solutions with. Makes the process seem not quite as stressful.

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