Help bonding after fighting

[Jbesh]

Hi all,

I need some advice as to how to proceed with bonding my 2 bunnies. Our first bunny Twix (female, spayed) is almost 3, she has full free roam on our main floor, and stays in her bedroom at night.  We got a new baby bunny, Bandit (male), and he has been kept on our basement floor, with a large pen for at night.  He was neutered 4.5 weeks before we started the bonding process.

We started swapping their litters each day for a few days, and then we started putting them together in the bathtub for about 30 mins or so each time.  At first they ignored each other. Then they started sniffing, and Twix mounted Bandit once.  There were a few nips but nothing major.  Twix demanded grooming and Bandit groomed her during their 3rd meeting.  He then groomed her quite a few more times, and we gave them some greens in the bathtub too, no fights.  We then decided to create a small space, about 3 x 3 ft in the corner of the living room and put them together in there.  The first 2 times things were fine, Bandit would groom Twix, but she never groomed him.  Then he seemed to maybe get a bit more aggressive,  he was sniffing her bum, and started nipping her.  She didn’t like it and would twitch and jump away.  Things then escalated and they ended up chasing and trying to very aggressive bit each other.  I separated them so they wouldn’t hurt each other.  I tried putting them back into the bathtub but they still wanted to fight.  We tried again in the corner space we had made, and they started fighting almost immediately.

Now we have made 2 pens for them in our living room so they are next to each other, but we are worried about how to proceed.  They don’t seem interested in each other at all anymore.  I’m also worried that Twix will become withdrawn if I don’t let her run around because she was free roam before.

If anyone can help out and offer ideas on next steps I would love to hear them!  I really want to make this work and realize it could take a long time but I want to make sure both bunnies are OK throughout the process.

Thanks!

[DanaNM]

Hi there, welcome!

First of all don’t panic! It’s very normal for there to be little spats and fights during the bonding process. It’s important to try to prevent them, but it’s very hard to be perfect in my experience. If no bunny was injured, it’s ok to keep going with the process. If a bunny got a bad bite or an injury that needs medical attention, then you’ll want to pause bonding and let them heal and calm down. I’m guessing yours are fine from what you described, but you should check them over for injuries.

My sense is that the living room wasn’t neutral enough, so moving from the bathtub to the living room set things off a bit.

I wouldn’t worry about not letting Twix free-roam. For now I would start doing side-swaps every other day or so (leave their litter pans in place so the other rabbit’s dirty litter is there for at least a day or so). Ignoring each other is not a bad thing either, it’s better than aggression. 🙂

Since you barely started and didn’t do much pre-bonding, I would pause sessions for now and do a couple weeks of just side swaps with them living side by side as neighbors. You can give them alternate free-roam of the room for exercise, just be very sure they cant nip each other through the fence or jump over their pen walls.

Then I would either go back to the bathtub (or bathroom floor), or find a brand new neutral space, ideally somewhere out of smell range of their pens. I have a suspicion things will be much calmer after some pre-bonding time.

It sounds like things were going very well at first and you just moved a bit too quickly with changing the location, but little spats also tend to happen in nearly all bondings. A good rule of thumb is that if things are going well, don’t change anything except extend the time they are together. When you get to the point where they are spending several hours together happily a few days in a row, then you can start going for very long sessions. Or, if you need to move them to a new space, make sure it’s as neutral or more neutral than the current space.

 

 

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Jbesh]

Thank you so much for your reply, this makes me feel much better!

Yes I think we moved to the living room too fast, and it probably wasn’t neutral enough.

They seem to be mirroring each other quite a bit now that they are living side by side in their pens, and we have been swapping the litters, hidey boxes and toys every couple of days.

I think we’ll wait another week or so and try again.  I have an ensuite bathroom that we can make space in for them.

Thanks again for your help!

[DanaNM]

You’re welcome!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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