How do you recover the bunny love after a bad bonding session?

[godzlini]

I’ve posted previously about the two buns my husband and I are trying to bond… 5yr old male, 2 yr old female, both fixed.

They had a few tussles when we first started the bonding process and then our schedules got erratic so we took a break from bonding…one to two months of keeping the buns in adjacent pens, alternating exercise times in the same space, and switching their pens every other day. They seemed to have gotten used to each other’s proximity, always ate at the same time on the adjacent sides of their pens, and recently I had started sitting at the opening to both pens and petting the rabbits simultaneously and they seemed to be used to the other rabbit’s presence.

Tonight we tried to resume dating. We set up a pen in the hallway with clean towels. As soon as we put the buns down, they had a few nips and jumps but pretty quickly settled downon opposite sides of the cage. In retrospect, we should have separated them then and considered it a good re-date, but we left them together and when they interacted again a few minutes later they did not separate so easily. Lots of fur pulled, tufts everywhere, bunny tornado, and our boy latched onto the girl’s butt until we startled them both by turning on the vaccuum. A few seconds and they were at it again so we turned on the vaccuum to separate them and then took them both back to their own cages.

After a session ends really badly, what should the next step be? More time apart? Or, put them together but do something particular? Please help, we really want our buns to be friends!!

[Sirius&Luna]

Hi!

It’s great that you’ve been prebonding, that’s a really important step.

Is your hallway neutral? It could be that the space just isn’t neutral enough.

Was any skin broken? If it was, you need to take another break. If not…

Since you know they are likely to fight, I suggest you being much more involved. When I was bonding my buns, I knew that my female bunny has a tendency towards viciousness! So I spent the whole first week of bonding sessions with my hand on her head, petting her and reassuring her. If the boys came close, I would put my other hand between their faces so they didn’t have a chance to bite. After a week of this, I was more confident that she wouldn’t immediately start a fight with them, so I backed of a bit, but still had my hand hovering over their faces during any interactions.

You could also try the smooshing method, where you just squish them next to each other, pet them then separate. This gets them used to being in close proximity with positive feelings, but they can’t fight.

You need to identify what causes the fights (eg – girl doesn’t like boy sniffing her bum) and then prevent that behaviour, at least until they’re less jumpy with each other.

You could also try increasing or decreasing the space they’re in, depending on what causes the fights.

If the vacuum works well, then it may be that stressing them would work, so take them for a car ride.

Basically, there are many options, and no one way of bonding works for everyone

[godzlini]

Thank you for responding!

We did the previous bonding attempts in the hallway but neither bun has
been in their on their own, so we thought it would be neutral. We do not
have another space available to us aside from where the buns have lived.

When I looked over Little Girl this morning I did see a patch where her fur had been pulled out and a small piece of skin had been taken with it. She also has been staying on the opposite side of her pen from Fluff, and thumped several times when I came downstairs this morning. Is that reason enough to separate them for a while?

In terms of separation, we live in an apartment and so do not have a lot of other space to put them. Would putting up a sheet or piece of cardboard between the two so they can’t see each other for a month be enough to make them forget the other bun?

We will absolutely go back to the smooshing approach. We did that the first time around and maybe should have started with it this time. We also will be more hands-on in future sessions. Thank you!

[Sirius&Luna]

Could you take them to a friends house? It would be useful to test if it’s the space that’s the problem. Alternatively, you can ‘neutralise’ a space, by setting up a pen and covering walls and floor with clean blankets so they can’t see or smell where they are. You can take them for a walk round the block in the carrier to disorientate them before you put them in. This might seem a bit extreme, but since they’re fighting every time you put them together, I think it’s worth ensuring that the space is truly neutral.

Since she’s thumping, I would say it’s worth taking a mini break, but no need for a full reset. I’d give them a week off and keep swapping them and having them see each other during that time.

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