Increased nipping/fur pulling. Have we moved too fast?

[feireia]

Spay/Neuter
Are your bunnies spayed/neutered? Yes
If so, for how long (for each)? Pekoe (male): 5 years, Lottie (female): 1 year
If not, why not?
Are you aware of reproductive cancer risk in females? If not, please read about it here.

Housing
Please describe your bunnies’ current housing set-up (living together, as neighbors, etc.). Set up as neighbors in our living room (Pekoe’s original living space). Each are housed in their own 4 ft x 4 ft pens when it is not their turn to get exercise. 

Bonding background
Did you allow the bunnies to “settle-in”? Pekoe has been with us for a while but Lottie has been with for a couple weeks now. We started the bonding dates the day after she came home with us at the suggestion of her rescue. 

How would you describe your bunnies reactions towards each other (answer for each bunny): shy, scared, curious, calm, aggressive, excited, affectionate, etc.?

Pekoe is pretty nervous when placed in the neutral bonding space and remains quite on-edge throughout the session. He offers his head for grooms and in our first couple bonding sessions, Lottie did groom him. Since then, when Pekoe approaches her and bows his head Lottie nips him or pushes him away with her front paws (boxing?).

Lottie is nervous at first but relaxes enough to eat and self-groom. She has even laid out in the bonding space. She is a bit on-edge when Pekoe approaches her but she is otherwise curious about the space she is in. 

Have you done any “pre-bonding” (cage or litter box swaps, etc.)? If so, for how long?

They currently live in enclosures side-by-side (separated by a few inches to prevent fights and biting) and we swap their enclosures after every bonding session/every day.

Have you started sessions yet? Yes, started sessions. We have been doing sessions of varying lengths for a little over a week and a half. 
How long have you been working on bonding your bunnies? A week and a half
How frequently do you have bonding sessions, and how long are they? Bonding sessions every day. We started with 30 minutes and because we saw Lottie grooming Pekoe, we increased it to an hour. Since grooming stopped and more nipping and fur pulling has been observed, we’ve drastically decreased the time to 10-15 minutes. We started in 2 ft x 2 ft space and that went well so we increased to 3 ft x 3 ft. We didn’t see any interactions between the two (both picked a corner and stayed there the entire time) so we went back down to the smaller space. 

Have you tried any stressing techniques? We typically start bonding sessions with the two in a carrier and walking around our home with them.

 

I realize we are quite early on in the bonding process but I’m a bit worried that Lottie’s new behavior of pushing Pekoe away with her front paws and the increased nipping/fur pulling has been a result of me pushing this process along too quickly. When they alternate free-roam time, they lay in front of the other’s pen and they mirror each other’s behaviors (grooming, eating) so it seems like bonding sessions will go well, but that is not the case when we move to the bonding space. I was originally planning to marathon bond them in a couple days since I have a week or so off from work to do so, but I’m starting to wonder if that is even a good idea anymore. Have I pushed them to the point that we need to take an extended break from bonding? There have been no fights resulting in wounds, just lots of fur pulling and nipping.

[LBJ10]

It sounds like she doesn’t appreciate his pushiness (demanding to be groomed) and she just wants some space. I would not be overly worried yet. You could either try giving them a bit of a break, or you could try distracting them by taking them for a car ride (or similar) in a carrier together. Stressing them isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it does work for some bunnies because they decide comforting each other is more important and asking to be groomed/demanding space.

Is this the size space (3×3) you normally have them in for these sessions? Have you tried a bigger area so she has somewhere to retreat?

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