Max & Nyla – not *quite* bonded

[maxpower]

I posted here back in December when I first started bonding sessions with our two bunnies – neutered male Max and spayed female Nyla, both from the same shelter (but we got Nyla 6 months after Max).  They are both close to about 2 years old.

Their first session involved a scuffle and some fur flying, but no injuries.

Moved onto a different neutral space.  Max appeared to be the dominant one and Nyla allowed him to hump her several times, but she looked really unhappy about it and then started getting stressed.

After several sessions on our slippery kitchen floor, they seemed to be getting along fine, so I moved them to a long carpeted hallway.  Within about an hour, they were lying next to each other.  Sounds great, right?  No fighting since that first scuffle, and Max is constantly grooming Nyla when she approaches with her head down.  Their sessions now occur in a penned area right in front of their cages, and for the last few sessions, I’ve been letting them have access to Nyla’s cage, as she has shown absolutely no interest in being aggressively territorial.  They’re both doing some territorial pooping, but no nipping or grunting.  It doesn’t seem to bother Nyla at all that Max goes into her cage; a little while ago, they were both in there stretched out against different walls of the cage (it’s a 2×3 NIC cube cage with one 2×2 shelf).

However, the apparent impasse right now during the sessions is that Max, who will start to groom Nyla as if he’s agreeing that she’s the dominant bunny, will work his way around to her side until he gets to one of her back legs.  Then he tries to push his face under her side; she gets indignant and either whirls around to have him start all over again with her head, or she hops a few steps away.  Max sometimes follows her for a couple of steps, sometimes with his ears back, but then lets it go.  A couple of times this morning, I even saw him hump her awkwardly from the side or near her head, and she let him for a few seconds before moving away.

If Nyla is sacked out somewhere in their enclosure, Max will often approach her and nudge at her back end, which causes her to get up and hop away from him, apparently annoyed.

Between the times when they’re doing that, though, they both seem really happy, maybe more so than when they’ve had playtime separately – lounging around all stretched out, binkying, zooming, etc.  Sometimes Nyla will skid up to Max and put her head down; he grooms her, then just moves on to grooming himself.  For what it’s worth, she NEVER grooms him, but earlier today while Nyla was chewing on a wooden toy, Max laid next to her and shoved his head under her chin like he was pretending she was grooming him, lol, even though she was pretty much ignoring him.

So I’m feeling like they’re *this close!* to being bonded, but haven’t quite worked it out yet.  At this point, do I just keep separating them for most of the day?  They spent over three hours together this morning with no problems other than Max trying to hump Nyla and Nyla getting annoyed about it.  Are they already bonded and I’m just missing something?  What else should I be watching for?  

My concern is that I’ll either keep them together for too long at once and they’ll get into a fight if they don’t have a break from one another, or that I’ll keep them separate too much and they won’t have a chance to finish figuring things out, and it’ll start all over again every time I put them together.  My plan, once they are bonded, is to clean out the cage, replace the floor, and make it larger before introducing them into it; I’m concerned, though, that if they are locked in a cage together without a larger space (the x-pen area) to move away from each other before they’re ready, things will escalate and they’ll get into a fight.

Thanks in advance for any comments/suggestions!

Liz

[RabbitPam]

I’d like some of our more experienced bonding members to comment, so will just bump your post up to the top here in case it wasn’t seen a few days ago.

[maxpower]

Okay, so things have gone well, and I think they’re bonded!

Max and Nyla have been together for over 48 hours so far.  They have a 2×3 Nic cube cage that’s open to an xpen area (in my living room).  Nyla still won’t groom Max, but he grooms her and they sometimes sleep next to each other.  It’s almost like he really likes her and she tolerates him, lol, but it seems to be working so far.

For the past several bonding sessions, there has been no scuffling, fighting, grunting, nipping, etc.  Anytime Max starts to seem like he’s thinking about humping Nyla, she moves away from him a couple of steps and he gives up on it.

The only thing that hasn’t happened yet is putting them in the cage together for any amount of time, though they now sometimes both go in there and sleep at the same time.  Most of the time, Nyla chooses to sleep outside of the cage and Max likes to flop down inside of it.

Within the next couple of days I’m going to get the supplies to re-do the cage to make it bigger and replace the floor, then I’ll be sleeping in the living room again and closing them in the cage for the night.  Fingers crossed that it will go as well as the past few days have!!! 

[LittlePuffyTail]

Sounds like it’s going great! Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

ps. Are you a Simpson’s fan?

[maxpower]

Lol, yes, Max’s name came from The Simpsons!

Max and Nyla have been together for close to two weeks now and everything is great. What I’ve noticed most is that they both seem more active throughout the day compared to when they were alone. They’re definitely happy together; those three months of bonding sessions were SO worth it! Right now they are snuggled together sleeping .

[LittlePuffyTail]

So glad to hear it! Would love to see some pics.

[Author]

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