Need some help!!!

[Baxter09]

So I have a 4 year Holland Lop, he is neutered but has lived alone with us basically his whole life. This weekend be brought home a 2 year old female Holland lop (she is spayed), she has also lived alone her whole life. 

We have set up there cages side by side and they are quite happy with that so started with bonding the next day. We started in the kitchen and it went ok but we made I think a big mistake of not letting either bunny mount (I misinterpreted the info I had gotten and didn’t realize till the second day that I should have left them alone), this ended up with the two rabbits fighting heavily on the second day we had to break them apart and spray bottle them, as the pen was small and they couldn’t get away from one another. So I moved the bonding to a different bigger neutral room and things are better, the rabbits will both sit quietly and ignore each other and for the most part will eat the lettuce we give them, I was able to get them to sit next to each other while getting petted too. Only problem I am having is if the female approaches our male he will turn and chase her down and bite at her, or if she moves too quick he will chase her down and she runs for dear life, we have hard wood floors so this turns into a sliding mess of bunnies on the hardwood so we have been stopping him for chasing after a lap or so to recover.

I think I am going to put in a couple mats for more traction on the hardwood but am wondering if I should be letting them just “chase it out” or if I should continue stopping him after a lap or two, the female seems so scared. We have been trying to get them to approach each other quietly and friendly like (as the female will bolt if the male runs for her) I am worried it will break into a brawl again but is this the right approach, we sit them together and pet them and this goes well and they will more the more part ignore each other unless the female comes near him, I don’t want to be making it worse instead of better.

I have added a stuffed animal to their cage that I am rotating back and forth between the cages to see if this helps too.

Help

[LittlePuffyTail]

I would definitely start with putting some mats down.

Is there any humping going on? Or just the ignoring/chasing?   Is the bonding area a room your male has never spent any time in?

[MoveDiagonally]

I wouldn’t let them chase it out. Chasing isn’t so much about dominance, it’s mostly aggression. Too much chasing can escalate in to a serious fight.
For example:
I would squirt mine with a spray bottle when they started to chase each other. If I did it within a few seconds of the chasing starting it would break up quickly and they would stop. If I waited too long they zoned out and were mentally in “fight mode” the water didn’t phase them and at that point and I had to physically break up the confrontation.

Humping is alright, it’s how they establish dominance. If you notice the bunny being humped getting agitated gently push off the humper to try and avoid a confrontation. A successful humping can go a long way but a fight afterwards can set them back. Never let them hump backwards as it can result in injury.

Sometimes the lack of traction can cause them some stress which can be good during bonding. But if it’s more disruptive them helpful then mats might help.

Have you considered stress bonding at all? It’s very helpful tool during bonding that can help when rabbits are aggressive. It helps them see the other rabbit as a source of comfort and curbs aggression so they can spend time together when they would otherwise fight. Here are some stress bonding methods:

A car ride. You need two people for this. One person to monitor the bunnies and the other person to drive. You put them in a box together and drive around for a while. This should stress them out and cause them to look to each other for comfort.

A box/small container/laundry basket: You put the bunnies in the container together. You can drag it around the house, jostle it, put it on the washer/dryer/etc… to induce stress. Loud noises/music can help too.

Avoid ending sessions when they fight. If they fight, stress bond them, even if you’re not stress bonding during most of a session. Separating them when they fight can encourage more aggression. It teaches them that fighting/violence is how they get what they want (the other bunny away from them).

I recently bonded a trio and I kept up a thread about it. If you want to take a look and see some of the methods/etc… I used I have pictures and some videos over there.

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tab…fault.aspx

[MoveDiagonally]

I also wanted to mention,another member here, TanLover, has 5 bonded rabbits. She has a blog with many bonding tips here:
http://www.wheekwheekthump.com/category/bonding/

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