New intro….

[Deb~]

Hi all…..my name is Deb.  My family and I have 4 house rabbits, all Holland Lops.  Eva, Sadie, Cole, and Slush.   I’ve been lurking lately here and this is a fantastic site………so much information that has already helped us.

But I do have a problem………Eva, Cole and Slush all run the house during the day and spend the nights in their cages, Sadie on the other hand will NOT come out of her cage to join the rest.  Sadie does NOT like to be picked up, petted or played with.  She doesn’t seem depressed or anything,  though, as she eats well, stretches out relaxed in her cage, and will even greet us in the morning as long as we don’t open her cage door.  Other wise, she backs herself up as far as she can to the very back of the cage and that’s where she stays until the door is closed.  She will lunge and bite at you if you try to pick her up, so we don’t.  She’s been this way since we got her (about 4 months ago with Eva and her sister, Sophie, who unfortunately passed away).  Sadie is my daughter’s bun and we are at our wits end with worry over her.  I feel terrible that she is in her cage all the time! 

(Also, all the buns have been spayed and neutered )

Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated (by the way, Sadie is the fawn colored bun in the first pic).

Thanks………………..Deb~

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[MooBunnay]

Hello Doswald – what great looking bunnies those are!  Thats so fun that you have so many bunnies together in your house – I’ve got 3 at the moment, but I can’t get all three to get along

It sounds like Sadie is just a bit scared, but I wouldn’t stress yourself out too much because it does sound like Sadie is very happy if she is stretching out and relaxing in her cage. 

A friend of mine works a lot with socializing animals (like cats, parrots, and rabbits) and she told me one of the best ways to get an animal to warm up to you is hand feeding.  When you give the bunnies their veggies, try having your daughter hand feed Sadies – if she’s nervous about Sadie biting her, she doesn’t have to push the veggies at the bunny, but just hold them upt o the cage, even feed her through the side of the cage. Also, you could cut up a baby carrot into a few peices and hand feed those – this will help the bunny associate people with happy feelings!

Also, it could help to spend some time just next to the pen – reading, or talking to Sadie, or just hanging out – without trying to pick her up or pet her. This will help her get used to you, and help her become more social.  Do this with the cage door open as well, so maybe Sadie will venture forward.  Is there a pen you could put up for Sadie? You could set it up for and hour or two each day right outside her door, then open the door into the pen, and that way she could feel more comfortable getting out of her cage to hop around.

Her lunging and biting definitely sounds cage territorial – its quite frequent that bunnies will protect their cage like its their burrow, and is not them lashing out at you, just them trying to defend their home.  When bunnies do this, it is best to get your hand on top of their head where they cannot bite you, and push it down gently, and pet their forehead.  This will help them calm down.

I hope Sadie starts to get less nervous around people – patience is the best thing for a nervous bunny! My boyfriend has a bunny with a very similar personality to Sadies, and he spent a lot of time laying on the floor next to his bunnies cage – now, he naps next to the bunnies cage, and the bunny comes over and grooms him!

[Gravehearted]

welcome Deb – what cutie buns you have!
I’d recommend the same things that Moobunnay has, i have found the laying on the floor method really works for me. it is hard to win over a scared bunny and can take time and effort. It’s hard to know what her past is – if she wasn’t handled enough as a baby or if she was hurt by someone. But with some time and patience, i really hope she’ll come around.

[BinkyBunny]

Welcome Doswald!! Any positve changes?

[Deb~]

No changes as of yet……..but I thank you guys for your input.  We had been doing basically what was suggested, I guess I just need a lesson in patience. 

 

Thanks again,

Deb~

[BinkyBunny]

I’ve had two bunnies that displayed aggressive behaviors when I adopted them.   Rucy’s was done out of a learned habit  to dominate that may have originally been based in fear, and Jack’s was definitely out of fear.  It took Rucy a few months to learn to box instead of bite, and it took Jack a few weeks to understand we weren’t going to hurt him.  And he never bites or boxes.

Rucy boxes now if she doesn’t like something, but she it’s just light and then she runs off.  She’s a spunky girl, but she now loves to be pet on her own terms, which is more and more often as she ages.

With Rucy I took more time to to sit by her cage, hang out with her, but not pay direct attention to her at first.  (ignoring is a sign of "I mean no harm" in bunny language).  I did wear gloves so that when the time would come where I would take the chance to reach out to her, if she bit, I wouldn’t pull away.  As that would just confirm her techniques of biting worked.   I also began feeding treats when I was around. 

With Jack, he was more social than Sadie, but he was frightened of hands so he would freak out when i reached to him.  So I learned to have a treat with me so each time he could associate hands with something good.   Well, it took three weeks, and became a love bug.

Sounds like with Sadie, especially because she hunches back in a corner,  that she is aggressive out of fear., so  it may help if every time you reach in to her space give her a treat (with a gloved hand if she bites) So she doesn’t get overloaded with treats, just normal portions into itsy bitsy pieces.

If she was more territorial and dominant type of aggressive, she may display these same behaviors with any of the other bunnies.  Does she do that.? I mean is she considered the top bun among them?

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