opinions needed plz

[rosalie68]

im going to get a girl bunny from a rescue while im in michigan. she is spayed and is about 7 months old. i am going to bond her to my 2 males to make a trio.  then i thought, maybe it would be better to bond 2 girls to my 2 boys so theres not one bunny left out.  i do understand that my boys may not accept another bunny and i could end up housing bunnies seperately.  the other girl that i have been looking at is about 5 yrs old and spayed. she had been bonded in a trio with 2 males but both of them have passed away.  they said out of all 3, she was the dominant bunny.  out of my 2, charlie is dominant and jack is submissive. charlie hasnt been aggressive in being dominant over jack so im not sure how dominant he would be to another bunny.  anyways, what i was wondering is, would it be better to introduce all 4 of them (2 new bunnies) or get just 1 girl now and maybe try for another girl later on?  would introducing 1 girl to both of my boths be better than introducing 2? would they feel like they had to fight over the girl since it would be an odd number? i know this could go any kind of way, but i just wonder what everyones thoughts are on it. i also dont want to split up jack and charlie.  it was suggested that i should just get a girl for each of them but i dont want them to be apart. they love each other. i also dont want to get a seperate already bonded pair of a boy and girl. my over all goal is to bond all 4 rabbits together if i can.  i also cant decide out of the girls which one i want more. julia is all black and they feel like she will be there a long time bc they have such a hard time adopting black bunnies out. francesca is 5 yrs old and has been in the shelter most of that time. she has went into foster care when her mates were sick so they wouldnt be split up but she has never been adopted all this time. she is also the rare bunny that climbs in your lap to be pet and actually snuggles. please let me know what u think.

 

kim

 

ETA:   anyone know how much petzy charges to bond bunnies. i saw that she bonded 4 males for her friend. and who has the quartet? is that petzy too?

[mrmac]

Are you set on having 4? I have a trio of two submissive males and one dominant female. The fact that it is two females may make the bonding harder, but you really won’t know until you see how they work together. Is there a way that you can bunny date Jack and Charlie with each of the girls, or both girls?

Yes Petzy is the master bunny bonder! She has a quartett of her own.

[jerseygirl]

My own thoughts on this are; don’t break the bond between the boys. If you split them then try bond one or the other with the new bun and neither take to this bond, then you are just left with 3 unbonded rabbits. It’s not good to split a bond from what I’ve heard. So I think introduce 1 new bun to your pair then look at adding to your trio (hopefully) after that. The thing with bring 2 new females in at the same time is you have to not only bond each one to your males but also bond the Does to each other. Female to female bonds can be tricky – but not impossible.

However…lol….if your heart is set on these 2 girls, you could bring them home from this trip provided you’re ok with housing them separately until you bring each into the group. Or, if they won’t bond to your pair, then permanently housing one (or both) separately.  I hope I’m making sense! I don’t think you need be concerned about a bunny being left out in a trio though.

So I guess I’m saying, if you want and can give both these girls a home – then go for it!  You can try for a quartett in time or a boy/boy pair and girl/girl pair.  All of which would be great.  Or you may end up with 1 pair and 2 single gals…& so be it.  They can be happy this way too.

[Karla]

Posted By rosalie68 on 01/26/2010 09:09 PM

im going to get a girl bunny from a rescue while im in michigan. she is spayed and is about 7 months old. i am going to bond her to my 2 males to make a trio.  then i thought, maybe it would be better to bond 2 girls to my 2 boys so theres not one bunny left out. 

First of all, don’t worry about one feeling left out. I have a trio (2 males, 1 female), and it is working just fine. Sometimes they all snuggle together, other times it is just two of them snuggling and the third one sleeping close by – but it is never just the same two that snuggle. That completely changes from hour to hour depending on their mood.

the other girl that i have been looking at is about 5 yrs old and spayed. she had been bonded in a trio with 2 males but both of them have passed away.  they said out of all 3, she was the dominant bunny.  out of my 2, charlie is dominant and jack is submissive. charlie hasnt been aggressive in being dominant over jack so im not sure how dominant he would be to another bunny.  ;

Same situation here. Prepare for some work with the two dominant ones, but in my case it only took 2-3 days.

anyways, what i was wondering is, would it be better to introduce all 4 of them (2 new bunnies) or get just 1 girl now and maybe try for another girl later on?  would introducing 1 girl to both of my boths be better than introducing 2? would they feel like they had to fight over the girl since it would be an odd number?

Prepare for poop war if you go all in and bringe home two new bunnies at once It will require more work on your part, but it is not impossible. I do advice you though to consider the stress the dominant bunny may feel assuming it is territorial and suddenly feel that two new bunnies are entering its territory at once. But it is difficult to say. You really cannot tell how it works, before you have tried. But no, the males will not feel that they have to fight over the girl…I assume they are fixed anyway, so they don’t have that urge at all to reproduce.

i also cant decide out of the girls which one i want more. julia is all black and they feel like she will be there a long time bc they have such a hard time adopting black bunnies out. francesca is 5 yrs old and has been in the shelter most of that time. she has went into foster care when her mates were sick so they wouldnt be split up but she has never been adopted all this time. she is also the rare bunny that climbs in your lap to be pet and actually snuggles. please let me know what u think.

 

I understand…I wouldn’t be able to choose either. You feel you are letting one down by picking the other . Why not try a date and see how it works. It may be easier if the bunnies make the decision and not just you. And if you are up for it, then get both girls…and then take the time, it will require to do the bonding. No rush. Best of luck! Keep us posted!

[Deleted User]

Most importantly you want to make up your mind first about what you would really like for yourself. Do you want a quartet of rabbits? Do you feel you must save those two females? Or, do you feel sorry for your males not having their own lady bun each?

The best way to go about bonding multiples is by introducing each rabbit to each rabbit, one by one. This can mean countless sessions and repeats. The more rabbits are involved the longer it will generally take. Dominance roles shift in different groups of rabbits so there is no way of predicting which rabbit will play boss. Presenting the two new female rabbits at the same time is a bad idea. It may confuse and overwhelm your males, causing a difficult and lengthy bonding phase. Plus, you would first have to bond the girls to do that. If you were to adopt both female rabbits, you would best ‘hide’ one of them for a while from the others. This will make bonding the hidden female harder, though, as she would have already resided in the same home with the others. Females are bonded easiest right when they first join a household, provided they have been spayed a month prior to moving in.

Francesca has the advantage of being mature and probably very lonely. Julia, being a young rabbit will have an element of surprise to her, she may be shy in the beginning for example but later try to take charge.

Rescues routinely recommend bonding just into pairs because bonding groups is more involved. This doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Where do you live?

[rosalie68]

petzy i live in iowa. im getting the bunnies from michigan. i want the girls more to save them. i feel like my boys would be fine with or without them. i just thought in the end it would be easier to have them all bonded. if they wont bond im ok with that and i have lots of room if they need to be separate. so, if i got both females, would it be better then to keep them both in a separate place in the house from the males and work on bonding them first? and then after the girls are bonded, then try to introduce them one by one to the boys? i have an upstairs and a basement that my boys have never been in so i could keep the girls there. our basement is finished and is like another living room/family room. the girls are spayed (francesca for a few years and julia prob 2 months ago. she came to the shelter after she healed from her spay in dec.) and the boys are newly neutered (about a week ago). oh, and i wanted to ask, would i start introducing the girls during my trip? we have a 500 mile drive and i will be in a hotel for about 4 days. lots of neutral territory and car rides.

the people that work at the shelter were very surprised that my males were bonded and they dont think males or females can bond unless they are from the same litter or in rare circumstances. i do understand that if they bond it wont be over night or even in a week but i do have lots of time and patience. im not working right now and only going to school 2 days a week. during the summer i wont be in school. i think if im going to do this then now is the time.

i really appreciate the support from u guys. i will probably be bothering all of you a lot next week!!
thanks!

kim

[Deleted User]

Kim, that sounds really good to me. Start bonding the females on the trip. Who knows, maybe you will have an instant bond, I am rooting for you! The boys still need to wait out their required time, 3 weeks more, to let their hormones dissipate from their recent neuters. I’m glad to hear you have time and space. These two things will really make it happen for you to bond them all. Not all rescues are well-versed in the bonding department. Hopefully, over time this will change with more interest in house rabbits.

[rosalie68]

ok, so i will start bonding the girls when i get them. then i will hide them in another part of my house from my boys when i bring them home until they are bonded and for atleast a month so the boys hormones can die down.

i saw the journal that you had for your friends’ 4 boys that u bonded, do u have one for your 4? did u start off with a pair or 2 pairs? i would love to read about it.

thanks!!

kim

[Deleted User]

My friend’s quartet was similar to your situation with the exception of being all-male. But since Julia and Francesca  are going to be the new ones this will not make a difference.

I was under time constraint when I bonded my friends’ because I used my patio for the sessions and the cold season was approaching. In retrospect I would have had an easier time had I bonded the two new males with each other to start rather than introducing them to the existing pair first. The two new males absolutely strongly resented one another. It took 8 weeks of several daily sessions just to get them to stop fighting.

I got my own rabbits one by one. I had Lint for a while, then I got Mops. I had them separate until Lint’s neuter and then made a pair of them. I got Deirdra, my only female, and bonded them into a trio. I made a journal of their trio sessions here

https://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/a…fault.aspx

Then I added Neigey recently and it was a quartet.

I can go through my videos and post a journal for you of Neigey’s bonding to my trio, the highlights.

[rosalie68]

thank so much!!! i appreciate this sooooo much!!! i feel a lot more confident now.

kim

[Beka27]

My thought would be to start out with the three and see how it goes. Don’t rush into anything. 4 bunnies are a lot.

[Deleted User]

Yes, 4 rabbits are a lot indeed. Especially when it comes to poowars and hay storage.

[jerseygirl]

Posted By Petzy on 01/27/2010 11:27 AM

 Females are bonded easiest right when they first join a household, provided they have been spayed a month prior to moving
 

Petzy, I’m interested to know more on this. Is this something to do with females becoming territorial?

[Deleted User]

Yes, even laid-back females many times turn on another rabbit in a defense of their turf. A friend of mine is bonding two females right now that have been living in her household separately for a while. It is a daunting task. To play it safe one could always hold sessions involving a resident female in a garage or at a friend’s house. Neutral territory is never as important as it is when bringing home a new rabbit to a female, like you did with Rumball and Jersey.

[MirBear]

i know it is advised not to but is it at all possible to bond to unaltered bunnies??? Hershey and kisses lived in the same hutch only with a devider to seperate them for almost half a year… they were always beside each other and we NEVER had a problem….
 

Neither were altered and hershey still isnt and Twix isnt either

[Deleted User]

were they littermates?
I bet if you had removed the divider you would have seen a different side to them.

[Sarita]

No, you don’t want to bond unaltered rabbits ever. I understand that you don’t even know the sex of your new rabbit.

[jerseygirl]

Posted By Petzy on 01/31/2010 11:33 AM
I bet if you had removed the divider you would have seen a different side to them.

I agree. They likely felt safe they each had their own defined territory, take away the barrier and fur may have flew.  Pre bonding, it’s suggested to pen rabbits side by side and swap pens also. The rabbits will often lie next to each other at the divider.  When starting bonding they might even have “flop wars” where they demonstrate to one another “I’m more relaxed than you” Sort of saying – I’m not threatened by you.

Some may even groom each other thru the divider (or bite or try mate!!) but once it’s taken away and their territory is vulnerable, attitudes change.

 

[MirBear]

sarita we got her checked it is a female
hershey and kisses were not littermates…
and we had hershey and kisses out at the same time.. they were fine together.

[jerseygirl]

Another member has 2 unspayed females that seem ok together when out (they’re not penned together though). Though she doesn’t know if they were spayed before she got them. It’s just usually advised rabbits are fixed before living together 24/7. Rules out any issues that may arise due to hormones like false pregnancies.

[Author]

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