Pre-bonding 2 male buns

[Bam]

Well, long story swh shorter: I have one house rabbit, Bam, neutered in Jan 2013. He’s been with me 1,5 years, was adult when he came here. A month ago I found another male bun, Yohio, who’s been living outdoors in Bam’s outdoors summer hutch/run. Yohio was neutered yesterday and I brought him home and put him in an indoors cage because that’s what the vet recommended, and he’s to stay indoorsfor a couple of days.

My plan is to try and bond these two buns once Yohios hormones have died down. I haven’t made any attempt to even let the two rabbits look at one another, they are in separate rooms, because I don’t want to risk any pre-bonding hostility between them. But since rabbits have excellent sense of smell I guess they’ve picked up on each others existence, that would be inevitable.

Well now to my question: Is it a good or a bad idea to let Bam spend some time in the outdoors hutch/run while Yohio is indoors? The outdoors hutch/run must smell pretty intensely of Yohio now since he’s been there for a month. He’s been good with his litter-box though so there’s no evidence of any urine-spraying and no droppings in the hutch and only a few in the run. Even if I clean the place thoroughly I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be enough molecules of scent left to tell Bam there’s been another male bun there.

I can easily just let Bam stay indoors and wait, but if there are any pre-bonding advantages to be had from Bam now spending time in Yohios “home” getting aquainted with his smell (the smell of unneutered male bunny), I can take Bam out today and let him spend a few hours in the hutch/run, the weather is excellent.

Yohio is vaccinated and seems very well healthwise, the vet thought so too and he’s done well with the neuter, started to eat the minute I brought him home, so I’m nolonger as afraid of possible diseases or parasites being transferred from Y to B.

 

Hope I’ve managed to express myself in an understandable way! I’m thankful for all your thoughts on this.

[RabbitPam]

I wouldn’t put Bam into that space. However, it’s a good idea, and you might try using surrogate bunnies right now. You get 2 small stuffed toy bunnies (not stuffed with beans, however) and put one in each habitat. Then after a few days, switch them around. The toy will get the scent of each on it, and they will smell it on the new toy. It’s a good way for them to learn about each other, and take out any initial aggression on the toys instead of each other as well. You can do this for a couple of weeks until they’re ready to meet.

[Bam]

Great! Thank you! I have one stuffed toy rabbit and I will get another one tomorrow and do as you suggest.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I like RabbitPam’s idea. Just a caution, though, to keep a close eye to make sure the bunnies are not chewing/eating the stuffies.

[Bam]

Both bunnies has and have had stuffies without chewing/eating on them, but neither of them has taken much interest in their stuffed toys, to be honest. I gave a stuffie rabbit to Bam and he ignored it and the dog adopted it. Then when Yohio came along I machine-washed it and gave it to him, and after sniffing it, he lost interest completely. But I’m looking forward to this new experiment, how they will react when I swop their bunnies.

This is really rather an interesting project!

[Bam]

Update: Just now I swopped their stuffed bunnies.

Yohio (new rabbit) was interested, sniffed the stuffed bunny, then put his chin on the ground and let stuffed bunny “dominate” him with his chin (I was puppet-master, of course), then flopped with his head in the stuffed bunny’s lap. (The stuffed bunnies are made in a sitting position.)

Bam (old rabbit) was interested, started almost at once to chin the stuffed bunny’s ears. Then licked its feet. Then went away. Now he’s come back to lie down next to stuffed bunny.

No signs of aggression. Some wariness on Yohio’s part, but then he is wary of just about anything being new to this house and recently neutered and all.

[LittlePuffyTail]

Awww…that sounds so cute.

[kcomstoc]

 Any updates? I’m very interested to see what happened after that. It seemed like everything would go right for the next step

[Bam]

There hasn’t been a next step yet. I’ve swopped the stuffies once more. Bam pees outside his box, on his rag-rug and scatters poop on it. I guess it has to do with the scent of another bunny in his home. I have an incling he could become a nasty, vicious bunny towards Yohio.

It’s been 10 days since Yohio’s neuter. I won’t be introducing them to each other until a month has passed, since that’s what’s recommended here in the bonding-info.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do as a next pre-bonding step, I’d be grateful.

[Deleted User]

Bam, since I am very ignorant of bonding in general I am reluctant to offer suggestions, however, I believe you are safe to proceed. As far as I understood it the suggestion to wait a month after neutering is meant for bonding a male/female pair. Since pregnancy is not something you have to worry about I’d think you could begin a bit sooner if you feel comfortable doing so.

Is there anyway for them to start to live where they can see and smell each other most of (or all of) the time? I’d think that might help them adjust but from your descriptions of your set up i wonder if this is a possibility?

Good luck and I too am interested in your progress, pleas do keep sharing updates.

[Bam]

I could open the bathroom door and put a grid in front. Or I could put Yohio in the cage and put it on the hallway floor. But I thought perhaps Bam would react with less hostility if new male didn’t smell so manly as he must still be doing.

 

Well, I decided to give it a try, so I opened the bathroom door and put the cage in front of it so the bunnies could make visual and olfactory and auditive (?) contact.

Then I waited.

Then absolutely nothing happened except for Yohio checking the cage out. Then he went and lay down on his fluffy rug, with his stuffed bunny beside him.

Now I’m going to spinning-class so I’ve closed the bathroom door again.

 

[Deleted User]

Sounds like something worth trying, … good luck when you are able to do it for longer. I’m really and truly no expert but I’d think their not being really excited when they could see/smell/hear each other is probably on the positive side.

I’ll be getting the loan of a spinning wheel in a month or so, … wish I could attend class! Hope it went well.

[Bam]

Today I put the opened cage between the hallway and the living-room and let Yohio out in the hallway. Bam was immediately interested and came to check yohio out. Yohio was interested as well. They went to sniff each other, then Yohio lunged like he tried to bite and claw through the grid of the cage. I sprayed water on him. It made him stop and clean his face and then hop (rather slowly, absolutely not in panic) back to his bathroom-home. I closed the door on him.

Bam hadn’t moved away, so I let him into the hallway. He’s now doing some serious investigation of the cage. 
  
Here’s a pic of the set-up. The cage is only in use when I’m using the shower. This is from their second session today. No aggression this time as yet.

[Bam]

Update:
Just now Yohio managed to jump into the living-room where Bam is (and I). Uh-uh, I thought and rose from my chair, prepared to separate them with my hands and arms or whole body if need be. But there wasn’t a fight, Bam just started to hump Yohio right away. First from behind, then from the front. Then from the behind again, then they sniffed each others faces for a second, then humpeti-hump again. They moved very quickly around in 180-degree turns, Bam all the time trying to to get on Yohio’s back and hump him. Yohio didn’t seem pissed off. So I didn’t touch them because you’re not supposed to intervene unless there’s fighting.

Then Yohio jumped out into the hallway again and I took him and put him in the bathroom. It was just seconds but I feel it went kind of well, what do you guys think? Of course I’ll make sure he can’t jump over the barrier again.

[LittlePuffyTail]

The fact that there was no aggression or fighting is definitely a good sign. Yohio must be pretty easy going to not get angry with all that humping.

Make sure to never let bunny hump backwards (as in on the head) because serious damage can be done to his little bunny man part if the humpee decides to bite.

[Bam]

Goodness, I never thought of that about the man-part =/ I’ll try to make sure there is no backwards humping.

Yohio lets his toy-bunny dominate him. He’s not scattered poop around like Bam has these last few days. He seems rather a lot younger than Bam. But if Bam keeps it up I guess Y could lose his patience.

Maybe I should take them on a car-ride tomorrow or start a proper introduction on neutral grounds. Or is it too soon? What do you think?

[Author]

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