pre-bonding tips / advice?

[babybunsmum]

so i’m thinking it’s worth a try to bond pinky & baby bun.  i know it’s best to do this after pinky is spayed but does this mean i should keep them seperated at all costs?   i seem to lose my practical senses when i’m caught up in bunny cuteness. 

both buns seem interested in the other (posturing-wise) and not frightened or overly aggressive… i think.  their first meeting (i also mentioned this in my post in the lounge) happened unintentionally when i had pinky in the living room to meet a couple of my friends and baby showed up.  i had thought the voices of my friends would keep her in her room per usual & i hadn’t baby-gated her in.  they ignored each other for a minute or 2, then sniffed nose to nose, then more ignoring, more sniffing & then a short bit of circling (seconds… i was reaching to break it up) followed by baby getting humped by pinky.  i decided to watch (haha-to try to let them sort dominance of course!) but broke it up when pinky started nipping baby’s back. 

so then today i let pinky out of her enclosure in her room for photo ops & baby showed up so i caught the encounter on video.  i think pinky was trying to mount her again but only managed to nip her above her tail.  that, of course was when i started with the “hey… hey… hey…”  lol.

what do you make of it? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vYiOXAvxO8

the pics below are of the 2 fuzzy gals moments after.  baby is peeking into pinky’s room (her bedroom door is the one in the top left corner with the curtain dog barracade) and pinky is stretched out like a queen.

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[BinkyBunny]

That “hey, hey, hey..!!” sounds like my old bonding times.

It’s hard to tell what Baby is thinking because I can’t read her ears, but her tail wasn’t up, so it looked like plain curiosity. Pinky at first looked concerned, a bit scared, but not horribly aggressive – her ears were forward in full attention, and I thought I caught her tail slightly up which can be both agression and/or a dominance sign. The fact that her ears weren’t back flat is good though, but with the mix of the ears and the tail it looked more like “on guard”, letting Baby know she’s not playing around. I also noticed Pinky asked Baby to groom her, but Baby did not oblige which may have also put Pinky further on guard. The good thing is that Pinky did not attack her right then and there, especially being that Baby is in her territory.

Pinky was tense, and when Baby just lightly sniffed Pinky’s thigh, an already tense Pinky probably thought Baby was trying to pull a dominance move – and well Pinky, already nervous, was quick to react to the slightest touch. It is obvious Pinky is going to try and become the dominant one – at least so far. I mean things can really turn around after surgery – you’d want to wait a few weeks after surgery for the hormones to die down.

If I were you, I would wait again until after a few weeks after the spay, because if they do get into a fight, it makes it harder for them to bond later. Also, be sure to bond them in a neutral territory. Even spayed/neutered bunnies will be territorial of their own space.

In the meantime, you can see how they react to each other via the baby gate – they can see and smell each other through that to get used to each other.  (as long as they can’t bite each other)  But if you see it causes stress or aggression through the fencing then you’d want to keep them completely separate as they will only just reinforce aggressive behaviors.

[babybunsmum]

wow thanks so much binky bunny!  i have lots to learn about interpreting bunny posturing and would never have seen all of that.  i’m going to re-watch the clip to get a better feel for what you’re talking about.  thank goodness for videos!  i will definitely NOT let them bump into eachother again since the first meeting lead to humping & this one to a chase… seems like it’ll escalate to a bad situation that may be hard to recover from like you say. 

with the current set-up when baby is out they cannot be nose to nose thru the babygate, as pinky is in her enclosure in her room.  but as i start letting pinky explore more i will have to think of a way to ‘double gate’ baby in her room to prevent any nose to nose thru the babygate encounters.  and i need an xpen or something to block off the couch thats in pinky’s room.  it took her less than 30 seconds of free roam in her room to discover that she can tunnel behind it & rip at the fabric behind!

i am going to book an exam at my vet’s this week and get her in for a spay asap. waiting for the appointment & for her to recover & settle in will give me proper time to research bonding more before i officially take a swing at it with my lovely’s.  pinky’s such a big girl & already i see those hormones at work!  just wait until she’s fully comfortable in her new home!  yesterday when i picked her up (i’m practising this once a day so we get the hang of eachother) she wriggled & kicked and some how i ended up with a big gash behind my left ear.  yes thats right.  my ear!  lol. 

[Spacehopper]

Introduce the smell of each other gradually, especially with the added trauma of an op for one bunny, you don’t want to add any further stresses. Slowly slowly catchy monkey or whatever the hell it is. lol I’ve posted about bonding my 2 on here somewhere, and all i can say is patience. Your little treasures may surprise you!! 🙂

[MimzMum]

OUCH! Poor Baby, she took a sniff at the wrong end didn’t she? 0_o Man, this makes me even more nervous about bonding my daughter’s bun and mine! (One half-lionhead and one Thuringer…about the same size/weight difference. However I think it’s Mimzy who’ll be the aggressor, he was here first.)
Luckily, Pip was a pet store bunny, she deals better with other buns in her space, noise and people walking by…but Mim is very skittish because he was abandoned.
Pinky definitely knows where her ‘turf’ is and obviously likes it that way. But I’ll bet the spay will make a big difference.

Sending good wishes for successful surgery and bonding. Please keep us updated! ^^

[MarkBun]

I think that as far as bonding is concerned, you two gals are off to a good start. Bonding two females is perhaps the trickiest of the bonding of two buns and all things being equal, they’re rather polite to one another. My guess is that after the surgery is done, Pinky will probably calm down a bit and things will go better. I’d probably not let them together again though as mentioned that they could develop a dislike for each other that’s hard to overcome later.

Now, if I could only get Maryann to groom Dono just once. I think it’s time to give him a banana shampoo…

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Banana shampoo? Tell more!?!

[babybunsmum]

haha… banana shampoo.  i tried peanut butter shampoo on baby’s head to try to get bogart to groom her (she kept asking him for grooms & was gettin nothing in return) but it didn’t work.  bogart doesn’t like to eat food ON baby he just likes to eat what comes OUT OF her butt.  eww.  ::shudders::

so an update on pinky… we went to the vet today for a checkup & she’s oficially a girl and is 8 lbs!  which is a little too heavy so she needs to loose 1 lb.  the poor poor dear was so terribly scared.  my vet doesn’t want to spay her until she’s more settled in here at home and until i get her more comfortable with a bit of handling.  but i was just relieved that my vet was all for spaying her.  i guess her receptionist, who mentioned they don’t recommend spaying rabbits, was mistaken.  phew.  they had me worried for a bit there because its really important to me to get her spayed.  anyways… the vet said she likes to spay before buns are a year old since after that they tend to develope more fat around their ‘area’ (my word… not hers.  haha) which makes it a little tougher to spay.  pinky may be near a year old by the time she settles down enough but she said it was much more important that she’s more comfortable with handling first. 

so we’re going to spend lots of time together and i’ll work on massaging her & picking her up once a day.  because she’s a thumper she has the beginnings of sore hocks   and so i have to get her comfortable enough with me to be able to check them.  they’re just reddish enough right now to indicate a concern, so the vet recommended that i provide nice & soft bedding and keep an eye on that they do not get moist or start to looked worse or bleed.  she was worried if she gave me cream for it that the application of the cream would stress her out & instigate more thumping thus perpetuating the problem, so we’re trying to get her thumping less first.  she thumped the first day a few times & maybe only once or twice since then.  but i did hear her thumping at the shelter several times during each of my visits, so i think she just may be a nervous nellie and in need of a couple of months of calm & stability.

question about sore hocks… what’s a nice soft bedding to use?  right now 2 of her condo levels are floored with 1/4″ thick chloroplast and her litter (where she spends 1/2 her time) is a plastic container with yesterdays news & hay.  any suggestions on how to make it softer?  or is this considered soft enough?  thanks

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I give mine dog and cat beds…They are sort of padded…I’m actually off to the fabric store to pick up supplies on friday to make a few extras, that way I can wash them and not rush them back into the cage. They are sort of fake sheepskin type stuff sewn around a foam pad. Kokanee usually prefers the floor, but Kahlua and Rupert sleep on the beds!

[MarkBun]

Posted By Kokaneeandkahlua on 02/13/2008 10:12 AM
Banana shampoo? Tell more!?!

Yeah, I just meant smearing Dono’s head with banana so that maryann will lick it off. Though for some reason, I think she’d rather try to bite it off instead.

[babybunsmum]

Posted By markusdark on 02/13/2008 3:51 PM

Posted By Kokaneeandkahlua on 02/13/2008 10:12 AM
Banana shampoo? Tell more!?!

Yeah, I just meant smearing Dono’s head with banana so that maryann will lick it off. Though for some reason, I think she’d rather try to bite it off instead.

so she’d see it more as some banana schmeared on a furry cracker?

[skunklionshow]

I LOVED the video!  I like how the camera kinda disappeared and then you see your hand on Pinky.  Binky Rocks!  I didn’t pick up much of any of that…..

The forum recommended the towel/animal scent swap and that really worked for me.  I kept a blanky in each cage and then switched the blankets to the opposite bunny cage.  I did this over a week to get them used to each other’s scent.  The bond went really well.  A stuffed animal or stunt bunny was also recommended as the scent swapper, but the blanket worked very well for me.  Good Luck!

[BinkyBunny]

Wow, that’s a first. I’ve never heard of a vet delaying spaying until a bunny is used to being handled. If they waited for that around here, none of the rescues would have spayed/neutered bunnies. I mean most bunnies are stressed out by the vets office, but ultimately they will be sedating her so…. not sure i understand the vet’s reasoning totally.

RE Bedding: Try Faux sheepskin or soft fleese, etc.

Sore hocks: Sore hocks can also happen if nails are left too long, and the bunny is forced to sit back more on the heels because of the length of nails. My guess is because she’s hard to handle, it’s not so easy to do her nails – when was the last time they were trimmed? Could they be too long?

[babybunsmum]

thats a good point binky bunny… i peaked at them for the first time during her exam yesterday & they could stand a tip clipped off and are not too too long.  i don’t know when the shelter clipped her last.  since yesterday, i’ve been wondering a bit about the vet’s decision too actually.  i think she may be generalizing rabbit behavior a bit and i sort of defaulted to her observation instead of trusting my own.  pinky poked out of her carry case on the exam table and then went back in and gave a loud ‘thump!’ and the vet said ‘ohh she’s really frightened.’  and then she saw that her hocks were pretty bright pink, so i think she believes that pinky is actually more frightened here at home than she actually is.

my opinion is that she thumps because she has lots of ‘rabbitude’ and its more out of anger than fear.  i spent a long time with her last night giving her pets & massaging her & gently running my hands under her belly & front feet.  she was prodding me on for pets the whole time.  and she melted into the floor.  i stopped several times & she liberally groomed my hands & let me gently rub under her chin while grooming me.  then i stopped & pulled my hands out of her enclosure & just sat there & watched her.  she moved forward closer to sniff me, grunted, and then backed up & thumped!  i’m pretty sure she thumped because she was ticked that i stopped and not because she was scared in this case.  she has also thumped after a bout of jumping up & down from her litter level in a circle while doing  semi-head binkies.  i think this thumping is for punctuation?  can’t figure it out entirely.

my point… i think her red hocks are from thumping in the shelter where her floors were harder than the 1/4″ thick chloroplast flooring she has now, and where she had lots more disturbances to be miffed at.  i think if i give her a bit of time to let them get better i can go in with her & be more confident to explain her nature to the vet & tell her that she’s comfy at home.  my goal is to do this after 3 weeks as i’m pretty sure she’ll be good & settled by then.  of course i’ll take my cues from her but i think this is reasonable.

[babybunsmum]

oh and the bedding… i’m going to put a thick layer of newspaper under the yesterdays news to pad her litter box so i can throw it out when it gets icky.  i think anything else here would just get bunched up & moved out of the way anyways.  and i have fleece on her lounge level right now but i will goto pick up some fake sheepskin later & wrap it around another layer of chloroplast.

thanks for all the suggestions & input

[Beka27]

yeah… i’m really confused why the vet would want to wait.  i might be way off here, but i would think it would be easier for her to settle into the home after the surgery.  did you tell the vet you’re planning on trying to bond her to Baby?  will the vet absolutely not do it until later, or will she do it sooner if you asked?  if she says no way, i’d be seeking a second opinion.

[babybunsmum]

in hind-sight i think its quite possible that she would have been more convinced to go ahead if i had been a better advocate for pink’s behaviour at home.  i’ve been pretty critical of my own ability to read her posturing & so i sort of let the vet tell me how she was instead of following my gut.  which is okay really, because it just built my confidence level in this area.  it won’t hurt to let her settle in a bit and then i’ll call and tell her that pinky’s doing fine.  if she has any objections at that point i’ll definitely try another vet.  i’m not too far from guelph’s ontario vet college and i wouldn’t object to travelling there if neccessary.

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