Rabbit is very distance after being in boarding

[BunBun260]

I took both of my rabbits to a boarding place, they were there for 6 days. They had good reviews and were really nice. Well when I picked up my rabbits yesterday they were both acting funny. Their hay feeder too was low, which had me freaked out. My male rabbit was off all day yesterday, he seemed almost sad. He is back to his normal self today.

However, my female rabbit is very distance. She is usually very sweet and loving, loves for me to pet and hold her. When I bought her back home, all she wanted to do was stay in the corner of her cage. I gave her some distance for a bit. Not wanting to stress her out, but today she has been even more distance. I went to pick her up to give her exercise time, and she made this hiccup sounds. She then tried to nip me. Fast forward to now, I went to pet her and she made a grunt sound and try to bite me.

She is still eating normal, playing normal, and pooping normal. Just to add too, her diet just change because of the romaine issue, she seemed grumpy about not getting romaine anymore.

Both my bunnies are not yet bonded, and after strict instructions of not putting them out together, I’m 100% positive they did. My male bunny had three bite marks on him, and she had tons of fur pulled out with one bite mark.

I don’t know if she is freaked out from that, or freaked out from the place, or mad at me. If someone could give me advice that would be great. I want her to go back to her normal self. I’m just a worried bunny mom!

[Bunny House]

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Sadly many places that board animals (even vets) can be very abusive to the animals. I shadowed at vets where the techs were so mean to them and I was totally freaked out. Many places often don’t spend time with the animals, they just feed them and leave, due to having to care for many animals. Are the buns both fixed? Do you know if the people there knew about bunnies at all, like with general health issues or just in general? Just so it can take a worry off of you not having to freak out over an accidental litter.
You can always talk to the place and ask them exactly what they did to the buns everyday since they are not acting normal. If a bunny doesn’t have interactions for a couple of days, they can become distant. I would suggest to sit on the floor with each one and do the bonding steps with them all over again. Let them sniff you and see that you’re not a threat and even have some treats and let them eat them from your hand.

[BunBun260]

Both my bunnies are fixed. They have been going through the bonding process for two weeks before I went on vacation. They were supposed to be serperated the entire time they were there. I did try talking to the place but they kept swearing they followed my printed instructions step by step. They kept just wanting to blame the bunnies, saying they might be stressed.

She is doing better today. She is letting me pet her again, but she still is sticking to the corner of the cage and her eyes widened a bit when my hand gets near. I been feeding her treats from my hand, and she takes them. I just feel horrible. When I first got her, the humane society did not treat her right either. She was underweight, and scared of human touch. I had finally broken her of that before the trip, she actually had started grooming me. So it breaks my heart seeing her like this all over again but worse. She never try biting me when I first got her.

The place claimed they are expert on bunnies, two staff memebers there said they had bunnies in the past, and were “experts”. I had also asked them before their stay, if they boarded bunnies before, and they said they did.

Thank you for the advice, I never knew that most boarding places treat animals badly. I think next time I will find a friend who will watch them.

[Bunny House]

Maybe they had a bad employee who was mean to them and so they got scared being there without you. I hope she will come around back to how she was before. I know how it is to break a bunny of being scared of you and then something happens and you have to start back over.

And see if the friend can go to your place to check on them since the buns will be more comfortable in their house than someone else’s.

[Sofia]

God you could sue for something like this especially since putting two unbonded bunnies together is very often fatal. I wish you the best of luck with rebonding with your buns I’m doing it too, just remember to not get too frustrated!

[Author]

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