Should I bond my spayed female rabbit with my new intact male bunny?

[Happybunnies]

 
<p class=”p1″>I have had my female rabbit for about 4 years and not long ago got another bunny who is male to be her friend. The male bunny is not neutered yet, but will be later this month. I keep their cages side by side with a little space in between so they can’t bite. They do go look at each other and sniff through the cage. I have a playpen set up which I put them together in and go in myself to supervise them. I don’t let them spend more than 30 minutes together with myself right there to supervise. My male rabbit does not usually try humping my female rabbit (the occasional time he does I stop him, but that has very rarely happened). In the playpen my female rabbit tries to fight him, but I stop her instantly. When they are in the playpen together my female usually looks scared of him. She usually sits in one place and doesn’t move, and is breathing very fast. She seems scared whenever I put them together in the playpen. My male rabbit plays and moves around the playpen when they are in there together, sometimes he goes to see my female rabbit, but when he gets close is usually when she tries to fight him. Sometimes they do go and sit face to face and stay there nicely for a while, but there are still times where my female rabbit tries to fight. I am wondering if I should wait until a month after my male rabbit has been neutered to try bonding them?</p>

[HipHopBunny]

I would definitely wait until he is neutered, for right now hormones will make it impossible to bond, and all the progress that you make will vanish as soon as he’s neutered, unfortunately. Waiting a few weeks after that even is a good idea too. For, after they are fixed, hormones will still be “floating around”, so it’s always good to wait for those to drain out. 🙂

For when you do start bonding, some of my recommendations would be to do a bit more pre-bonding (cage, litter box, and toy swaps) seeing as your female rabbit is a little scared of him currently, and having a bit more time to get used to his scent may help. 🙂 I’m thinking that the playpen can also work for a semi-neutral territory once you’ve finished in neutral, for when you start bonding sessions. 🙂

Seems to me as though you’ll have an easy bond once the female figures out that he isn’t a threat. 😉 It’s a good thing that you also have their pens next to each other too, that helps a lot when bonding! 😉 You’ll have to send us lots of pictures of them snuggling once they’ve bonded! 😉

 

[DanaNM]

You should definitely wait. 🙂

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Hazel]

Agreed, you should wait until a month post his neuter to let his hormones level out. Also, as HipHop said, doing a couple of weeks of prebonding is an important step and should not be skipped.

[Kitty and the Buns]

You can attempt… it’s a lot of work though. I think I was only lucky because my spayed flemmie has a generally good tempermant. After multiple sessions of car bonding, they finally got along. Very risky and LOTS of supervision or working around stuff.

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