The Ladies… Radar and Jo

[Erbear]

Day 1:

They get along swimmingly in class… grooming… cuddling… nose to nose… never an agressive turn.  They’re both on Radar’s turf now and Jo is being very agressive.  Now, I’m wearing a bandaid.  Radar is a slapper who doesn’t bite and Jo is a biter who doesn’t warn.  I’m not even trying to do anything yet, their cages are just in the same room.    Between it all, I took Jo out to get some of the loose fur off of her and she fell asleep in my lap. 

I put Jo back and got Radar out of the room for a half hour or so and she fell asleep in my lap.  I then took Radar’s pooh bear toy and put it in Jo’s cage with a towel that Radar cuddles with.  I rubbed Jo’s fur all over a new stuffed bear and grabbed the blankie that she was with all day and it’s in Radar’s cage.  Radar went mental!  She was trying to decapitate the bear and then all of a sudden she started cleaning it and is now sleeping next to it on Jo’s towel.  Jo is in her cage cuddling with the Radar bear….. phew!  I think I need a drink!

I’m going to try to start the bonding stuff after a couple of days of Jo getting used to being here.  I don’t want to overwhelm her.  Jo did zoom around her cage and binky though… so I guess she likes her new digs.

[BinkyBunny]

Aw!! Sounds like it’s going in the right direction. The “stunt double” bear seemed to work well. That is not uncommon for them to attack it first, but then when they see the bear is passive , many settle down.

[Erbear]

So it’s been over a week now and they are not attacking the stunt doubles anymore. They’ve even been caught :::gasp:::: snuggling with them! There hasn’t been any late night fighting or shaking of the cages for nearly a week and they’ve been in the carrier together several times in the car. My only question is….

When they’re circling each other and biting, nipping butts…. is there supposed to be some ultimate end to that? Does one just go, “Yeah, you can mount me…” or is it normal for it to just go on and on and on and on…. until they get tired? They look like a mary-go-round, and then they rest for a few minutes and start over.

The only set back we had was after the first car ride when they were snuggling and radar turned to jo and jo bit radar’s nose which caused her to screech. I pulled them apart. I think it was more of a sensitive area and a surprise than anything because they’re not acting grumpy to each other anymore. I think it may have set some limits with Jo’s biting. Cause she doesn’t nip Radar so hard anymore.

[MooBunnay]

I’m glad to hear that they are no longer decapitating their stunt doubles Yes, the merry-go-round of butt nipping IS a bit annoying! I’m at that point right now with my bonding as well, but it is a good sign that they are able to do the merry-go-round without getting into a big fight. I think that will eventually end, but what it requires is for one to be able to establish dominance over the other one. From what I have observed, the circling occurs because one doesn’t want to be mounted, and so once a dominance is established, the mounting will be less as well as the circling.

It sounds like you are doing well so far – any more band-aids? My husband is always the one with the band-aids, he’s always the one that has to break up the fights!

[Erbear]

I wear gardening gloves…. for my safety. And so that I don’t swear too loudly for the neighbor kids to hear.

[MooBunnay]

hahaha – Brian (hubby) and I really pull out the swear words when the bunnies start fighting too I NEVER swear but there is something about two bunnies getting into a “death spiral” that really gets it out of me!

Have you done any car rides? We just took Amelia and Henri on a car ride and it helped a lot. It works especially well if you’ve gota smaller sized carrier where they have to lay next to each other and don’t really have the space to start circling each other.

[Erbear]

We’re taking a break from the bonding bit until Jo heals. We tried the car deal and radar ripped a large chunk of fur out of Jo’s butt… she is completly bald in that area. A little pink but otherwise unaffected… I’m keeping an eye on the area and keeping them out of biting distance until Jo gets her fur back.

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