Trouble bonding two males.

[plankstephen]

Hello there.

It’s very nice to meet you all.

My name is Stephen, and I have two neutered mini lop bucks, Bowie and Dolly. I’m having trouble bonding the pair and hoping I could get some help from you lovely people.

From the start, Bowie is 8 months and Dolly is 7 months, both neutered at 5 months. We’ve been letting them having small play dates on and off for the past month, and in the past two weeks tried a bit more to get them to bond with more play sessions. However, we’re having issues where the majority of the time they’re together, Dolly is very aggressive and just won’t get along with Bowie.
Generally we’d start a play date with giving each rabbit a treat and a little stroke to ease the situation, and then we place a neutral toy in and just let them get on. We corner off a small part of the house where neither really go and give ourselves enough room to intervene if we need to.
The problems then start to arise after a while and Dolly will start to bite Bowie, generally on the ear or one of his sides. I understand that nipping is a normal part of the bonding process but they seem to be more aggressive than what you would expect and they have lead to full on fights in the past. Bowie now has a couple of war wounds on his ears, the poor lad.
Both their cages are placed near to each other in the kitchen, so they are used to the smell and sight of each other.

Before they were neutered, there was an occasion where my partner went into the living room one morning and there was fur everywhere, and somehow, and we wasn’t sure why at the time, they had both gotten out of their cages and must of had a rather large fight. Ever since then, Bowie does seem a little skiddish around Dolly and more often than not, won’t pay any attention to him or back away as soon as Dolly goes anywhere near him.

Now obviously, we need this situation sorted ASAP as we want them to get on and eventually live together as cage free indoor rabbits. Bowie doesn’t seem to be the problem, he occasionally will lower his head for Dolly to assert his dominance and even the odd binky.

Any advice would be great.

Oh and P.S, we bought Dolly as a doe but were very surprised to find out he wasn’t when we went to get him neutered, hence the name.

[Hazel]

Welcome!

Did you do any prebonding before graduating to play dates? Prebonding is a very important step and can’t be skipped. You swap litter boxes, toys, blankets and such between both cages (eventually swapping bunnies between cages) to get them used to the other’s scent, and to blurr the lines about what’s “theirs”, making them less possessive and territorial. This should be done for about a month, before any play dates take place. Since they’ve had several large fights, it would be best to start from scratch. Separate them completely, each cage in a different room, for at least a month to let them forget each other. Then, you can start with prebonding.

[plankstephen]

We have, yeah.

When we started looking into bonding the pair, we put a little piece of each other’s litter in the others litter box. We also got a small piece of kitchen roll and rubbed on each rabbit around the neck and bottom and placed in the others cage.
But apart from that, we haven’t done any other prebonding.

The idea of starting again is probably the best route, but we’re quite tight on space as we only live in a small flat.

[Mikey]

Thats not really prebonding. Prebonding is swapping entire used litter boxes, swapping all of their toys, giving them a blanket and swapping the blankets, etc. And doing it for a full month (once a day). I suggest you go back to the prebonding step, personally

[Author]

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