Understanding unbonding

[attemptedquad]

Hi everyone! I’m asking these questions out of curiosity, because I didn’t know much about unbonding before adding more bunnies to the home and would like to know more to prevent it from happening.

What exactly causes bunnies to “unbond” when new bunnies are added to the household? I’ve seen a lot of Instagram posts lately about this exact situation. A lot of times, the bunnies won’t even see the new bunny, but sense them. In my experience, when I brought home 2 new bunnies, within a couple weeks, my pair did get in a scuffle, but pretty much rebonded immediately when I made their area smaller, which doesn’t seem to be the norm. When I had my pair later in the same area of the house as my other bunnies, they were far more tense and the male would sometimes chase the female out of certain areas or try to claim her food, which led me to moving them away, in which they are now fine.

I’ve been worrying about it a bit lately because I’m in the process of bonding the other 2 bunnies that I introduced to the household. I rescued these guys somewhat because I was very worried about my female in my original pair passing as her health was rocky at the time and she’s quite old, so it was comforting to have back up friends for her partner. Could scent swapping blankets as a prebonding measure cause an unbonding? Are bunnies less likely to unbond if it’s a rabbit that they’ve been living with for a long period of time? Can moving bunnies to the same area cause an unbonding? Can unbonding happen slowly over time?

[DanaNM]

My experience is that if you were going to have an issue, it would have happened already! Usually you see a bunch of referred aggression that gets out of hand, and causes a fight bad enough to break the bond. It’s hard to say what actually causes this in some pairs vs others, but my sense is that whether the bond is repaired depends mostly on how bad the fight is.

My sense is also that this is pretty rare in reality. I volunteered at a rescue, and routinely new pairs were brought in, and immediately surrounded by tons of rabbits. Sometimes there would be a bit of bickering, but it was extremely rare for a pair to actually need to be separated. Usually it was more likely that a certain other rabbit would be the “instigator” through the fencing, and we would learn not to put certain bunnies next to each other for exercise time. I also often brought my pairs to someone at the rescue’s house for bunny-sitting. She had TONS of rabbits at her house, and I always worried that there would be issues, but there never was. She would always have the buns stay in their carrier for about 30 min before putting them in their set-up at her house just to let them adjust to the new smells in a less-stressful way.

Over the years I’ve also brought new rabbits into my house a few times, sometimes with the intention of bonding a group, and sometimes just as a temporary thing (either fostering or holding a bun temporarily). The only time I was every worried about a bond breaking was when I had some un-neutered boys in my bathroom. My girl Bertha was thumping like crazy (even though she couldn’t see them), and kept lashing out at her bond-mate, Moose. Their bond often had a bit of bickering already, so it made me nervous. But I got those stinky boy buns out of there and they were fine.

Whenever we’ve seen bickering at the shelter, we would isolate the pair and block their view so they can’t see any other bunnies. This usually worked really quickly and they go back to normal.

I actually did a bonding survey a couple years ago to try to see if certain bonding methods were more likely to lead to bonds breaking, but haven’t actually had a chance to look at the data! I’ve often wondered if some of the small-space 24/7 methods are more likely to create a somewhat fragile bond, because the bond was formed in a very specific scenario (vs. building the bond in a variety of places, smells, surroundings). But I don’t know if there is any evidence for that!

. . . 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.  

[attemptedquad]

Thank you! So it’s basically as simple as one bunny gets referred aggression and the aggression is what causes them to unbond? I always understood unbonding more when it came to separating bunnies (like taking one to the vet), but was so confused why a new bunny would cause something like unbonding. This makes a lot of sense.

[DanaNM]

It’s thought that the vet visit thing has to do with the bunny coming back from the vet smelling different, so it’s kind of the same idea.

I think a lot of it has to do with either their scents getting confused (leading to the referred aggression), or the presence of another bunny around makes them decide they need to reestablish their hierarchy.

For what it’s worth, broken bonds after vet visits are also pretty rare, even when the buns have to be separated. My past vet (who I trusted 100% and who looked after all the shelter rabbits) always made me separate the buns when I brought one in, because they would need to monitor the sick bunny’s poop etc. I would still bring the other bun in the carrier on the way to and from the vet though, and never had a problem. I asked some other people from the shelter and they said they’ve only seen problems occur very rarely, and in those cases the bonds were repaired quickly.

. . . 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.  

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