So we have a trio and foster bun we are trying to bond right now
Trio: 2 Boys – Pepper and Roo, 1 girl – Chester
Our Foster is a girl named Hazel
They've been living side by side for 6 months no problem. Hazel is not an Ideal candidate for adoption due to trauma so we decided if we could successfully bond her she'd stay with us.
Bonding was going well, we were 24 hours bonding but we had a bit of regression.
The first day went great absolutely no problems just normal behavior. Roo and Chester are perfectly fine, love her actually. However Pepper, started nipping at Hazels butt occasionally which was fine she didn't really care the first day. We went about 28 hours no problem.
At about hour 28 she showed she didn't like it he started chasing her it was only minor and I supervised. The next 12 hours it was no more than that, we made it to hour 87 with normal bonding behaviors and the little bit of chasing from Pepper.
But then got more serious tonight so we separated. Hazel bit him and he bit her back, no skin was broken just some teeth marks (thank goodness) I immediately separated Pepper since he was instigating. He's 100% freeroam (except when I have hazel out to freeroam which she never really leaves her pen so after a few hours I close it and let them back out)
I thought it might be boredom because that was a problem with the other 2 of the trio when we bonded them to him. He even gets grumpy with them when he's locked up.
So I let him run around for about an hour then I gave them their salad and put him back, they ate fine (there's been no food aggression at all, they normally ate together through the fence the last couple months anyway) They all ate, then they snuggled, he was cleaning Hazel and Chester and then Roo was cleaning Hazel and Pepper.
That lasted about 30 minutes before he nipped her butt again and he's very well trained so I said his name and he stopped. I sat back down and he started chasing her again so I separated him again.
When he did this with Chester and Roo it was because he was done being locked up so I decided to open the pen he was running around and Chester and Roo came out but stayed by the entrance with Hazel. I was sitting on the floor petting them all and Pepper came over to get pet and things were okay for about 19 minutes then he boxed her face so I closed him in the pen and left the other 3 out. Hazel won't leave the entrance, Chester and Roo go from laying with her and running around. Pepper was pouting in the pen.
I needed to go to sleep so I put Hazel, Roo, and Chester back in the pen because they're all home bodies and let Pepper freeroam because I needed to go to sleep and even though I'm next to the pen I didnt feel comfortable leaving them together.
This morning my husband put them back together for breakfast which was fine but after they were done eating it started again. So I separated again. I let the whole trio out and left Hazel in the pen.
I'm not really sure where to go from here. In the process though, in the past he was always the grumpy one and I had to separate but he'd be fine after a while out. The bite is what concerned me because he keeps harassing her and he has really thick velvet fur so it was only teeth marks and a pretty good sized chunk of fur and Hazel has very thick Wool for armor so it was teeth mark and a small bruise.
I do think part of his frustration is the trio all groom each other and her but she won't groom them back.
They're separate now but Pepper keeps going at her through the fence…
I spoke to a friend who runs the rabbit rescue Hazel is in and she told me she doesn't know if I can even bond them now and I could possibly break the trios bond.
Our family is devastated and Roo is so in love with her and Chester loves her too.
They all really loved each other the first 80 or so hours I don't know what happened
So far no one is hurt and I'd like to keep it that way.
Is there ANYTHING we can do to fix this?
by Confident_Phone_9707