Okay backstory I’ve had a failed bonding experience in the past where a rabbit held a grudge after having to get stitches twice in the lower eyelid after a fight that occurred while on vacation but my sister wasn’t home to separate them. He black lop mix 3 1/2 years old neutered never wanted to get close to my bunny again and started spraying and had tried to re bond for months afterwards with no success again. (I had previously adopted the bunny from someone who rescues them and was trying to give him to a good home.) He was previously the third wheel in a trio. I felt bad for the bunny because he was actively anxious and depressed with my one bedroom apartment they would essentially have to be separated cell mates. Me and my fiancé made the difficult decision to give him back so he could be bonded to his previous crew. As he was noticeably happier with other rabbits.We gave up on the idea of bonding my white and gray bunny s’mores male 4 years old neutered at 7 months of age.
Flash forward a family friend is looking to rehome a 3 month old baby female rabbit whom we named Luna. She had a 2 yr old and 2 large dogs that kept looking at the rabbit like it was lunch. She was in a small rabbit cage and the rabbit didn’t get a lot of time to hop outside of the cage either. I was worried for the rabbit’s safety and we adopted her from them, She proved to be a huge mess and was very difficult to litter box train and would drag hay everywhere. I’ve had a baby bunny before and had warned my fiancé the amount of extra work prior to getting her. I kept telling my fiancé it was because she was unspayed and being anywhere near s’mores was probably causing it.
She has always been the friendliest and would poke her head through the X pen for pets every time she’d see us. We kept a double layer fence between them and during single rabbit supervised exercise time through the living room they’d keep nudging their head through and have caught both of them at different points grooming each other. Never any sign of aggression and they would always try to reach each other to say hi and flop outside their pen. We changed it to a single layer after we released that they weren’t violent towards each other at all. Unfortunately Luna escaped one day from her pen prior to being spayed while my fiancé was asleep and I was at work, luckily I didn’t see any violence between them on the bunny cam. She mostly just did a lot of hopping and binkys in the living room until my fiancé put her back.
Luna got spayed October 24th and was eating normally by the evening of her surgery. She was mad at having the little area while she healed. She also became much better at using the litterbox and not throwing hay around everywhere immediately after being fixed. Meanwhile we had them side by side and did notice s’mores marking by her pen since her scent had changed but he had stopped about a week prior to introducing them.
We waited exactly 4 weeks to introduce the bunnies afterwards starting with a meeting in a neutral small area. After all this time trying to get into each other’s enclosures it was pretty underwhelming and uneventful which is awesome in bunny bonding. They went straight for the salad and hay, sharing it and not fighting or hopping off with it. They spent the majority of the time eating even after the salad as if they hadn’t had access to tons of hay before. They both groomed themselves and then Luna went in search of the best hay and sat in s’mores head to get it which made him a bit uncomfortable and he didn’t move much after. We decide to leave it on a good note and separated them after about 2 hours together. He then proceeded to flop next to lunas x pen set up and we did another session the next day.
The next session they not only ate but they also laid down together, groomed themselves and mirrored each others actions and had both flopped on their sides. Since there was no chasing nipping food territorial behavior or humping we decided to leave them together overnight while I slept on the couch to watch them and they did amazing. No aggressive behaviors at all and they cuddled together again. They haven’t been separated and we increased the space available to 4 x 4. And plan on keeping them there till this Friday where we will put them in their clean vinegar sprayed recently re arranged permanent home.
After my previous awful experience I never thought I’d go through the bonding process again and was extremely nervous when we introduced them but it has gone remarkably well, It does make sense both are very chill friendly bunnies, and they had tons of time to get used to each others scent and presence prior to officially trying to bond them. I had also noticed that my bunny had a much greater interest in her from the beginning and even after she was spayed than the other male so maybe that did also play a factor in making the process easier.
I am curious if I should hold off on that since they haven’t groomed each other or humped each other to establish dominance. I have looked online and some people say that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not bonded but I just wanted to get some of your thoughts.
by Reanna5011