Hi there! I’ve been a long time lurker, but I recently adopted a bun named Moose (male agouti) in early December. He has a pen in my living room and has supervised free roam during the day around my house, though he mostly chills near his pen.
Around 5 days ago, I ended up adopting another bunny named Mocha (male lop) who’s around the same age as Moose, as I was hoping to get him a friend. Right now, Mocha is situated in a spare bedroom. I did try putting them in a small cardboard box area in a neutral territory, but it did not go well. Moose lunged and bit a big chunk of fur out of Mocha’s cheek and kept attacking him. Thankfully, Mocha doesn’t have any serious injuries. This was before I learned about pre-bonding stage.
Anyways, I’m hoping to pre-bond them properly and was thinking of setting up Mocha’s pen next to Moose in the living room so they could see each other and hopefully mirror and become more familiar. However, I’ve read a lot about how they should be in a neutral territory so one doesn’t get territorial. Moose is free roam and has been to almost every corner of my house, so the neutral area would be in the garage. I was hoping to set up grids there with a separating fence so they get acclimated together.
My question is, would it be ok to move Mocha’s setup from the spare bedroom to my living room where Moose’s pen is or will Moose react badly and see Mocha as an intruder? Or do both of their pens NEED to be in my garage as a neutral area which is pretty inconvenient…
Thanks!!
by trblfluenza