From Bunny Pair to Bunny Trio

[NuggetBuns]

Hi everyone and buns! I haven’t been on BB in ages and really hope to get back to some bunny business  After Nugget and Emilee were bonded, I started volunteering at Emilee’s bunny shelter and fell in love with a beautiful Silver Marten. Her cage was the first one that I cleaned and people told me to be careful because she has a tendency to bite. She never bit me and that made me feel special so she quickly became my favorite. It’s been almost 2 years since I first cleaned her cage and I keep telling myself that I have to adopt her but there was never a right time. Well yesterday was the day. I brought Nugget/Emilee to the shelter to meet her and they hit it off right away! She’s the smallest of the three, but she had no problem humping her new friends and grooming them afterwards. It was a sight to see and I couldn’t have been happier. 

The new bun is at home now, in her new condo and settling in fairly quickly. She is about 4.5 years old and has a very curious/relaxed/friendly personality like Nugget. She isn’t as high strung or territorial as Emilee. In a couple weeks, I will start trio bonding and I’m so excited I wanted to share the experience with all of you. Also having a BB bonding thread really helped last time, so I wanted to start another one to record progress or setbacks. 

This is the new bun, Olive.

[NuggetBuns]

Here are some photos of the first day Nugget and Emilee met Olive at the shelter. 

It went better than expected because we all knew Emilee was going to be the wild card. Nugget and Olive both have friendly, calm personalities while Emilee can be territorial and aggressive when she feels threatened/scared. We were surprised to see her on her best behavior and even more surprised that she allowed Olive to mount her. But it might just be because we were at the shelter because at home, she’s the boss! We’re waiting until next week to start the real bonding sessions in the bathtub, this way all the buns have time to get used to the new living situation. 

Right now, Olive has her own little condo across from Nugget & Emilee’s pen so they can see each other during the day/night when we’re not home. We do let them out from 5-10pm but they are separated by a divider in the room. Nugget has already snuck over to Olive’s side when I wasn’t looking and had a bad fight. We broke it up by spraying water at them, but I’m just glad it didn’t get any worse than just fur flying around. They both ripped out patches of fur on their sides and back, but there was no real damage. Olive also knows she can’t get too close to the divider because Emilee is always stalking and watching her every move. She keeps sticking her face out of the divider to bite Olive any time she gets close. I’m worried about how the bonding will go next week, but I really hope Emilee calms down in the next few days. I know she is frustrated and doesn’t like sharing her home and humans with this new bun, but she needs to stop freaking out. It causes Nugget stress and then they start chasing and nipping at each other. 

I’m trying to stay positive and take all the necessary pre-bonding steps I possibly can to optimize the chances of a successful trio bond. Any tips from experienced trio bonders are definitely welcomed!!!!

[MissGabbster]

I was so excited when I saw your post on Tumblr! I bet she’s so happy to finally have a forever home. I look forward to reading about their bonding journey.

[NuggetBuns]

Posted By MissGabbster on 4/15/2015 3:12 PM

I was so excited when I saw your post on Tumblr! I bet she’s so happy to finally have a forever home. I look forward to reading about their bonding journey.

MissGabbster!!! How are you and your fluffy bun doing? 

Yeah, she’s been exploring the place, zooming around under tables, and she did a lot of binkies yesterday to show how happy she is! She’s definitely enjoying the royal bun life  I told my boyfriend that if I had volunteered at the shelter BEFORE we took Nugget bunny speed dating, I would have adopted Olive over Emilee.  I love Em so much and would never give her up, but Olive is definitely friendlier of the two. Olive is a “cool girl” while Emilee is a “spoiled princess”. Lucky Nugget lol.

[MissGabbster]

We’re doing good! Ox is still a single bun, but fingers crossed I can change that this year.

She deserves the royal bun life! I can’t believe no one adopted her until now. She’s got such beautiful coloration and it also sounds like she’s got a great personality as well! I’m glad she’s getting spoiled now.

I really hope the bonding goes smoothly for you. She’s settling in well and hopefully once they all get used to the idea of one another they’ll take to bonding easily. I think I remember you saying that Nugget got along well with pretty much all the rabbits he met when you took him speed dating, so maybe he’ll set a good example for Emilee and Olive?

Lucky Nugget, indeed! He’ll be getting all the snuggles soon.

[NuggetBuns]

Posted By MissGabbster on 4/15/2015 4:25 PM

We’re doing good! Ox is still a single bun, but fingers crossed I can change that this year.

She deserves the royal bun life! I can’t believe no one adopted her until now. She’s got such beautiful coloration and it also sounds like she’s got a great personality as well! I’m glad she’s getting spoiled now.

I really hope the bonding goes smoothly for you. She’s settling in well and hopefully once they all get used to the idea of one another they’ll take to bonding easily. I think I remember you saying that Nugget got along well with pretty much all the rabbits he met when you took him speed dating, so maybe he’ll set a good example for Emilee and Olive?

Lucky Nugget, indeed! He’ll be getting all the snuggles soon.

Oh that would be wonderful if you get Ox a buddy this year!  

I started bonding this weekend and I thought things well were going well in the tub so I got ahead of myself by moving to the hallway. Nugget and Olive keep circling each other and biting each other every time we bond in the hallway. It’s been stressful and I got accidentally bit when I tried to intervene. Guess they’re not ready for hallway bonding yet… back to the tub this week! The first few bonding sessions Nugget and Olive got very snuggly and close, grooming each other and seemed like best friends. But since the fights, it seems Emilee has a better chance of being friends with Olive. 

We did have an adorable moment when everybun calmed down and Nugget got kisses from both Em & Olive AT THE SAME TIME! He just laid there enjoying every minute of it  I hope we can get back to level of trust and friendship this week as the bonding continues…

[NuggetBuns]

Continuing from above post… 

This is the first time we tried hallway bonding on Saturday morning, but we also had the vacuum cleaner running. We figured it would be a great time to vacuum the rabbits’ habitats since they’re they’re in the hallway out of the way of weekend cleaning! As you can see, we kept the space quite small so no one could chase one another and they are forced to interact. There was a lot of snuggling during this session, but it is due to the stress from the vacuum cleaner. This was the only hallway session where nobody fought or tried to bite one another. 

I will spend more time bonding in the bathtub, but when we are ready to try the hallway again, should I run the vacuum cleaner again? I know stress bonding helps sometimes but I don’t want to stress bond during every session, it just feels like their overall relationship will be built on fear  At the same time, it’s extremely stressful and disheartening to see Nugget turn on Olive when I know he’s a sweet, gentle, love bug! It’s so odd that they can go from snuggling with each other in one session to tearing out fur in another session. Has anyone ever experienced this and overcame it with a successful bond? 

[Little Lion Head]

Oh I just love seeing the pics of the three noses touching!!! Might need to show hubby…hint hint….

Mine were a pretty easy bond so I don’t really have any advice about going from lovey to fighting sorry!!

What if you start with a stress bond (car ride) and end w/ less stress (bathtub or hallway)? I know it seems like you’re super stressing them but everything I’ve read says that they don’t associate the scariness w/ the other bun; instead they associate the comfort w/ the other bun.

Looking forward to seeing how it’s going! And more pictures always!

[tanlover14]

Nugget, Olive is gorgeous! Congrats!

Just wanted to pop in on your thread & let you know that it’s VERY, VERY normal for buns to revert back a bit when moving to a new territory or from one situaton to another. Don’t let it get you down.

LLH is right, the whole theory behind stress bonding is that it teaches them to trust one another. Rabbits constantly fight and exclude other rabbits from the group b/c they are a “danger” to the existing group. Once they begin to develop and establish and trusting bond, everything goes much smoother. It’s getting them over that initial hump that can be the trick.

It looks like your group is doing AMAZING though. I wouldn’t worry! It’s shocking to see such good results so quickly. I wouldn’t worry!

[NuggetBuns]

Little Lion Head- I’m definitely guilty of showing the boyfriend a lot of photos of trio buns snuggling together before we finally got a third bun. It really works lol. Yes we did stress bond them in the car when Olive first came home with us and they seemed perfectly fine. Thank you for the tip, I think keeping them in the tub for a little while longer may help them when transitioning to the hallway.

Tanlover- Thank you for checking in on us! I do feel better now that you and LLH have confirmed that too much stress bonding isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Also good to know that it’s normal for some buns to revert to being strangers when they move to a different bonding location. Bonding three buns is more chaotic than bonding two, I see that now and just have to keep going for as long as it takes. I can’t even imagine bonding more than that, hats off to you TL! I saw your FB post about bonding your foursome for 5 months, that’s dedication. Good luck to you and hope you’ll be able to combine all 8 together one day =)

We bonded them in the tub last night for an hour and it went really well. None of them chased or bit or pulled fur, we didn’t even use the spray bottle! Olive and Emilee cuddled a lot, groomed each other and then Nugget and Olive cuddled and groomed each other. There were some moments where Emilee looked left out and I decided to pet her b/c no one was giving her attention. Planning to bond them in the tub every night this week and we’ll see if they’re ready to move to the hallway at the end of the week.

[Little Lion Head]

I think patience is the hardest thing. After two good bathtub sessions i went straight for a larger pen. It was too much too soon and we went back to the tub for a week! You’re doing great!!

[tanlover14]

Patience is definitely hard but it’s so much better for them in the long run. I’ve come to the conclusion that threes & fours are the hardest to bond. My group of 7 went together in less than 4 days of bonding. Talk about awesome! We are not going to try 8 since we’ve decided to keep the two quartets separate! I would love to have a larger group again BUT I did notice when they were in the smaller groups — they become way more bonded in my opinion. They seem so much attached in the smaller group than anyone did in the larger group.

[Samara87]

What kind of bunny is the white one? He looks nearly identical to my little guy, who I havent entirely been able to figure out his breed.

[NuggetBuns]

TL- That makes sense, a small group of friends would build a stronger bond than a large group. Pretty sure 3 is my limit. Good luck with your 2 quads!!

Samara87- Emilee is an English Spot/Dwarf mix. Lots of people ask about her, seems like she has a lot of twinsies out there =P But I can always pick her out from a crowd because she has a mustache and a set of eyes/eyebrows on the top of her head lmao.

Planning to do some hallway bonding this weekend so will update this thread next week!

[Samara87]

The mustache is why I had to ask, he has a cute little Gomez Adamms mustache. We named him Cotton at first, when we were under the assumption he was a girl. Otherwise I probably would have named him Gomez. The mustache thing is pretty common among Netherlands, isn’t it?

[tanlover14]

Hope the bonding goes well this weekend! And thank you! My one quad is fully bonded no problems. The newest qud is due to a new addition to my bun family in Jan. They are doing well — it’s just been a horrifically long time of bonding. OY.

[NuggetBuns]

Posted By Samara87 on 5/01/2015 4:59 PM

The mustache is why I had to ask, he has a cute little Gomez Adamms mustache. We named him Cotton at first, when we were under the assumption he was a girl. Otherwise I probably would have named him Gomez. The mustache thing is pretty common among Netherlands, isn’t it?

Your bun sounds really cute! I don’t know if mustache markings are common among Netherland Dwarf breeds, but the markings on Emilee’s face are from her English Spot side the mix. Mustaches are more common with spotted breeds I think. 

[Samara87]

Hmm. I’m not really sure what he is, to be honest. I tried asking the lady we got him from, but she never answered me. He’s 8 mos old, and five lbs, if that helps at all. He’s still kinda little, and I’m not sure how much bigger he’s going to get. I have to take him to the vet for his first yearly checkup soon. We had him in a few months ago, and the lady didn’t really know what breed he was. Which makes me wonder how educated they really are about rabbits. There’s a new vet opening in town that has a really good reputation, so he may be our new vet if I like him. I know he has a lot of markings that are similar to Rex pictures I’ve found, so I wonder if that’s what he is.

[NuggetBuns]

Posted By Samara87 on 5/05/2015 11:18 PM

Hmm. I’m not really sure what he is, to be honest. I tried asking the lady we got him from, but she never answered me. He’s 8 mos old, and five lbs, if that helps at all. He’s still kinda little, and I’m not sure how much bigger he’s going to get. I have to take him to the vet for his first yearly checkup soon. We had him in a few months ago, and the lady didn’t really know what breed he was. Which makes me wonder how educated they really are about rabbits. There’s a new vet opening in town that has a really good reputation, so he may be our new vet if I like him. I know he has a lot of markings that are similar to Rex pictures I’ve found, so I wonder if that’s what he is.

You should create a thread with a photo of your bun so other BB members can help you identify what breed(s) he might be. Rex refers to a type of fur that feels like plush. They can have all sorts of coloring/markings but they only fall into the category of a Rex breed if they have that unique, dense, plush or velvet-like fur. 

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