Hello everyone My live-in bf and I are currently trying to bond our boy Nacho (Holland Lop, 7 months old) with the new girl Vivi (English Spot, also 7 months old). Nacho was castrated 4 weeks ago and Vivi arrived 2 weeks ago. We live in a one bedroom apartment, Nacho currently lives in the living room and Vivi in the kitchen and they are separated by a pet gate. Besides our very small bathroom, the bedroom is the only neutral area in the apartment but we would prefer not to use it with the bunnies because we can’t reach under the bed to break up a potential fight
With that background info out of the way, here’s where we are right now: a week ago Vivi managed to escape from the kitchen so the buns met face to face and since there was no fighting, we decided to let them have daily sessions together in the kitchen (Nacho seems a bit territorial about the living room). Most of the time Vivi either ignores Nacho or tries to nip his ears/face/butt but it doesn’t seem aggressive to me. She seems relaxed and has done the dead bunny flop on several occasions during the sessions. Nacho on the other hand seems tense, he always keeps a watchful eye on Vivi and even stares at her 24/7 through the pet gate (also tries to bite his way through the gate which makes a lot of noise and is slowly driving us crazy ). Nacho often tries to mount Vivi (unsuccessfully) and when they eat together, he puts his head under her chin and just stays there waiting to be groomed. There hasn’t been any fighting but a couple of times I’ve separated them when Nacho started chasing Vivi.
Do you guys have any tips on how to proceed with these two? I think they will get along eventually but since it’s my first time bonding bunnies, I’m just not sure how to take it to the next level.
(P.S. Sorry for any errors, English is not my first language )
UPDATE: November 23rd, 2015
Four days ago we moved Vivi’s cage next to Nacho’s in the living room. No more chewing on the pet gate and making noise, thank heavens! Even though they were not bonded, they were coexisting peacefully when we let them both out of their cages at the same time (I even saw Vivi grooming Nacho once!)…. until last night. They fought and there was fur everywhere but no skin was broken. Even after we separated them Nacho remained very angry and frustrated and even tried to bite my hand, which he would normally NEVER do It seems to me that Nacho is still hormonal, constantly grunting and trying to mount Vivi. Vivi is patient up to a point but when Nacho goes too far, she nips at him and then Nacho goes for the attack. The same thing happened this morning so obviously we need to try something different now. Any advice? We are currently keeping the kitchen as a neutral area so I think we will start by doing sessions in there and see where it takes us…