Hi Everyone,
After my beloved Nelli died in May, I decided it was time to get a wife for my 2 year old male dwarf, Lukie. He was supposed to bond with Nelli but she was not friendly toward him AT ALL. Plus, before Nelli, Luke has a brother that picked on him (they rescue separated them of course). So my poor little Luke is very afraid of other rabbits.
We went to the rescue 2 weeks ago, and Luke was traumatized by the car ride and frozen with fear when we put him on the floor in the bonding pen. The lady who owns the rescue said that he might think he was being returned (that’s where we adopted Luke!). So the first bunny Luke met was nice and he began to move around, but a couple times when she hopped near him, he lunged and nipped at her. He seems to think he should attack before the other bunny gets him.
The next bunny was Vanessa renamed Precious by us. She went right in and started humping him. Lukie was horrified, went into a huddle on the floor and refused to move at all. She kept hopping off of him, then going back to hump him again, but each time did it less. The last time she went up to him, then you could see her thinking,”Nah, he already knows I’m the boss, I don’t need to hump him again.” of course Luke didn’t know this, so he remained huddled in the floor, petrified. Precious then tried to get him to move by nosing him all over and then pushing his butt with her nose- probably wondering what was wrong with him lol. Finally Luke began to rise up to normal height, and shortly afterward, the magic moment happened- Precious groomed his cheek! Very quickly but *it happened* ?!! Then we put them in a litter box together, and they sat nicely while we patted them.
So we went home with two black bunnies, like history repeated itself again (BunBun and Nelli- my rainbow buns ❤). Luke laid almost on top of Precious the whole way home. When we got home, I put them in a small neutral space together, and would have left then together except Luke was so upset that he would barely move and wouldn’t eat. At that point it was over 6 hours since he had eaten, and I was worried about GI stasis, so I took him out and brought him to our room.
Precious was in an Xpen in the kitchen at first, and one day I let Luke in there so he could see her and I was quite displeased to see Lukie nipping at Precious through the bars! It was like he would get brave enough to put his nose up to her, then get scared and nip at her instead. He even got so worked up he did a soft stinky poop on the floor! But he couldn’t seem to leave her alone either. Precious was very excited to see Lukie but I saw that she was getting a bit defensive, so I removed Lukie. Since then I’ve let Precious have the run of the kitchen, and the bunnies can watch each other through 2 gates but not touch.
For bonding, we’ve started putting them in a laundry basket together. Very close but controlled setting, petting them nearly constantly, so that Luke will hopefully learn that Precious is safe. There have been 3 sessions and no aggression at all, in fact last night was the best. They were sitting with Luke’s butt to Precious’s head, and we backed off a bit, and Luke turned around and put his head right under hers. Luke actually dared to groom himself in front of Precious- very positive behavior!
Now I’m wondering what my next step should be. A 4th laundry basket session, or in to a small enclosure? The main thing, in my mind, is keeping Luke relaxed so that he doesn’t think Precious is a threat. So far it has gone well, and I don’t want to rush things, but I’m also eager to have them living in bonded bunny bliss.