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The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.
- This topic has 13sd replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 8 months ago by
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When I bought Minstrel and Snickers home, I hoped that at some point I would be able to bond them with either Pippi and Jenny or Podge and Gina. It was clear by the short patches of fur on both buns that they had been in hair pulling scuffles, and the lady at PetsAtHome said they had been mounting each other a lot there. A thorough check of Snickers showed she has several healing bite marks, including two big ones on her back, and a third big one that almost certainly came from mounting the face of another bun, possibly Minstrel, though I now have my doubts that Minstrel is to blame, as if Minstrel had given her all the bites she has, she wouldn’t snuggle into him or groom him as much as she does.
Minstrel and Snickers started mounting each other a lot the first evening here, and Gina took a strongly aggressive stance towards them in response to this. Podge wasn’t much better, Jenny seemed far less bothered than either Gina or Podge, and Pippi wasn’t bothered at all. At this point. I was still accepting that Minstrel had caused all of Snickers bites, and was worried all this mounting could cause more, and doubted that two bunnies who fought this much could truly be called bonded, and so decided to start preliminary bonding with Pippi and Jenny 24 hours after they got here.
Pippi, as expected, caused no problems in the box with the other two
I took Pippi and Minstrel out, and put them in a small run together while I put Jenny in the box with Snickers. Jenny started circling, so I took her straight back out and put Pippi and her back in their run. she then bit poor Pippi on his rear, pulling out a big tuft of hair, but thankfully, not breaking the skin. i’m guessing she objected to him smelling of the other two?
I then decided to see if I could bond Pippi with Minstrel and Snickers, and popped them in the bath tub.
With this going fine, I put the three of them in a small neutral run for the night, and although both Minstrel and Snickers both spent over an hour head mounting each other and Pippi, there was no other scuffling, and they settled down around midnight. Five nights later, and these three are happily bonded, with no fur pulling and little mounting.
Jenny has been on her own, but given she bit Pippi, there wasn’t much choice. She and Minstrel did some one to one bonding last night that showed some hope they will get on eventually, and I plan to stick with one to one sessions with either Minstrel or Snickers and Jenny each day til I think it will be safe to try putting her in with the other three.
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Nine days since Minstrel and Snickers moved in, and bonding them with Pippi and Jenny seems to be making some progress. Pippi is still in with Minstrel and Snickers, with Jenny on her own, but she has now stopped trying to bite Pippi on the butt through the cage bars.
After some one to one sessions each evening, today, after some morning garden time, I decided to pop Jenny, in the dog crate in am using for bonding sessions, in with the other three, with one side against the wall, so jenny can also back away if she wants.
Jenny was initially very much on the alert, while the other three pretty much ignored her. Jenny then decided food was more important, and tucked in
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Bonding jenny to minstrel and Snickers is going slow but promising. Today, Pippi asked to come out for floor time when Jenny was out, so I let him, and she was happy to lie beside him and give his ear a few quick grooms…
Pippi went back in with Minstrel and Snickers with no problems after. Minstrel and Snickers are off to the vets on Friday for a check up and their myxi/vhd jabs, and once they are over those, I am going to try and get Jenny in with them and Pippi as soon as I can, as a 4-2 bunny set up would be way better than the current 3-2-1
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I KNOW – I’ve just seen this post too – how can I have missed it ? That’s really great news !!
Now, question : when one has a bonded bunny pair and one goes to the vets with one (bun), it is a well known fact (on BB) that one should take both to the vets… but what happens when you have a bonded foursome? Do you have to take all 4 ?….?
And err, Gina…. errrr…. results??? THE results? are we celebrating….?
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Can’t wait to see a pic of all four of them snuggled up together - You must be logged in to reply to this topic.