Hi all,
After 1 previous attempts at bonding my hoodlums and a very long break during which I moved to a new place, I am ready to try bonding my viscous beasts hehe.
A little background, Meeko I have had for 1 year and 3 months. She is a New Zealand X, white with beautiful ruby eyes, female, and is about 2.5 years old. Her hobbies include grooming me incessantly, cuddling up beside me, and watching NCIS with me on the couch
Nibs is a female, “mutt” as I call her hehe, and is a fancy ever-changing grey. I’ve had her since I weened her and the rest of her litter from their mom (suprise litter in a petting zoo I know of, and I took charge of rehoming them to good homes) and she is now 11 months old. I wasn’t planning on taking her, but she was never very personable or cuddly as a baby and was always on the crazy side. I was actually fairly certain that any home I found her in the time frame I was allowed would either dump her or try to return her to the petting zoo which wasn’t an option. So home she came. Her hobbies include, destroying things that I’ve taught her are okay to destroy (lol), being bossy, and running in circles as fast as possible. She was a fairly aggressive rabbit from the start. She has been with me, as well as with Meeko. That being said she has taught me to speak rabbit fluently which is a positive thing
They had some play dates when Nibs was very young and Meeko, after a few days, started grooming Nibs now and again. When Nibs entered her teenage years the play dates ended and they simply lived beside each other.
After her spay I tried bonding beginning in a small area and it went much like Vienna’s experience if y’all have read her thread. Fur flew, and there where a few serious bites. I am no longer willing to try that type of bonding process as both of my bunnies are big. Certainly too big for a small space.
Date 1:
After a couple weeks of living beside each other, tonight we had our first bunny bonding date in the kitchen which is neutral space. I had greens spread out for the picking and both of their litter boxes in their. Much to my surprise they actually spent the 15 minutes ignoring each other rather than having a fur-flying battle! They munched on greens, jumped in and out of each other litterboxes, sniffed everything, explored and didn’t really say hello to each other. Nibs had a few moments where she would watch Meeko intently with her ears perked forward, but then went back to ignoring her.
After returning them to their cages these three pictures were the progression within 4 minutes.
More updates to come soon