Bonding Gone Bad

[Juicy]

Hello all,

I let someone convince me that I was abusing my happy, constantly binkying free-roaming bunny by not giving her a friend to bond with. 3 weeks ago, I brought her in to adopt a friend and it was love at first sight — a REALLY good, easy date. For clarity, my original bunny (the female) is Bun #1, and the recent adoptee is Bun #2. They’re both spayed/neutered. Bun #1 is 5 or 6 years old and Bun #2 is 2 years old.

At the rescue center, he was clearly set to be the dominant one as she readily groomed him. In hindsight, he seemed to be calmly tolerating her whereas she was over the moon about him. When we got home — the entirety of which is her territory as she is free-roaming — things changed. She began chasing him, and groomed him a lot but never got groomed by him. And she stole his food, which I tried to stop unsuccessfully. Still, they were fine for a week. We did a few dates in the most neutral space possible — the dining room, because she spends the least time there. We were dumb — we trusted them overnight that week, and on day 7 they got into a horrible, vicious tornado which woke us at 2 am. I think it was due to the new, shared litter box.

Since then, I’ve converted the living room into a bunny room, split in half by fencing, leaving a few inches in between “cages”. I let them each out one at a time for a few hours, but taking a break from dates. I’ve been switching them daily to the other side, and there is a surrogate bunny. Bun #1 is still CRAZY about Bun #2, can’t wait to see him. He seems to want to lay adjacent to her in their separate cages, but he has snuck in and torn her apart — she never hurts him but she ends up with awful bites! And she always tries to nose him through the cage but he attacks. What more can I do? I am committed to having Bun #2 be part of the family, but I am so sad for sweet, sweet Bun #1 who is 100% full of love and trust — as always — and is getting no love in return. He has even bitten big holes through his surrogate bun. I am a terrible bonder! :'(

Please help!

PS — I found out about the banana/apple juice on the head trick after their fight. Man oh man do I wish I’d seen that earlier. We rushed it 

 

[Mikey]

He doesnt sound like a bunny who likes bunnies, honestly. He just tolerated her to begin with, and even while she enthusiastically bows down to him, the only thing he wants to do is attack her. Even when she is grooming or ignoring her, he just wants to attack her. He doesnt seem like a bunny who should be bonded, in my opinion

[Juicy]

So that does exist? A bunny who doesn’t want to be with other bunnies? The person who convinced me to do all this — a pretty experienced rabbit owner and bonder — explicitly told me that there was no such thing as a bunny that didn’t want to be bonded. I’m inclined to believe you because he just seems…cold somehow. He’s warming up to us though, so it’s really uncomfortable to make a judgment about him.

[Mikey]

Of course. Just like people, not all rabbits will get along and not all rabbits want to be paired with another rabbit. Some rabbits do prefer to be solo. Some rabbits get along with people but not other rabbits, and some rabbits get along with other rabbits but not people

[Boston's Mama]

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[sarahthegemini]

It sounds like he is very aggressive either because of being in a new environment and not having settled and is scared OR he just isn’t a good match for your girl for some reason. 

You could try keeping them completely apart from one another – out of sight and then try pre bonding for a while before putting them in the same room or try a different partner for each.

[Crashley]

It does happen, it happened to me :/ I have my Winifred and she is 1.5 yrs old! I bought her a friend about a year ago, and the new bunny”Josiah” was super nice to me and fiance, he was a very sweet bun! But anytime i put him and her together they would get into the biggest fights ever, till i realized they just were not going to bond, and everytime they fought I felt it dug a deeper hole of grudges between the two of them. I had to rehome Josiah, which broke my heart, b/c i grew fond of him! I eventually got a new bunny, PePe and it took patience and effort to bond them but now they are inseperable, they are like “one” bunny now. They never have fought ever. Somebunnies prefer to be the “only” bunny. It just happens, maybe your sweet #1 bun needs a better companion, do lots of reading and just take it easy and slow! it will happen

[Juicy]

I’m glad Winnie finally found a friend! I am not ready to give up on Mr. Mars, though. Not even close. I will give it 6 months and I’m only 3 weeks in. How long did you wait until you decided Josiah wasn’t going to bond? 

I feel like I unfairly represented Mr. Mars, though. As a human, the subtleties of rabbit interactions are sometimes beyond me and I can’t say he wants to be alone! He may well be fighting physically against her mental warfare. After all, she was stealing his food. Today, she stuck her nose through the cage bars specifically as a reaction to his chewing on a box, and they scuffled through the bars. 

 I never know what’s going on. Just wish I was doing a better job.

[Juicy]

Sarah — It would make me feel a lot better to take a few steps back with this — but I wonder, will it be painful for them? I tried it for 4-5 hours one day, and he thumped in anger at her empty cage, particularly when I let him explore it…while she was despondent. THEY’RE SO WEIRD. 

[sarahthegemini]

Posted By Juicy on 6/16/2017 11:25 AM

Sarah — It would make me feel a lot better to take a few steps back with this — but I wonder, will it be painful for them? I tried it for 4-5 hours one day, and he thumped in anger at her empty cage, particularly when I let him explore it…while she was despondent. THEY’RE SO WEIRD. 

He may have thumped at her empty cage because he could smell her still. I think if you want to try and bond these two you’ve definitely got to go back a few steps. So out for sight for a while so they can forget each other and then start prebonding before putting them in the same room (still no physical contact) It may still not work though. I suppose it depends if his behaviour calms down.

[Crashley]

Juicy, dont give up yet!
I had josiah for about 4 months till i decided!
I think you should take there space down. I started WInnie and Pepe off in a hamper! I did that for about 2-3 weeks. then i slowly and gradually introduced them to more space, my couch was the best bonding space ever!!! haha! i sat on one cusion they sat on the other, i would do that for hours at a time! Pepe lived in a biggg cage in winnies room during the bonding process, which everyone told was me a bad idea, but it ended up working out. I would pull pepe out of the cage and let winnie in the cage so pepe could play outside. i did that every day. I had two issues with my bonding and it was ..Winnie would groom pepe for ever and pepe would not touch her and i think she could sense that. I got some banana and rubbed it on Winnies head, and i did that everytime.. Pepe soon learned to groom winnie!
My second obsticle was that Winnie was free roam in her room and pepe was in a cage. So, im almost %100 certain Pepe was jealous of Winnie free roaming. he refused to do anything with her, he would just sit there next to her. So, i made Winnie stay the night in the cage, and then the next night pepe. It evened out the grounds and pepe was no longer jealous! I had to back track in my bonding process as well!

The reason Im almost certain why Winnie and Josiah hated each other guts was.. i sadly and regretably let my fiance convince me to let Josiah see Winnie the minute I brought him home. (i told him 100 times it was not a good idea) i should of stuck to my guns, my sweet sweet Winnie got aggressively attacked the second I walked into her room with him, I also got attacked, if i even smelled like him she would charge at me and bite(never bit me before). Pretty sure the buns held that grudge till the day he left it was sad

keep going its good bun #1 shows kindness to bun #2! thats a good step!

[Crashley]

Juicy if you can find Vienna Blues in France(bonding journey in the bonding section)!! READ IT!
it helped me bond my buns, she tryed diff techniques and she too believed her buns wouldnt bond! Her thread is extremely helpful!

[Author]

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