Too soon?

[Toe Beans]

We’ve had our young adult Flemish giant (Beans) since he was eight weeks old, and he is now just over a year and a half. We recently got two new eight week old dutch sisters (Rose Anna & Zephyr) from the local shelter, and decided we would close off part of Beans’ two part cage for them to stay in, while they got acquainted and worked on bonding. For days everything was going great. They sniffed each other through the cage, we let them co-mingle and bond for little bits of time supervised. I noticed some jealousy, but the result was just Bean’s and Rose Anna begging for more attention from their humans and not acting ill toward each other.  Everything seemed great so we took away the divider and decided it was time to let them co-mingle more permanently. Again, everything was fine. Beans was gentle, the babies climbed on him, he didn’t care. They shared food well, they laid down together, They licked each other. They were completely fine over night and into the next day.

Today, we officially opened them up to each other last night, I went to the cage to cuddle with the bunnies. Beans ran up to the edge of the cage excitedly to get petted. He didn’t notice that Rose Anna was lying there and proceeded to walk over her. He’s such an oaf. I was worried he might hurt her so I pushed him away so she could move and not be trampled, and he swung his head around and bit her for no reason. She started biting him back, and they continued wrestling and biting while I was trying to break them up and finally I jumped into the part of the cage which is really just a large part of the room that is fenced off by a baby gate and got between them. Rose Anna runs off to her cage with Zephyr, who got scared and ran as soon as the fight began, while I was holding Beans in the corner. I put the divider up and the two cages were separate again. I tried to calm down Beans, and Rose Anna seemed to want to try to patch things up so stuck her nose through the bars to sniff Beans. Beans sniffed her back and immediately bit at her again, so I pulled him away and put wood between them so they can’t even see each other now. 

I was so worried and shaken thinking he had hurt the little ones. Thankfully everyone seems unharmed, pulled hair but no signs of blood. I don’t know what to do now except keep them apart. Beans is not normally aggressive at all and he was neutered ages ago. I think maybe he was jealous, but I just never expected something like this to happen. I am worried that their relationship is irreparably broken. I’m also too afraid to try to bond them again. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on this? 

[tobyluv]

It is way too soon to put these rabbits together.

You cannot bond rabbits until all of them have been spayed or neutered. It’s very good that you have Beans separated from the new bunnies, and that you even have a piece of wood between them so that they can’t bite through the bars. In just a few weeks time, you will need to separate Rose Anna and Zephyr. When their hormones come flooding in, around 12 weeks of age, they can display aggression with fighting ensuing. Rabbits can severely injure each other when they fight. It doesn’t matter that they are sisters and have grown up together, they won’t be able to be housed together or let out for exercise together when they reach puberty.

You won’t be able to get the sisters spayed until they are around 5 or 6 months old, so it’s going to be awhile before you can get the trio together. After they have been spayed and about a month has passed, then you can start the bonding procedures.

Here are 2 good articles on bonding:

http://rabbit.org/faq-bonding-multiple-rabbits/

https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/9/PID/940/Default.aspx

[Toe Beans]

Thanks for the reply. My parents had a rabbit farm when I was a kid, but all of our rabbits were in separate spaces so I knew nothing about bonding rabbits. The lady at the humane society just said keep them near each other and slowly introduce them over a week. I really had no idea this would happen. It was so terrible.

[Boston's Mama]

It sounds like you got bad advice unfortunately from the rescue the girls need seperated form each other until they are spayed and have had them for the hormones to calm down after that. It can lead to serious injury if your girls have a fight when maturity sets in …

You will have a bit of a process since you have 3, bonding trips can work though but it will mean 3 seperate areas until then.

All bunnies need seperate areas – then at maturity all 3 need desexed. Once desexed it’s a good 6 weeks or more before intros can happen.
Others can advice better at that point how to go about it

[Author]

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