I have two bunnies and have been trying to bond them for months. I can't even get any progress though because they start violently fighting! Any suggestions or is it a lost cause?
Hi~ what we did was bond them every single day for 30+ days. After we came home from work, and settled down we bonded them. They were NOT happy and totally knew when it was bonding time, always tried to make a break for it when we came close to picking them up. Also if both of your buns are not spayed/neutered you will have an extremely difficult time. The problem bun was definitely Luffy, but it’s because he wasn’t neutered. Poor Ghibli got bit real bad a couple of times, fortunately never bad enough to where we had to take him to the vet. A great tip to do before starting the whole bonding process is, rotate their living spaces so they’re used to each other’s smells. We did this every day too. If luffy was living the in the cage on Monday, and Ghibli had free range, on Tuesday Ghibli will live in the cage and Luffy would have free range. Don’t change their litterboxes everyday, do it every 2-3 days. This is crucial, you should definitely do this.
What really worked in our case was placing them in a plastic bin and shaking for a few seconds (don’t go crazy). The flooring would be too slippery for them and both would be too distracted/scared to fight. We would tilt the box to where they would be side by side. Then once they’ve calmed down, we put the bin down for them to relax. Luffy thumped a lot whenever he was in the box with Ghibli. This was great bc instead of immediately biting Ghibli he was communicate via thumping. After his neuter, his aggression went down. One thing that’s important was that Ghibli was always grooming Luffy. So in our situation, we were pretty lucky, because at least one of the bunnies liked the other.
Taking them outside for some fresh air or on a nice bumpy car ride in the bin (top covered) or in a pet carrier was also a good stress bond. The different smells will really throw them off and scare them so they’d snuggle together. This is a really good sign. you WANT the bunnies to seek comfort with each other. We tried to refrain from giving them pets because the bunnies will automatically look towards you for comfort, but that’s not what bunny bonding is about. We did 30min-2hours sessions. Start off with like 10 minutes then increase. We also placed both the bunnies in the cage after the plastic box bonding. Make sure to wipe down the cage, remove any litter-boxes (in the beginning, when times passes and they do better, you can leave the litterbox, toys, etc in. But in the beginning, you don’t want them to get territorial)
Just make sure to wear thick gloves and have a dust pan or broom handy. You never want to separate fighting rabbits with your bare hand. Whenever they fight or start to circle, make a very loud noise. Banging pots and pans worked for us, but we only needed to do this the first week of bonding. And if they don’t stop, carefully use a dust pan to keep a bun away. Also on good sessions I’ll give them treats (hay, pellets, greens, small pieces of fruit) in the box and once they were in their separate area. I wanted Luffy to affiliate treats/food to spending time with Ghibli. Treats were the best in our situation too because Luffy LOVES to eat. Ghibli will eat sometimes but never as much as Luffy.
After day 30 of the box bonding, we felt that they have made really good progress so we decided to give them full range of the house together. Luffy ran whenever he saw Ghibli but after day 4 they were bonded. now they are always together.
It was really helpful to have a second person to help. It can get extremely stressful and upsetting dealing with fighting bunnies. It’s okay to take a break, they can sense your fear and stress that it will affect your bunnies. There’s never one right way to bond bunnies. It’s hard work but so worth it. I documented the bonding, it’s a few posts back so you can see what we did. Also @windowhirl you also asked if i had any tips for bonding buns. Hope this essay of a post helps! Best of luck!
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