what to expect on "date night"??

we are meeting some other female buns saturday afternoon to potentially get our male bun a bondmate.
I am really excited and my boyfriend is too but i dont know what to expect since I have never gone through this before. how should i prepare for it? its with a local CHRS chapter and two of the female buns they have.
should I bring any of his things to help with intial meeting? what should I look for in his responses to the girls? one will be a nethie (with one ear and she is absolutely adorable) and the other I think is supposed to be an all white rabbit with ruby eyes (frank, our rabbit has the ruby eyes but he is white with light grey paws and a gray/white/black marbled ears).

I am really nervous for two reasons:
-I want things to go well and him be happy with a new friend.
-I am scared that with them being "bunny professionals" I am going to look stupid with all my bunny questions. I of course research and try to do my best for frank but i am still of course worried that I will find out something im doing wrong and it will be infront of people who are pro's at this.

also, Im going to school for animal science to potentially go into exotic animal care so im hoping to make a good impression with my know-how.


i guess i wrote this because i am hoping to hear from other people who have had bunny dates and to get the nerves off my chest.
gahh.
so nervous.:tears2:

Hi there. I got my BS in animal science from Cornell last year and am now in vet school hoping to go in a zoo or private practice exotics direction.

I just took Watson on some bunny dates two weeks ago where we met his new bondmate, Cricket.

I'm presuming that your boy is neutered? Remember that if he was recently neutered he'll still have plenty of hormones. I'm also going to presume that the girls you're looking at are spayed.

For my bunny dates with the rescue I went to (who has literally hundreds of rabbits), I selected three buns for him to date and then we put the two bunnies in a neutral pen for about 15 minutes. You're basically looking for either positive interactions or ignoring eachother. In the past I've seen situations where you put one bunny in a pen with another and the first bunny lunges for the new one. That's not a good sign. With mine they basically sniffed at eachother, humped eachother a bit (I would recommend against letting them hump eachother basically in any "wrong" way because some buns can get hurt that way. For example, humping another bunny's head is a great way to get your genitals injured). There was some grooming with Cricket as well which is part of the reason I ended up taking her home. At the end of their date they also shared some greens.

How exciting to be going on a bunny date! And good for you for doing research I took my female Agnes on her date back in Sept. I did SO much research beforehand I actually ended up knowing MORE than the rescue people. So don't be surprised if they dont have all the answers

It's seems like an obvious thing to state but of course make sure all buns are fixed. And, hormones can stick around for several weeks so keep that in mind too.

I wouldn't bring anything with you to the date that "belongs" to your bun because you want the space to be completely neutral. So I would reiterate that to the bunny rescue as well. You don't want them "dating" in a room or area that the new bunny has been. On my date, though, I did bring a pair of thick gloves. It's unpleasant to think about, but should a fight break out you want some protection in breaking it up. The rescue I worked with didn't think it was a big deal but I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

As far as what to expect from the buns, things could vary. My two ignored each other and then my male humped my female. She didn't care in the least. I ended up having a very easy bond process with not one fight or scuffle. So you may have some humping but they may ignore each other all together. And ignoring is a really good sign! if there are any scuffles some brief chasing or a nip here or there may not be a huge negative either. The "bad" signs in my opinion is up on hind feet, boxing, lunging and grunting/growling, ears back, or both rabbits laying on their sides kicking and biting. There is no way to tell beforehand how they will react for sure. You just have to be prepared for anything.

Here is my favorite article on bonding. I followed it almost to a T and agree with most everything she says in here about bonding buns.

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/bond.shtml

I also blogged about my bonding experience every step of the way. Here is my blog if you are interested. The bonding started in about Oct of 2012:

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f18/antics-agnes-archie-67470/index11.html

I was VERY nervous about this whole process too I researched and researched and then researched some more to prepare. I'm not sure whether to credit luck or my research but my experience has been very enjoyable and I now have to bonded buns to enjoy. It was stressful and alot of work but worth it in the end. Best of luck and do let us now how it works out! I'm such a sucker for a bunny love story.

Hi! what you are wanting to do with your degree sounds a lot like mine, except im not sure if im wanting to go full into vet school after or focus more on education and husbandry for zoos. I live near columbus zoo (which is supposed to be #1 in the country right now) and they have an amazing internship program im planning to apply to my third year.).

but yes my bun is neutered and the girls will all be spayed. I think there are only the two buns Mira, and Luna but there might be a third one (shelby, shes a bigggg girl lop). which im also kind of excited for since I have a soft spot for lops.

thank you for your comments, I read your blog about your two buns and im hoping for mine to go as wells as yours did!

agnesthelion said:

I wouldn't bring anything with you to the date that "belongs" to your bun because you want the space to be completely neutral. So I would reiterate that to the bunny rescue as well. You don't want them "dating" in a room or area that the new bunny has been. On my date, though, I did bring a pair of thick gloves. It's unpleasant to think about, but should a fight break out you want some protection in breaking it up. The rescue I worked with didn't think it was a big deal but I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

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the gloves idea is a great idea! my boyfriend does professional landscaping so im sure I can find some thick gloves somewhere around the apartment. we are bringing the buns to one of the girlbuns' foster home and she said that they would be meeting in a neutral zone so im assuming that that means she has some area in her house where her bun hasnt been either. so im planning to just bring frank, his carrier, and ill have a little "bunnybag" with water and small amount of hay/greens since the ride is about an hour one way. does that sound okay?

Yes that sounds perfect! Let us know how it goes!!!

we ended up bring home a girl named Luna you can see their bonding blog in the blog section. im going to try to keepit up

My bunnies just had a wedding it was the cutest thing I had ever seen be for 💜💜💜❤️❤️❤️💗