Bonding Experiences

Hi All, I posted some questions in a different thread about bonding but must have been wrong place, Ooops sorry!
I have read most of the old threads about bonding and I guess I'm after a little reassurance that the behavior that I'm seeing is right to keep moving forward.
Today Doc called 'Hmmph Hmmph' and Wilmah went running to him and he began grooming her, Was he calling her? (or my imagination)
I still have them separated at night but they run around together during the day (I check on them regularly) and he is now wanting her with him ALL the time. They bite and pull the bars on the pen trying to get to each other, she loves his double story hutch.
My research says that once I desex her this could be blown out the water as her hormone change could make them fight, so do I or do not desex her?
Heres some pics of them 'Chillin'

One assumes that he is desexed, and she is not? How old is she? It seems like they're doing alright, my only concerns are if she has a false pregnancy it could lead to some unpleasant behaviour between them. The other concern is reproductive cancer. If you don't particularly want to get her spayed, it seems like you might be ok for the moment. But you may have to see how it goes and get her spayed in future if they start to scuffle because her hormones may be up and down at times. I wouldn't be inclined to consider it permanently stable bond.

Just my opinion, but I would desex her. Some say its not a true bond unless both buns are fixed, and even though I have never read any facts over the matter I tend to agree. With hormones intact there is a better chance of your doe suffering a health ailment, her mood affecting her aggressively and possible false pregnancy behavior.

In this thread you dont mention how young she is. If she's young, she'll get along pretty easy with any rabbit. Its when they hit puberty things get ugly. Also, even bonded some rabbits still get into fights from time to time. My two have been bonded over a year but I noticed they have fights once every few months. Its a dangerous thing, but intact hormones would probably make such a fight even worse.

Cute pics though...

Thank you Azerane & Troller. Wilmah is 5 months old and Wilbur is 7 months old and desexed. I had read about the health issues of not desexing a doe and am really wanting to desex her for those reasons. I was planning to desex her at 6 - 7 months of age depending on her size (for the vets down here it's the size they worry about,hands to body ratio???).

From what I can gather, I'm best to keep them seperate other than supervised playtime until after she is desexed and then see how they're getting on.

Thank you both for your advise,

cheers shooni

They look like relatively large breed bunnies, which means that they often mature a little later too, so she still might not be very hormonal yet and at 5 months, that bond could very easily change. I would agree with supervised play time until you can get her desexed. Sounds like a good plan

Thanks Azerane. Yes they both British Giants so still got a lot of growing to do.
Well, Wilmah turned the tables on Doc today and she was trying to hump him all the time, front, back, side,she didn't care! He did not like it he sulked terribly,he even went as far as turning his back on her in their pens. So I'm back to very vigilant supervision again and playing referee. I thinks the hormones are kicking in :agree (hers)
Thanks again,

cheers shooni

Oh they're giants! I own to Flemish and let me tell you yes definitely get them fixed! During bonding my two had a real fight (believe it or not of all things when I called an "expert" bonding person for help and he didn't follow my advice and things went downhill from there) and it was incredibly intense, and being so big they were harder to break up. Not saying yours will fight like that , but on the off chance why take a risk.

thanks troller. Yep definately getting her desexed as she has just started spraying and when I say spraying I mean 'showering everything in a 5 meter radius!' I copped it,Doc copped it, the furniture, curtains, Yeh Na, not having that thankyou! She has sprayed everything in her pen and I've had to move Doc's feed bowls so she don't spray them all the time.

I love her dearly but wow,girls are a lot more work!:blushan: Counting down the days till desexing!

cheers shooni