Conan the Bunbarian & Xena Bunnier Princess

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Hi, my name is Michael and I'm 37 and work the nightshift in security. I've been surrounded by pets all my life but can't say I'm a pet person until about 2 years ago. My wife loves pets and while at a store I saw this tremendously sized rabbit (I believe now it was either a Conti or Flemish mix) and was mystified. I carried this strange feeling for a year and in that time saw my sister and a friend who owned house rabbits and realized that these great creatures can in fact be handled outside farm situations and make good pets. I was hooked.

About September I asked to get a rabbit for my birthday and my wife, who was a little worried, went with it. Conan, a blue flemish giant buck, entered our lives and he's such a joy. Though I'm positive he hearts my wife way more then me I'm totally enthused to have this little 13lb. Ball of furry fun in my life. He was set to be a loner, with me planning not to neuter but my wife felt more comfortable with fixing him so I went along with it. Since he got neutered I reconsidered my stance on him being a lone housebun and after much convincing the wife we now welcome Xena into our family.

So Xena, a fawn flemish doe, came home today to the house that Conan and two cockatiels live in. The vet gave her a clean bill of health except for some teariness in the eyes that most likely is stress related but should be monitored going ahead. She's beautiful and took to her pen pretty well, already lamb-chopping and using her litter box (though she peed on her hay). The only negative is that she's 18 weeks old and the vet won't spay her until 24 weeks so bonding will be out for some time.

Now I know initial cage-to-cage meetings don't rate for much, and the fact that Xena is young and Conan is only 3 weeks into neutered means no real connection is being formed, I liked their interaction. Xena was relaxed and curious about her environment but paid a bit of mind to Conan when his nose came peeking in to her cage by nose bumping him and I believe I saw her lick him. For his part his ears were up and forward while his but was down, so I believe that body language means very curious. He circled her cage, honked a bit and was more playful with me surprisingly (either he was happy or just wanted to be. Reassured he still had his humans affections). They both ate near each other comfortably, lay close enough to each other cage side by side and didn't seem agitated in each others presence. So far so good day one.

One thing that worries me is that while their cages are side by side and not close enough to physically interact or harm each other, that's not the case when one of them will be out for exercise time and their little noses fit across the bars. I'll monitor and guess find a way to block them further if it should come to be necessary.

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they both look lovely and so relaxed with each other. Love the names too. Just keep your eye on them and if you see any agression, just make sure they can´t get to each other. I can´t wait until you get to the stage where you can bond, I bet they´ll look great together. I love the big buns but don´t have space for them. I am looking forward to hearing more about them.
 
My wife claims Conan seems happier having another rabbit around. We'll see. Xena took to her litter box right away and I moved the hay to the other side and so far no peeing on it. I had to clean the room today, an event my wife calls The Day of Bunny terror since I use the vaccum. Xena got so scared I thought she had somehow jumped out of her cage since she completely disappeared. Turns out she lodged herself behind a skinny cabinet that I thought the opening too small for her to get behind. Boy was I wrong! Got her out with minimum fuss and put a scrap coroplast barrier up. Hope it works.

Besides Conan trying to get her out of her cage last night (we pretend he was trying to rescue her from her wrongful imprisonment) all's been pretty quite with both buns relaxing around. Though let me tell you, Xena seems to be a champion flopper. With sound effects and dramatic movements and all. Puts Conan to shame :)
 
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I'm the type of bunny-mommy that should never ever have children because if the way I spoil my bunny is any indication, I'd have some bratty children. Q gets MOVED before I vacuum. I pick her up and take her into the bathroom where she can have two closed doors between herself and the loud scary machine! I don't have the heart to train her to get used to it.

I think we need Xena flop videos.....
 
Mine hates Sundays too, that´s cage cleaning day. I have to lock them somewhere else or I can´t anything done. They hate the vac as well.
 
Aww just read through your blog, ♥ the names especially Xena's. Good luck with the bonding. I'm looking forward to hearing more about both of them! :)
 
So the last few days have been interesting. Xena is a pleasure, she seems to really like her new home and she enjoys eating whatever we give her. The breeder gave her small tastes of everything her mother ate so she's good with nearly all vegetables and fruits thought we don't push it. Conan likes to rattle her cage, meanwhile Xena likes to flop next to his. They looked adorable lying side by side a few times. We had to experiment with setting her hay down since she loved just spreading it out around her litter box, and the hay manger had to be positioned a few times so she wont dump it everywhere. Xena is also friendlier then Conan, though it could be that me and the wife are far more relaxed this time then we were when we first got Conan.

I'm amused that my wife has so taken to Xena. I swear she claimed Xena has her own, and she already gets more attention from Conan then I do. Heh, I'm a bunny person for sure but it sure appears that they're not as crazy for me :). My wife sits in the pen with Xena, pets her for hours and has just been completely smitten with her. I''m also entertained that Conan has gotten friendlier, desiring more pets and attention. Jealousy maybe or that we also have Xena's scent on us? Who knows we're happy thought.

The negative though is we found out Xena has coccidia. We we're prescribed two days of marquis, an no other instructions so i guess it can't be that bad. Will of course monitor.

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Conan has such a gorgeous colour and such lovely ears. THey do look settled next to each other so hoping for good things in the future. Sorry to hear she´s not so well but hopefully, she´ll be better in no time.

Adore the picture of Conan flopped out, those are big thumpers lol.
 
Truth is she's displaying no signs of anything wrong, eats well, poops well and flops especially well so we're not that worried but we are on top of it.
 
Thanks for all the compliments but only the breeders can take credit for raising such beautiful animals. Flemish come in seven standard recognized colors; Black, Blue, White, Fawn, Sandy, Light Gray and Steel Gray. Some of the colors are real particular to get (Blue's & Fawns) so its why breeders discourage mixing because it was so hard to achieve these colors in the first place. Conan was my birthday present and I was going to get a Black buck (after all Conan the Barbarian has black hair), my wife wanted a Fawn so we compromised on Blue. It's a shallow thing I know and usually I'm not that way but, well birthday wish and all. It's funny because my wife was actually nervous about having a rabbit in the first place but it was my present and I was so excited. Now she loves rabbits and can't see herself not having one. Xena is my early Valentine's present, and it's a combo of her being a gift, the color being my wife's favorite, and me constantly bringing up my desire for a second rabbit that my wife grudgingly allowed it. Let me say its incredibly odd me wanting a pet and my wife fighting against it, it's like we switched minds or something.

The Vet gave us marquis to give by syringe two doses, one for each day. My wife (she's a nurse so I ask her to handle all medical needs) mashed the first dose into a banana and fed it to Xena who ate it happily. I don't think her case is serious, and many rabbits are carriers of coccidia without showing symptoms. Coccidia can get bad, but only if its really far gone and attention isn't being paid. The only thing that frightened us was to make sure Xena didn't leave any stray poops that Conan might go for.
 
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Well nothing that new to add since bonding is a spay and months away, but my wife wanted me to put up this video of the two loafing about. The differences between them are staggering. Xena eats hay like a machine, samples nearly everything we give her and enjoys fruit! We call her Conan's country wife since she's from PA. Meanwhile Conan is a city slicker from Long Island and has very picky tastes to what he'll eat, preferring his pellets far more and only a select variety of greens. It's weird that they are so very different in many respects, even petting, but get along it seems very well.
 
My comp crashed while I was trying to install the programs from keeping it crashing...sigh, so I'll link the video I mentioned as soon as I come home from work tomorrow.

Yeah Lisa, it really is fun observing the differences. I guess us humans get so self involved that we label an animal a certain way and subconsciously believe they should all follow the template, in this case 'rabbit'. They certainly display personalities and interests/disinterests. I'm having a blast seeing more into rabbit then simply it's type. Hell, I'm even teaching people around me the joy of having them in your life.
 
Xena is so pretty! I love her color and of course Conan is a very handsome boy too. I love the picture of him in the flower put! They compliment each other quite well.

I have to also say that I love your pink bathroom! hahaha. I have a pink tub and pink sink, only the toilet is white. I guess both of our bathrooms were renovated between the 60's and 70's. I love it. I wish I could find a pink toilet.
 
Sigh...You noticed that did you. My wife mentioned not to use that pic because people will see our bathroom and I tut-tutted "people wont see our bathroom they'll just look at the cute bunny". Doh! Yeah the decor is definity 70's, along with the canary yellow faux marble sink in a pink bathroom. Our other bathroom is blue, blue toilet and all. The trimmings in the apt are outdated but its a nice space in a great neighborhood for a decent price so as a manly man I have to accept my bathroom looks like something featured in a power puff girls episode. Oh well.

And to have this connect with rabbits, I'm surprised by just how much Xena likes to be in the bathroom, something Conan avoided. Maybe shes trying to mark it as her own. I have to keep her away from the bathtub as I plan to use that for the first introduction and now I'm worried with her interest there, will she also be want to hang out in the kitchen? Guess I'll have to block that off too which is difficult since it has two entrances.
 
The pictures were great but I hadn´t noticed the bathroom only the gorgeous bunny. And guess what, when Morgan mentioned it, I just had to go back and take another look. I love the retro stuff and you just can´t get those same colours nowadays. it´s all very sparse and monochrome. And now you´re letter on that you watch the power puff girls....oh, dear me lmao.
 

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