Bonding! :)

Hi there!!

So i do hope this is the proper thread to post this in, if not please let me know!!

So i have 1 1/2 year old neutered holland lop named Pippen, he's my baby and i adore him, i have had him since he was 8 weeks old and he has had free roam over my room this whole time.

Last week i rescued another bunny, turns out he's a lilac unaltered male holland lop that is somewhere around 5 years old.. He is super sweet, but has been kept in very bad situations before now, so i worry getting him neutered with his lower immune system and age would be to dangerous.

I have had the two in the bathtub together for 3x 20 minute intervals throughout the week and it would go really well each time, they would snuggle up and eat together, crawl all over each other and seem totally perfect and stress free. HOWEVER as soon as i put them ANYWHERE else- they will fight.

I just tried putting them together in a neutral cage, with only a litter box, hay and water, lined with fleece sheet and paper towel. They were fine and happy for about 10 minutes, then started fighting. Did i do it too fast to this step... or is this normal?

Percy kept mounting Pippen and just going all for it, and Pippen got fed up and got out from underneath and attached, this is what kept happening, so i kept pulling them apart with my hands and then let them sniff each other again and go from there....ullhair:

Have you ever actually taken Percy to the vet and had him checked out?

I have, made the appointment the same day i brought him home and took him in 2 days ago, and they say he seems healthy but they don't know the age and have no idea how to tell... Honestly the checkup didn't fill me with that much confidence. Our citys small animal vet is no longer here, so i saw her 'second in command vet' lol

But yea, he has some white hairs on his back, his muzzle is a little lighter, like its turning white and his eye sight seems... impaired. Which leads me to conclude he may even be older than 5...

His scent glands are full and i am slowly working on cleaning them out, they probably became full from the years of him being so overweight and the terrible 'food' he was given.

He never had any hay, was kept on walmart pellet mix (closely resembled hamster mixes) and his bedding was cedar...

The white hairs could have always been there, you never know. If he wasn't a much-loved pet, they could have been wrong about his age--he could be older or even younger.

It might be worth it to hop over to the next city to see an exotic vet and discuss neutering in more detail. Yeah, surgery gets riskier as he gets older, but if you want them to live together, it might be a necessity. Otherwise, before you know it, YOU might have white hairs lol.

The closest city to a vet is Vancouver, which is a $1000, 3 hour plain ride. I live in a rather.... lonely part of the country.
I am an activist for spaying and neutering, but if it may do more harm than good in this case... I'm torn.

And yes, those were my thoughts exactly, i'm almost positive they got the age wrong. They were guessing as they didn't know how old he was when they got him, and they have him for "Maybe somewhere around 2-3 years"..... Ugh.

-google maps whitehorse- ohhh my god. Welp........................... guess you have to move.

Seriously though, if you can't get an experienced vet to do it, I'd definitely say that adds to the risk of getting him fixed. In that case, you might have to make peace with the idea of them living separate lives forever.

I mean, I think you should keep trying, but will power is a finite resource unfortunately. Have you tried things like car rides, etc?

It seems odd, they get along so well when in the bathtub, its like a scene from lady and the tramp where they share spaghetti.. only with broccoli... Then i try them anywhere else and humpvill from Percy and angry Pippen trying to be friends but not hump partner in-sues....

So i do have hope.

No... i have only kept them in the house so far, when you say car ride, how do you mean?

And It seems suddenly in the last hour Percy has gotten... lively. And very, how shall we say- excitable? towards moving things. He has NEVER done this before, for me nor the previous owners.

Could this possibly mean he is not the old, lazy man i thought he be? Is there a point in a male rabbits life where they just don't care much for breeding with.. everything?

It's really hard and with most rabbits impossible to bond while they are intact. The only real successful ones I've heard of are with rabbits who have been together from a really young age. Even then, a lot of rabbits start fighting once they hit puberty. Being in close proximity with another intact rabbit (of either gender) sometimes makes hormonal/territorial behaviors come on a lot stronger. So that could be why he's extra excitable.

I think you will save yourself and your bunnies a lot of stress if you neuter them before trying to bond them. It really does give them the best chance at developing a successful relationship. It sounds like that would be difficult for you though so I'm not sure what else to suggest that hasn't been suggested.