Baby bunnies -- house together or separate?

[thumpingBerry]

I am posting under the health and wellness section as this relates to stress and health issues.

I have two baby bunnies, one is around 10 weeks old now, and I'm not sure how old the other one is, I am assuming around the same age.

Pansy is a velveteen lop I bought a couple of weeks ago, then had enteritis/GI issues. See post http://www.rabbitsonline.net/showthread.php?t=86329 for more info on her health issues she had. Blossom is a holland lop I bought the same day. Both are females. They shared a cage until I felt it was more important to monitor Pansy's fecal output and food input with her GI issues.

There is no doubt the baby bunnies will get along. In fact, I put them together for a short time in Pansy's cage and Pansy was grooming Blossom. My worry though is Blossom seems much more active than Pansy and I worry that her activity level may be a stress factor for Pansy, otherwise I would put them back together. I don't want Pansy to have another GI issue. She seems to be perfectly fine now.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

 

[Kipcha]

Baby bunnies will almost always get along, it's when they mature and hormones hit that you can get problems. I have had babies where they get along for months, then one day you wake up and they don't anymore. Hormones can hit fast, so you're going to need to keep a close eye on that.

The problem with having another rabbit in with your bun if you're worried about GI issues in that poop monitoring is very important to make sure she continues to improve, which will be hard to do if the 2 of them are together.

 

[Aki]

I second the poop monitoring problem - I have 2 adults living together now and one of them currently has GI issues: finding a way to assess if the ill rabbit has been pooping is HELL. I wish I could separate mine (but well, Aki has been living with another rabbit for 7 years and separating them would stress her out).
I also agree with Kipcha: the fact that your 10 week old bunnies get along doesn't mean that they won't jump at each other's throat 3 weeks from now. And females can be vicious. You can attempt to keep them together until their spay, keeping a close watch to avoid scuffles, but you will have to keep them separated anyway for about 2 weeks after the spay to make sure they heal OK which will take you back to square one in the bonding process.
I think the getting along concern and your concern about activity level also play differently depending on the rabbit's living conditions. Locked up together in a 1m² cage is not at all the same than putting together rabbits in a room or a cage attached to a pen because the rabbits can't isolate themselves or easily escape from their cagemate if they become agressive...

 

[thumpingBerry]

Pansy's GI issues are gone now, she's eating like a little pig and doing great.

However, cage size IS an issue, and I guess the activity level difference with the worry that putting them together may add enough stress to cause another GI upset for Pansy is enough to keep them in separate cages.

In the past, in my very brief attempt to raise bunnies to breed, I have had a couple different sets of young females together (as well as young males), and the males always started fighting around 3 - 4 months old, but the female sets usually lasted longer.