NotaCocoaPuff
Well-Known Member
Advice needed!... I adopted my male rabbit, Oliver over 2-3 years ago. He's free roam and recently lost his bunwife a few months ago. She was very submissive to him, probably because she was unknowingly very sick. We recently adopted Piper, spayed female. We went through the usualy bonding process and they were succesfully bonded and free roam for the past 8 weeks. Piper is more dominant than Fiona, so bonding was a little more involved and longer but successful. Oliver is the king for sure and they do have little disagreements but nothing unusual or too aggressive. That being said, 4 days ago my husband found them locked on each others neck fighting to the death no doubt. He separated them causing injury to his hand (not he knows a better way to break them apart). We let them cool off for a few hours and then put them back together as usual. The next morning I woke up to a bomb of Piper's fur throughout my house, although Oliver had two small wounds on his back and shoulder. They were immediately separated as I have a 12hr shift to work. Saturday morning I took them for a long car ride in a carrier to Hope Depot for some home Reno supplies. They also spent a wee bit of time on the dryer. We are now back to bonding 101, in a 3x3 cage with only a carpet, water dish and hay in the middle. They have been acting like they usually do, intermittent snuggling/grooming but just kind of ignoring each other. What I have observed is that when I add the litterbox and hay bag Oliver becomes very protective and Piper is pissed she's not allowed in. Going back 5 days before the fight... they had 2 litter boxes with 2 hay bags next to each other (see picture). I'm wondering where to go from here because they are not really bonding (humping, grooming, etc) a lot, just here and there but this may be because they are already used to each other. When I first bonded them together there was a lot of humping, chasing, grooming, snuggling, etc. I'm wondering if they can co-exist free roam by just giving them their separate litterbox/hay in separate spaces or would Oliver try to protect both? Do I just continue to leave them in the small 3x3 enclosure regardless of bonding behaviors? I'm worried their bond is broken and they may never re-bond. I don't have a way to give them their own separate rooms unfortunately.