can i keep 2 male rabbits with 2 female rabbits

[apollo4441000]

hi, so i have 4 young rabbits, 2 males (alex and evan) and 2 females (kelly and tiffany) they are all spayed and neutered and they all live in my conservatory where they all have a large 3ft double hutch connected to a run, one for the males and one for the females, the only thing is they are all different breeds;
alex is a 1 year old rex
evan is a 11 month old lionhead
kelly is a 1 year old dutch
and tiffany is a 10 month old netherland dwarf
i adopted both pairs at different times, the girls before the boys and i know that both evan and alex are quite docile whereas tiffany is quite energetic whilst kelly is quite submissive, none of my rabbits have ever shown aggression towards people and are all litter trained
hopefully in the future i want to be able to let all four rabbits live in the conservatory with no hutches just a pen where they can all sleep at night
is this possible, because if i cant im thinking of separating the boys and girls by keeping alex and kelly together and evan and tiffany together due to size differences...:bunnydance:

 

[Watermelons]

Size differences usually mean nothing to rabbits. I woudlnt break up the pairs. And mixing all 4 can ruin the all ready bonded pairs and leave you with 4 rabbits that will need to be housed seperate.

 

[BunnyWabbit]

Size difference doesn't really matter in bonding. Please DO NOT break up any bonded pairs. Some bunnies get incredibly attached to their bond mates and can fall into depressions.

As Watermelons said there is also a risk of breaking an existing bond when you add more rabbits. That said, bonding all four rabbits is possible but would be a lot of work. I know people that have bonded 4 and even 5 rabbits together. If this is something you have the time and desire to do I would do A LOT of research on it.

Here is a link to a blog where the owner has 5 bonded rabbits.
http://www.wheekwheekthump.com/category/bonding/

Here's an article from a person who has bonded an incredible amount of rabbits together. (8-10 I think)
http://www.mybunnies.com/bonding.htm

There's also another forum I frequent at binkybunny.com . There's a whole section dedicated to bonding only so reading through some of the success stories there might give your some handy tips/tricks/ideas/etc...

 

[apollo4441000]

thanks for the help, but is there a way i can let them just interact with each other...because I've noticed that when i let them all loose in the garden, tiffany always runs behind alex, who runs behind kelly and then evan is always trying to play with tiffany but she wont give him any attention

 

[BunnyWabbit]

I don't understand what you're asking exactly. Can you clarify?

Rabbits need to be properly bonded if they are going to spend extended or unsupervised time together.

 

[flemish giant]

I think he means like a play date. I think it'd be OK in a very large area where they can get away from each other. People do play dates with rabbits there's a lot more than 4 but I think if they have enough room its OK.

Oh and you'd have to watch them while u were doing it.

 

[apollo4441000]

i have a large garden which has been bunny proofed, and i make sure that if i see the first sign of trouble i can act immediately but since last friday i have seen no problems with them interacting, the only bit i have to keep an eye is when Evan tries to take everyone elses veggies, i had the idea of feeding Alex, Kelly and Tiffany separately from Evan which has worked