Controlled Socialization/Bonding

[GardenSpots]

I just saw the term "controlled socialization" used in someone's post and I guess that is what I am asking about rather than bonding.

I am new to bunnies. I have a neutered male I adopted at the end of March. I am contemplating getting a buddy for him and so I have been reading about bonding and such. As sort of a transition in my rabbit ownership I have agreed to foster a neutered male for the rescue where I adopted my boy. Because of the age difference (mine is 1yo and the foster is about 5 yo) I do not think I will decide to keep this boy, but you never know. Ideally, I think I want a female up to 2yo. I am not sure male/female matters as much as personalities that do not clash, but I am going by what I am reading. The age limitation is due to hoping they would have a long life together. Then again, it might be easier on *me* if they weren't so close together in age. I am pretty active in dogs (rescue and training), and they say male/female matters there too, but in my experience it does not, but personalities sure make a difference between dogs that fight and dogs that don't. It has a lot less to do with male/female.

The rabbit rescue person tells me (this is not a rabbit exclusive rescue, they actually do a lot more wildlife rescue) that when they have more than one rabbit in rescue that after a day or two of introduction they are able to allow the rabbits out for run time together and do not have a problem. This seems somewhat contradictory to what I have been reading on bonding. My goal in fostering this guy is to see how I like having two rabbits. I would very much like to be able to allow them to have run time together as my time to allow run time is limited during the week with work and everything. I do not have a good way to give both run time where they could also get interaction with me. I could put one in an expen in another room, but the value in adopting a rescue that's been in foster care is that the foster usually knows more about the animal because they have lived with it. Having to seperate him for run time doesn't really give me the opportunity to get to know him in the same way. Since I do not think at this point I would end up adopting this guy I do not want to try and officially bond the two. Is it possible that they could have run time without fighting without actually bonding them? The run space is pretty large. I would say 12ft X 25ft. It's less space than my rabbit usually gets, but right now I am dog sitting and with the extra animals in the house I have an expen across the living room to give my bunny run space without having to worry about the extra dogs deciding to chase him. I'd really appreciate anyone's thoughts on this. Thanks

 

[missyscove]

In my experience, rabbits often bond more quickly in a shelter environment because they're on neutral territory for both of them and are often pretty stressed out and the opportunity to latch onto another bun can really help with that. If you bring a new rabbit into your rabbit's territory though, things may be different. It's definitely possible to get them to a point where they can have supervised run time without living completely together, but if I were you and they got to that point I probably wouldn't let the foster go.

 

[woahlookitsme]

Agree with Christina and also spending some time together and living together are two completely different things

 

[GardenSpots]

Ok, I appreciate your thoughts. I was hoping they could get to the point where they could spend some time together, but not live together. I just wasn't sure if that was really fair to them though either if I ended up not keeping the foster. That's really not the plan at the moment, but I always keep an open mind with fosters. I would not try to house them together unless I had the intention to keep him and I realize that is not something that would happen over night.

So, it sounds like the best course of action will be to let the foster settle in and see how he handles the environment first. I need to decide if he is a good candidate for our household, then make a decision on the age/sex thing. In the meantime, I will house them near each other so maybe they can get comfortable with one another in that respect, but give run time seperately unless I decide he might be a potential candidate as a permanent resident. If I decide he might be, then try some sessions with the two of them on neutral territory to see how they get along.

Having them use the same run space is OK as long as they are not using it at the same time, correct? I am prepared to set up an expen to provide some space between the cages when one is out running and the other is caged. The cages are about a foot apart, but both are within the run area due to the dogs. So, I may need an extra barrier to keep them from getting too close to the other cage while getting free time, especially if they are having issues with one another (trying to fight through the cage,etc.) Does that sound like a good plan then?

 

[missyscove]

Ideally you would quarantine a new animal for a least 30 days to prevent spread of disease.
If they're sharing a run area, they both may be a little more territorial of it and have less than ideal litter habits, but otherwise it should be okay.