Grace and Louis - Bonding

[Sayuri]

I REALLY need to get Grace and Louis bonded!! - Not only do I want to move them into their Christmas present next month, a nice BIG NIC cage but also my other half insists that they move into the garden come spring time and become outdoor bunnies...what he doesnt know is that come autumn/winter they will be moving back into the house and back into their NIC cage

Anyway I want them to not only be able to live together but also for them to have each other to snuggle with in the COLD living room...and it really is cold in my living room in the winter, I want them to be able to come out at the same time so that they have more time out of their cages and also I want them to have each other to play with.

Bonding so far has been....well I dont know what the hell I am doing! - I read stuff online about bonding but I am rubish at it. I pop them in the hall and it all look as though they are ignoring each other and the next thing they are doing a "face off" staring at each other eyeball to eyeball, next one of them, normally Grace, goes to hop away after a minute or so and then FIGHT! - once they have had one thats it they dont stop so I have to seperate them and then vacuum up all the fluff!

From what I can gather Louis is the aggresor and Grace is defending herself, usually because most of the fur on the floor belongs to Grace and Louis normally has fur sticking out of his mouth!

Can someone PLEASE help me with bonding my bunnies!!!! A step by step guide where someone will post what I need to do on day one and then I can post what happens and then someone can tell me what to do next. I think it may really help with people in th future who dont know what they are doing and I thought we could make it a new bunny blog

Any volunters?

 

[Flashy]

Hmm. Some bunnies are not meant to be bonded, so bear that in mind. Some bunnies take a long time.

I would suggest taking it slowly slowly. It's not going to be a quick bond, so you are probably not going to manage it in a month.

I would go right back to basics if I were you.

Keep them separate,but keep sswapping their food and water bowls every day, and their toys so they get used to the smell of the other in their area. then maybe try swapping their cgaes everyweek so they get used to the others smell even more.

When you get to putting them back together do it on neutral territory (as in where neither of them have been before), have lots of toys and treats, and also keep yourself calm and relaxed because they will pick up on your mood.

Start with really short bursts, a minute or two, just so they get the smell and to see each other, and then progress slowly to more and more time. If you meet a hitch, go back a step or so to hopefulyl avoid that hitch.

There is no hard and fast way to do it because each bunny is different, but this is how I have started all my bonds although I have tended to vary along the way.

If you get to a time that they are spending hours together successfully, then you need to make sure that they don't fight over dawn or dusk because that is the time they are most active and most likely to fight. With that in mind you might want to watch their cycles as to when they are both most dopey (with mine it seems to be between 10am-1pm and 8-10pm) because they will be less likely to react because they will be half asleep.

Hope that helps somewhat. But remember it might not happen. Half of mine are outside, mostly in singles and they do fine, but when it comes to putting yorus outside, do it daytimes first and do it overnight when it gets milder, or else they will get a chill.

 

[XxMontanaxX]

Have you tried taking them on a car ride?

 

[~BunBuns~]

XxMontanaxX wrote:

Have you tried taking them on a car ride?

I heard stress bring them together.:shock:


-April and Bunbuns

 

[GrayBunny]

We are bonding our mini rexes right now, and have had a tough time. We recently tried putting them in a bath tub with about half an inch of water filled. We then put both of them in there, and they snuggled and got along well. We did this several more times, and then started to gradually put them in dry, neutral places.

We are now able to put them in the living room without them fighting. They sniff, and mostly ignore each other, but the fighting has gone way down.

So I recommend the bath tub trick- it really brought them together.

 

[XxMontanaxX]

But putting them is water, what if that would stress them out too much? Its like the same reasons not to give a rabbit a bath, right?

 

[GrayBunny]

XxMontanaxX wrote:

But putting them is water, what if that would stress them out too much?  Its like the same reasons not to give a rabbit a bath, right?

Well when the water is that shallow, they don't really get drenched.

I don't know; it worked for us