Help! Bonding advice needed

[Little Bay Poo]

We haven’t tried bonding Billy and Ronnie yet, but I’m not sure if we will. Our ultimate goal would be to have them share the same play area, but still live in separate cages. Billy is aggressive and Ronnie is docile, so we thought it would work.

For 4 months we’ve kept the bunnies separated by back to back baby gates so they can’t bite through. We needed 2 months for Ronnie’s hormones to die down after the neuter, and were hoping that Billy would eventually learn to accept his presence. When Billy is not interacting with us, his favorite place to be is next to the baby gate watching Ronnie. But I’m sure that what he is thinking is “how do I get to the other side to kill that rabbit.”

Ronnie ignores Billy, but keeps an eye on him just in case he has to defend himself against a Billy attack. This only happened once, about three months ago when the gates weren’t set up properly and Billy snuck into Ronnie’s territory. We were out of the room for just a few minutes, which gave Billy enough time to rip out 10 chunks of Ronnie’s fur, and then be chased back to his own territory by Ronnie. We make sure everything is secure and watch Billy like a hawk now, so that has not happened again.

Billy’s been marking his side of the baby gate with droppings every day for 4 months. Occasionally we remove one baby gate to see how Billy reacts, and he immediately tries to bite Ronnie through the remaining gate. Chris took the bunnies to his mom’s for the holidays (completely neutral territory). Billy creeped around cautiously but when he saw Ronnie, he tried to bite him through the cage bars.

Should we give up on bonding before we even start? I’m just so scared of putting the bunnies together in the kitchen or bathtub, only to have a full out bunny fight. Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[missyscove]

You might want to try swapping their cages every few days. It gets a little messy because there's alot of territorial marking every time you switch, but it does help.

 

[monklover]

I don't think you should give up just yet. I agree that you should switch the cages. I did this with my bunnies and I think it is the reason why they finally bonded. I would try that and then report to us how they do.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Are Ronnie and Billy both males? From the information you provided, that's what it sounds like. Bonding two males can be alot harder and take more time than a male/female. It can be done though. Anyone who has bonded two males, could you add any advice you may have?

Good Luck with them!

 

[Little Bay Poo]

Thanks for the advice! Yes, Billy and Ronnie are both males...since Billy was so aggressive from the start we didn't want to put him with a potentially aggressive female.

We tried swapping their cages/play areas for a few hours today and both bunnies had a field day. Billy with all of his territorial marking and Ronnie was basking in all of the new attention he was receiving in the family room They seemed to settle into each other's cages very easily, so next time we'll have them spend the night.