Help with bonding...

[Bambithebunny]

Hello,
So I have 2 rabbits that I'm trying to bond. The first one is Bambi. She is spayed and I'd say that she has a defensive personality? What I mean by that is that even though I know she loves me and comes to me so I can pet her, she's also easily scared(or even annoyed) and sometimes attacks for no real reason.

The second and new one is Mocha. He is neutered and he is a cute and super curious bunny. Always wants to explore eeeeevrything and always super super nice. He's not super used to me yet that's why he doesn't come to me as much as Bambi but that's fine.

Anyways so the first few day I brought Mocha into the house Bambi went crazy as expected. She tried to attack him and she really was crazy. So I put them in different cages next to each other and waited so they could get used to each others smell. At first Bambi would actually attack my leg everytime I passed in front of her and I could see she was just super annoyed with the whole situation but time went by and she finally got used to Mocha and his smell. So at first I started stress-bonding and that went well. I could see that Mocha wanted to be dominant because he'd lower his head and wait for Bambi to groom him. She'd do it sometimes but nothing to crazy. Then as time went by, I tried to put them in a small (neutral) room together and since then it has always been the same: Bambi doesn't really move from her place and keeps an eye on Mocha and he runs around the room and tries to look at everything. And if he dares to come close to Bambi? She attacks! Sometimes she just nips at him and other time it's a full on attack. It depends on day for sure because sometimes it goes super well and they can actually eat a banana together and groom eachother and other times it's war. Also I realized that Bambi might also want to be dominant? She also lower her head and wait to be groomed but Mocha doesn't groom her that much. Also there was no humping at all.

So yeah it's been like that for weeks and I don't really know what to do next... Should I go back to just stress bonding? I really have no idea so if you could help it would be nice!

 

[amdezo]

I read lots of articles before bonding my two--and I must say that I don't know if I did anything or they just liked each other. I have two neutered males. I kept them in cages next to one another and swapped them out daily so they had to live in the scent of one another, using the other's litter box. I also placed their food so that it was on the side closest to the other's cage, it was as if they were eating together. Later, I didn't stress-bond them, but just put them in a neutral space and put a salad there, so they were eating together fairly quickly. If you don't want to swap their cages, maybe a blanket being swapped would help. Go slowly, even though I know you have been! Keep supplies (I'd use leather work gloves) nearby in case you need to break things up if they get ugly. I used a new, clean string mop to kind of separate them when the mounting got a little too much for the one guy.

If they are laying and ignoring one another, that is supposed to be a good sign. Good luck!