Introducing bunnies.. body language good?

[Echo]

2nd proper introduction of 2 pairs of rabbits, 3 male, 1 female..

Spent a few hours today in the dog basket together and hopping about the utility room..



Is the body language good? I'm being optimistic as they seem to haveaccepted each other fairly well. :bunnydance: They eitherhave no interest whatsoever in each other or else they like each other. No grooming yet though.

Pair 1:
White lop= Pippin
Harlequin lop= Shadow

Pair 2:
Normal White= Captain
Ball of fluff=Jack

Soz for rubbish pic quality my camera is crap atm

 

[undergunfire]

OH MY GOSH! You must send Jack my way. He is sooooo gorgeous!:inlove:




- Amy (Mallory, Morgan, and Madilyn-Mae):hearts

 

[Michaela]

Wow they are all beautiful, as far as I can tell they look very happy together.:hearts

How were they behaving? No attacks? Humping?

 

[Echo]

No attacks, charges, stamping or the like

Jack mounted shadow briefly when they were all in the dog basket together but shadow didnt appear to have any reaction to that.
I was glad pippin didnt react because I was worried he considers shadow'HIS female' and would be aggressive to new males.. But it wasnt thecase.

They were hopping past each other, brushing against one another withouttensing or freezing, or any sort of actions that would have shown themto be afraid or aggressive.

I'm clearing out the rabbit enclosure at the moment, it was being usedfor storage during winter, so i'm going to try them out there nextweekend and see how they react 'unsupervised' even though ill bewatching from where they cant see me.. I just always get the feelingthey behave coz i'm right there and if I was to walk out the doorthey'd be like naughty little children

 

[Brandy456]

Jack remind me of those movies where the big guyis always the softie and lost..XD so cute pipp must feelpretty protected ful of guys.

 

[Kawaii608]

Jack is soo cute, what breed is he? But is it alot of work taking care of him becuz he has a lot of fur?

 

[Echo]

Jack was supposed to be a teeny little lionhead.. buuut I see now he is a Dutch/lionhead mix so he's way bigger than I expected.

He just needs to be brushedmaybe once a week really, hegrooms it well himself, I usually just untangle bits of hay from it.I'd say if he was kept on woodshavings it would be a nightmare though :?

 

[BEAUKEZRA]

Shadow looks just like my Alice.

 

[Brandy456]

Shadow has the same coloring as a tabby cat, so cute

 

[naturestee]

If there's no aggression, it sounds like it's going fabulous to me! Keep doing what you're doing!

 

[Echo]

Update..

So all 4 have been out in the enclosure for a few full days now (takenin at night of course ) and so far so good, no fighting or bloodspilled..

Just one thing I was concerned about,

The first time I left them alone in the enclosure, maybe a week ago Iguess, for like 5 minutes to check on the dogs, I came back and therewas a small bit of fur which looked like it had been pulled out, and Icould see if was from Captain's rump due to the fur being tussled, butthere was no blood or anything.. and i'm fairly positive it wasPippin.. but no further incidents happened for a few days and theyseemed comfortable with one another.

Then when I let them out around the garden about 2 days ago, 3 of themwere just having fun hopping about, but lazy pippin sat munching grassfor a while, and when Captain came near, (by near I mean has his bottomin front of Pippin's nose) well then pippin nipped his bottom andhopped about 2 hops after him before getting back to the seriousbusiness of eating.

There was no fur pulled out, or blood,and he didnttechnically give chase.. so was that just a normal 'get out of my face'or could it be worrying?

I'm prob being paranoidhere but it's my first time to introadult males and I dont want to check them one day and find someone hurt.

I was thinking maybe it was just he is a bit food protective?
He is a lot fatter than his cagemate Shadow, and I have to leave 2 bowls apart to make sure she gets food.

And a while later Captain came near and Pippin didnt react.. so hoping this wasnt anything serious?

I wont be attempting to try them in the same cage together till thesummer anyways to make sure I have enough time to watch them.

 

[aurora369]

A little bit of fur pulling is normal.As long as it's not full out fighting, it's okay. They willbe doing a bit of chasing and humping to establish who's boss.

Baxter still humps Zeke every couple days or so. Just toremind him. And Wildfire will hump both of theboys. Wildfire will also do the butt nip and chasething. She normally does it when she wants to lay where someone is already laying, so she nips their butts till they move.

It sounds like it's going very well.

I would suggest that when you start leaving them over night, do so in aneutral area. Leave them in a pen in a neutral spot and leavethem together like that for a good week or two. By the timeyou go to move them to a cage they should be very closely bonded andless likely to fight.

--Dawn

 

[Echo]

That's good

Forgot to mention the humping, onlyoccured for a littlewhilebut same day as pippin nipped captain, Jack was doing afair bit of humping pippin and for a while seemed to consider humpngshadow but then didnt. Since Pippin didnt seem to be bothered I didntintervene as I assumed Jack was telling Pippin his rank.

Shadow has been 100% accepted by Jack & Captain because of hergentle and submissive nature so I think it is just a matter of Pippinfinding his place now.

My guess is that Pippin will rank himself over Captain because Captainis a very shy rabbit due to his rough start in life and just wantseveryone to be nice to him

I predict the dominance will go in order of Jack being alpha, then Pippin, then Captain, and then Shadow.

The only neutral area I have is the enclosure and id rather not leavethem all outside overnight because they've never experienced itbefore.. apart from Captain when he was abandoned, plus it is still abit nippy at night.
I think I might try make a pen in the centre of the shed for that purpose.

Thanks for the advice

Do you think a 2x4 grid cage is ok for the 4 of them during the night and say winter?
They will be in enclosure during most days which is at least 8' x 7' if not more.
The cage has a 2x2 2nd level as well... so overall floorspace is fairly large.
I'm trying to work out a way to make it a 2x5 since I definitely cantwiden it as it is wedged in between my dad's built in shelving.. but idpretty much need to move around the whole shed and a lot of it is builtin and immovable..