Neutral Territory

[Nelson_is_mine]

Since Nelson has recovered nicely from his health scare of last week (An impaction, I believe it is called. A "clog" in the system?) and Lil and Bertha have been living in my room for nearly three weeks, it's about time to start the bonding. The girls are already a bonded pair and Nelson is a single. All of them lay next to each other through the fence seperating them and they are able to stick their little mouths through and groom each other a bit. My mom and I both agree that it is time to go to the next step.

Here is where the porblem lies. We both agree that neutral territory is the way to go, but there is a disagreement over what is neutral. I think that we should start out somewhere that nobun has ever been before. My mom thinks that since they both share the room, they view it as a shared territory and it's therefore neutral and that we could just open the gate to the girls pen and let them meet with no bars in between them. Both of us are fairly firm in our beliefs and I just wanted to get other opinions (that will hopefully back me up).

 

[Flashy]

I personally would go with a space that they have never been before. Buns can be quite weird about what they view as theirs, and it may be that one, two or all the buns view their shared room, as their own, which could potentially lead to fights. They may see it that way because they may live next to each other, but the time out of their cages is separate, and they will have clear understanding of where the boundaries are. Some bunnies could be fine with that, but I personally wouldn't take that risk, and I would do it in a place that neither bun has ever been.

With time they might be ok in that space, but to start with, I would go completely new.

 

[Nelson_is_mine]

Thanks for comfirming my thoughts. I will tell my mom.

 

[Flashy]

You could always try both if you struggle to reach an agreement.

And off topic, but you got my 5000th post, congratulations, lol.

 

[tonyshuman]

Agreed. A good place is the bathtub because they usually can't jump out and almost never go in there otherwise. Both of the bunnies probably see the rest of the shared room as "theirs" and mark it with poos during playtime as such.

 

[kherrmann3]

I also recommend the bathtub. It's a neutral area, plus it is slippery and helps to break up fights (or prevent them). Once they did OK in the tub, I moved them into the bathroom on the floor tile. It worked well with my buns.