Rabbits Came In Contact

[Kimberly09]

So I have been stressing out since yesterday.. Its kind of a long story but i'll try to keep it as short as possible.

I have two rabbits, one neutered male and one intact female who is scheduled to be spayed later this month. After the spay and hormones drop I plan to attempt to bond them. Right now they share a bedroom that is split in half by a long baby gate (the one with long panels you can move to make different shapes). They have been in their room with the current set up for over 3 months. I have never had a problem. They have always seemed to like each other through the gate wall, even sometimes licking each other.

Well yesterday late morning I went in there, giving both attention and everything was fine. About 5ish hours later I hear some commotion, which is uncommon since they both like to sleep during the day. I go stick my head in and notice one side of the gate was slightly pushed away from the wall. I look over and there are Charlie and Gracie sitting about 3 feet away from each other looking at me like "We're not doing anything wrong Mom!"

So Gracie (intact female) pushed her way through where the gate and wall meet and went onto Charlie's side (neutered male). I instantly picked her up and put her back on her side. Right away she tried to squeeze through again to the other side. But I reinforced the gates so there is no getting through again.

After looking around I found a few chunks of hair laying around, and you could tell they were chasing each other because Charlie's boxes where moved and some turned over. I checked both rabbits over and neither had any wounds or bald spots. Both were acting fine and started munching away at their hay.

So i'm just freaking out that this might cause them trouble during the bonding process later on down the road. Any thoughts or opinions would be great! Thank you!!

 

[Imbrium]

Depending on how long ago he was neutered, he could still be hormonal (takes as much as 6-8 weeks for a male's hormones to be totally gone) and she's obviously still hormonal, so it's not too surprising that they got in a fight when they got together. I wouldn't worry about it too much, since you've got things fixed so that they can't get back together. Since she's not spayed yet (and it sounds like it'll still be a week or two before her surgery) and it'll take a month for her hormones to subside, that'll give them time to "forget" about the fighting.

If you run into troubles with bonding them once all the hormones are gone and suspect that they're still remembering that fight, you can separate them (different rooms so they can't see or smell each other) for 3-4 weeks - that's much more likely than a divided room to make them forget about their fight and is commonly used to "reboot" the bonding process when things just aren't going well (the same tactic is actually used with sugar glider introductions/bonding when there are problems).

You probably know this already, but when you start bonding them, you'll need to use neutral territory rather than their room - that helps a great deal and can be enough of a difference to not need to do a full separation. My girls' bond has broken a couple times (F/F bonds are the trickiest and most volatile) and I was able to reset/repair things by taking them to neutral territory together for a supervised play-date (I used a pen in my neighbor's kitchen one time and took them outside to a pen in the yard another time).

Also, since they fought, I really recommend separating them with more than just a baby gate so that they can't continue to fight through the openings in it. Something like cardboard, coroplast, posterboard, etc. could be used to line the shared wall - punch little holes around the edges of whatever you use and slide zip-ties through the holes, then zip-tie it to the gate. Cardboard's probably the best option as far as balancing cost and durability/thickness (chewers would get through posterboard in no time). If you don't have some sitting around, you can buy large moving boxes pretty cheaply at places like Walmart and Home Depot and cut them to the sizes you need.

 

[Imbrium]

Also, if he was neutered less than 6-8 weeks ago, it's possible that the pulled hair is related to them trying to mate. It's also possible for him to still be fertile for up to 6-8 weeks, so there's a chance she could get pregnant from an encounter during that time. However, the majority of vets remove the uterus during the spay (a rare few use a technique where they only remove the ovaries - that method is far more popular in the UK and has been used by a lot of vets there for nearly a decade; my vet in San Antonio spays this way as it's less invasive while still getting rid of the hormones that cause reproductive cancers). As long as your vet removes the uterus, a spay will function as an abortion in a pregnant bunny (this can be done safely up to at least 2 1/2 weeks into a pregnancy). Spaying a pregnant female is also referred to as an "emergency spay"; however, the only real difference between that and a normal spay is what it's called - the technique is the same.

It sounds like her spay is scheduled soon enough for it to double as an "emergency spay" in the event that he's gotten her pregnant and you don't want to deal with raising and finding good homes for up to 12 kits, not to mention the potential heartbreak of rejected kits and the risks to the mom such as having a kit get stuck (which can be fatal). Based on info in your post, it sounds like she could be as young as 5 months old... risks to the mom are significantly higher in females that aren't fully grown (plus, it's very taxing on mom's body if she's still growing herself) - an "emergency" spay (rather than letting her have the kits) is strongly recommended in juvenile females.

Hopefully she's not pregnant anyway (and even if he's within that 6-8 week window, there's no guarantee that she is) but since I don't know how long ago he was neutered, I thought it was worth mentioning that pregnancy *might* be a possibility.

 

[Kimberly09]

Thank you both for your replies! I guess I should have specified that he was neutered over a year ago. So no worry about her being pregnant! I was just more worried about their relationship.

I don't plan on trying to bond until at least 3-4 weeks after her spay. I'd rather not rush things and just do them right. I have already decided to use our hallway as a bonding place, which neither has been in.

That is a really good thought of covering the gate, I will keep that in mind. But I am not certain they actually fought vs just chasing each other around. But maybe that is just me being hopeful. There were two clumps of Gracie's hair right next to each other, but none of Charlie's. I would guess if they had a real fight there would be more hair, but again I could be wrong.

 

[JBun]

I think if there had been real fighting you would have known it, as actual fighting is pretty vicious. It sounds more like a minor scuffle. It probably was just a bit of humping. If they seem to like each other and get along through the gate, then I wouldn't worry too much about it. It shouldn't affect bonding at all. If they seem irritated and trying to go at each other through the panel bars, then it would probably be best to do something so they don't have contact with each other.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

:yeahthat:

 

[Imbrium]

Thank you both for your replies! I guess I should have specified that he was neutered over a year ago. So no worry about her being pregnant! I was just more worried about their relationship.

I don't plan on trying to bond until at least 3-4 weeks after her spay. I'd rather not rush things and just do them right. I have already decided to use our hallway as a bonding place, which neither has been in.

Ahhh, ok, that makes a big difference! Given that she's not spayed yet and once she is, you'll be waiting the proper length of time to make sure all the residual hormones are gone, that should be more than enough time for them to get over whatever little tiff they had. Combined with doing the official intros and early bonding sessions in neutral territory, you'll have a good chance of things going pretty smoothly - I don't think their encounter will have a negative effect on bonding when you get there .

On the topic of bonding, I'd like to pass along a link that someone else shared on RO recently to a site I hadn't known about previously - I thought this article had some excellent tips on bonding that are somewhat counter-intuitive and not covered by other bonding sites I've read:
http://www.wheekwheekthump.com/2013/11/19/7-ways-hurting-rabbits-chances-bonding/#more-851