New bunny mummy
New Member
Hi guys.
I’m pretty new to all this & find myself struggling slightly in what to do to produce the happiest outcome possible for my bunnies & wondered if any of you had any words of wisdom/advice .
So some background, we got 2 female Lionhead bunnies on 12/4/19, they have the same dad but different mum & there is 2 weeks between them. Cookie was 9 weeks & chip was 7 weeks. They were in the same enclosure when we got them so brought them home, kept them together & never had any issues, happy bunnies .
Fast forward to mid July & they were both booked in to be spayed. You can probably guess the next part. We left the vets with cookie being neutered & chip being very pregnant! Wouldn’t necessarily have been an issue but we had a holiday booked for 9/8/19 & cookie & chip were booked into rabbit boarding whilst we were away.
Cookie went off to boarding, the breeder we got them from agreed to have chip whilst she had her babies & we would get her back when her babies were old enough to be weaned from her.
We got cookie back from boarding & he’s seemed quite depressed & miserable (he’s never been a very human friendly rabbit but loved his bunny companion) so we presumed he was missing chip & not happy being on his own (loves his food & poops fine so I’m pretty certain there’s no health issue).
We collected chip on Sunday night & my kids fell in love with the babies so we decided to keep one (hoping definitely female this time).
I naively thought that it would be plain sailing reuniting cookie & chip as I thought he’d be thrilled to have her home.
We put cookie & chip in the garden to be reunited under our watchful eye whilst holding baby (we’ve named her bugs) & all seemed fine at first but this was then followed by some frantic chasing & a couple of nips, nothing major. Cookie then humped chips head & even though she was the dominant bun before she showed signs of submissing to him but only when bugs was near by (guessing a maternal/protective behaviour?) when she wouldn’t submit cookie gave her a couple of bites to her back end (no blood or broken skin thank goodness) & now I’m slightly nervous & very clueless about how to go about the rebonding process. Do I keep bugs separate whilst rebonding cookie & chip or do I try to bond all 3 at the same time?
I really don’t know what the best way to tackle this is. I’ve read so many articles & researched bonding rabbits but haven’t came across a similar situation regarding broken bonds & new babies .
Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Sorry for the essay
I’m pretty new to all this & find myself struggling slightly in what to do to produce the happiest outcome possible for my bunnies & wondered if any of you had any words of wisdom/advice .
So some background, we got 2 female Lionhead bunnies on 12/4/19, they have the same dad but different mum & there is 2 weeks between them. Cookie was 9 weeks & chip was 7 weeks. They were in the same enclosure when we got them so brought them home, kept them together & never had any issues, happy bunnies .
Fast forward to mid July & they were both booked in to be spayed. You can probably guess the next part. We left the vets with cookie being neutered & chip being very pregnant! Wouldn’t necessarily have been an issue but we had a holiday booked for 9/8/19 & cookie & chip were booked into rabbit boarding whilst we were away.
Cookie went off to boarding, the breeder we got them from agreed to have chip whilst she had her babies & we would get her back when her babies were old enough to be weaned from her.
We got cookie back from boarding & he’s seemed quite depressed & miserable (he’s never been a very human friendly rabbit but loved his bunny companion) so we presumed he was missing chip & not happy being on his own (loves his food & poops fine so I’m pretty certain there’s no health issue).
We collected chip on Sunday night & my kids fell in love with the babies so we decided to keep one (hoping definitely female this time).
I naively thought that it would be plain sailing reuniting cookie & chip as I thought he’d be thrilled to have her home.
We put cookie & chip in the garden to be reunited under our watchful eye whilst holding baby (we’ve named her bugs) & all seemed fine at first but this was then followed by some frantic chasing & a couple of nips, nothing major. Cookie then humped chips head & even though she was the dominant bun before she showed signs of submissing to him but only when bugs was near by (guessing a maternal/protective behaviour?) when she wouldn’t submit cookie gave her a couple of bites to her back end (no blood or broken skin thank goodness) & now I’m slightly nervous & very clueless about how to go about the rebonding process. Do I keep bugs separate whilst rebonding cookie & chip or do I try to bond all 3 at the same time?
I really don’t know what the best way to tackle this is. I’ve read so many articles & researched bonding rabbits but haven’t came across a similar situation regarding broken bonds & new babies .
Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Sorry for the essay