Trying to Bond, not love at first sight

[GrayBunny]

We have adopted a new bun from our local shelter. This has been a very careful decision and well researched but we still feel like we are at a loss.

General is a male mini rex we have had for a year and a half. He is going to be 2 in November. He has always been the only pet but has always been so sweet, he has never bitten anyone and really just ignores other animals when he sees them, so we thought it would be easy.

Well today we brought in Maggie, also mini rex female 2 years old. There is little about her history, just that she was fixed on Thursday. She came from a family as the only pet. She is very sweet loves to be petted on the head and does flops while we are petting her. Much more out going than General.

Anyway today my husband brought Maggie from the shelter fot the first time. They had a rouh first encounter and we are hoping to find some help. This is what happened.
Hubby brought M home and G was in his cage, put down Maggies carrier down in the same room as G set up the cage for M, let M out and G ignored M until M approached his cage. Then G darted at M and tried to bite M. Then hubby shooed M away then she hid and was put in the cage in another room.

Set up cage for M, food water hay, welcomed, petted seemed fine. Let G out of his cage, in separate room G was unable to get to M. Let half hour pass, Let G into room with M to visit her then he tried to get to her aggressively, tried to bite, so cleared out G using a squirt bottle. G calmed enough back to normal, did a few binkys. Hour later let G back to see M. G went to M aggressively, Hubby tried to break it up with oven mitts G attacked oven mitts very very agressively! Never acted in such a way. Was even aggressive toward hubby. Then hubby chased G out of the room. Have been separate ever since.

Is this normal? And what do we do? Keep them in their cages in the same room or apart for a while? M seems fine, G is still a little jumpy. We have read so much about this but really don't know what to do next. Thank you for all the help!

 

[Haley]

Congrats on your newest addition!

First off, is General neutered? If not, thats your first step (but I think I remember he is?).

Next, you need to give her time to both settle in and heal from surgery before attempting bonding. Shes likely to be very sore and also scared/confused right now. I would give her at least 2 weeks to heal. Shes probably scared of being mounted (which is a possibility and could really hurt her) so that will cause her to not want to bond to General right away. I say give her 2-3 weeks to settle in.

With regards to General, remember, this is his turf. If he's been in a room, he thinks its his..so when he sees an intruder his first instinct is to attack.

I would give it a few weeks and try again. Try introducing them on neutral ground (like a bathroom he hasnt been in) and go from there.

Hope that helps a little. Bonding can really take a while but its so rewarding in the end!

 

[Pipp]

From rumour and experience, mini-rexes are hard to bond, at least in my guy's case, I don't think they realize they're rabbits.

Dill sees another rabbit, he's either vaguely interested or disinterested. If they get in his way, he'll run them off.

And he gets grumpy, he prefers to be getting all the human attention, thank you very much.

But Dill also didn't really fight much because he never actually hated the other bunnies,they just hadlittle tussles. I use to keep them all in separate rooms, but it became too hard to keep Sherry, my foster dwarf mixaway from Dill's area (the living room and kitchen), so I eventually let her in there. She'd just stay out of Dill's way when he was grumpy -- lots of places to run and hide --although she kept pursuing him to test his mood, she thought he was very handsome (which he is). Dill would only chase her a few feet, then wander off.

After a couple of weeks of this, I came out of my room one morning to find them necking on the couch. :shock:

My foster bunny is now a permanent resident. (Sherry's no dumb bunny). Dill still picks on her whenever he's grumpy, if he gets mad at me, he bites her. And he has a cage phobia to begin with, so they can never live together in a cage. But 90% of the time, they're the SWEETEST couple!

Not sure how it would be with TWO mini-rexes, but I think they'll be okay with time and space. Maybe two adjoining pens? Just make sure they do have a lot of room to get away from each other.

That said, everybunny is different, can't go wrong playing it by ear.

Good luck! I'm sure it'll work out.

sas :clover:

 

[GrayBunny]

General is fixed as well. Right now we have them in different rooms (which is hard because we live in a city apartment!!) but the rooms are next to each other. I have been leaving the door to the rooms open, when they are both in their cages, so they can smell each other. Is this a good idea? Maggie seems fine but of course General is very worried.

 

[Phinnsmommy]

I mean it in the nicest way, but I think you took it too fast.

Let them be in the same domain, but not have any contact with eachother for a couple weeks until she heals. While you are doing that, you can do things like swap out toys/blankets that smell like eachother, and pet one, then go pet the other, so they get ued to eachothers scent.

Then I would put their cages in the same room, still not having any contact. After they seem semi comftorable with eachother, I would let General out, while Maggie is in her cage. Once they seem okay with that...

I would let them meet in neautral territory (aka a bathtub etc) and see how it goes.

You can try putting them in a basket and going for a car-ride (it helps them bond).

You will pretty much know when the time is right, and no one can really give you step by step instructions, because every bunny is different.

Dont get discouraged that they didnt like eachother during thir first meeting, that is very normal, and im sure you can still get them bonded

 

[katt]

i love your bunnies names!

and welcome to maggie!

bonding does take some time. first have you read any of the informationin the bunny 101 section? here is the link to the bonding page:

http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12072&forum_id=17

i agree with haley. maggie was just fixed, and needs time to recover from that, and find her place in your household before she should be bonded to another rabbit. spaying a female is rather invasive, so give her some time.

you might notice some differences in general's behaviour as well. i have found that when you bring in another rabbit there is an adjustment period, especially for only buns! you might notice his litter habbits slip a little (he has to mark his territory so the new bun won't mess with his stuff) and he might show a little agression to youjust to say "hey, remember me? the love of your life?".

anyway, i would first give her a couple of weeks to heal and get to know you and her new enviroment. then i would allow them to have contact inbetween the cage wires. after that settles down, i would start to bond them. bathtubs work great!

good luck!

 

[Pet_Bunny]

I had Bebe for a month now. She was spayed 12 days ago.

I am going really slow bonding her to Pebbles. For the last three days, I held both of them on the floor side by side and not letting either of them get loose. Both of them are starting to like laying beside each other as I pet and cuddle both of them. I do this for about 20 minutes a day.

I will not let them run free until I am confident they don't hurt each other. They have their own cages in the same room.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Bo is a mini-rex and he's a good boy too but he HATES our baby bunny. He gets along with Clover but we put their cages next to each other right away.... slowly we let them play together and we still are having to take bonding in baby steps.

I don't know if mini-rex are just more territorial or what but then I hear they are absolute angels to their bonded partner once you get them there.

Good luck, don't get too frustrated - I know it's hard.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Pipp wrote:

From rumour and experience, mini-rexes are hard to bond, at least in my guy's case, I don't think they realize they're rabbits.

I just read this post! and I think it's funny how we're realizing the mini-rex attitude in this!

Dill thinks he would love to come be my 4th bunny!!! Did you know? :biggrin2:

 

[superchar42]

I have bonded two rabbits, who at first sight tried to kill each other. I still have some nasty scars from when they were attacking and it was well over a year ago. They ended up being all right with each other, a little groom here and a little groom there, and not fighting after about four months of work. After I brought a foster home she ended up taking a liking to him so now she's bonded with him and I got the first male a new hunny a couple months ago, and it's going great.
I'll give you a stage-by-stage of what I did with them.

I had them in two separate cages with about four inches of space between them. I put a hankerchief between the two cages so they couldn't see each other (which seemed to be helping with thier stress levels) and during this time, about every other day, I would introduce them to each other in one way or another (bathtub, pet taxi just big enough to not squish them, pet taxi+car ride, holding them on the floor side to side without letting them do anything to each other, etc). If they have a negative reaction to each other then cease the introductions. If they start fighting, squirt them with a squirt bottle. Adding treats in where they could get upset can also help. (I used raisins)

When they start to tolerate each other's presence more, then I remove the hankerchief. Continue everything else. If they seem to really not mind each other's presence, then I let them sit together in the tub for a while. Something I've done to make the tub a little bit more stressy was to run a little water (also cleans their bottoms and their feet!). With the stress stuff, then they _should_ naturally turn to each other for comfort.

When this started going well I moved the cages next to each other. A really good sign after you do this is when they lay on the floor, pressed up to the cage, right next to each other. That meant it was time to see what they did on the floor (make it a place that neither of the buns "own") and I kept the squirt bottle ready. They did some chasing around (apparently this is part of courting), and would take turns mounting, and then would lay down next to each other. This happened quite a few times and then finally there were kisses! They groomed each other, a little at a time. After they groomed each other, then I waited till they had done that a bunch before I tried letting them stay the night in a cage together. When I first let them stay the night (and for the next week) I had them in a smaller cage in my bedroom, with the spray bottle next to me (they were within sight). Any time I heard any sort of noise that was strange I would turn on the light and check it out. Most of the time it was nothing, but once they seemed to bicker.

It was a really long process, but it was worth it. Even though they are now bonded to others, I think this really opened the door (especially for Nuge) to let them love another bun. I do wish you a lot of luck with this and hopefully this post gives you some ideas on what to do.

 

[GrayBunny]

We now have Maggie set up in a room next to where Generals cage is. We keep the door closed so there hasn't been anymore issues. General still has free range of the rest of the house and Maggie is isolated to one room. She is very happy, lots of Binkys and Bunny dances and a few Dead Bunny Flops. General on the other hand is very jumpy while Maggie is out of her cage.
My question is: Is it a good idea for them to be out at the same time and around the door so they can sniff and smell but not be able to get to one another?
Maggie seems to want to meet General, but he is not into that idea!

 

[superchar42]

Personally, I was extremely careful when I'd let them out and about together. It all depends on the rabbits, though. It's good that she has an interest.
If things started to look aggressive, I tried to end their "meeting" before they had a fight so they wouldn't have bad memories to think about, but just the memories of the meeting.

 

[MsBinky]

Mini-rexes are the equivalent of Yorkshires. Lol. They are big babies, bond to you like glue, and generally look down upon the other buns

 

[GrayBunny]

Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to update the Maggie/General situation.

We have had Maggie is a separate room for about 2 and a half weeks, last night we let her run around General's play area while General was in his cage in another room. Then we put her cage near General's for about 20 minutes. General was very curious but seemed ok, Maggie just wanted more out of cage time and was looking for an escape route.

I took Maggie to the vet this morning. She is in pretty good health. I thought she had breathing issues but the vet said she can't find anything. The only problem is her feet. All four a pretty calloused but none are open sores. Looks like she was on a wire cage and never had her nails trimmed. But everything should start to heal!!

So when we got back from the vet I have put their cages in the same room about 3 inches apart. Its going well, both have been snoozing off and on, grooming and eating hay together. Is it ok to leave them like this unsupervised?

We will continue this for a while and give the separate play time in the common area.
Any other suggestions? We have also been switching out toys and blankets.