Two rabbits together

[monis]

Hi everyone! This seems to be an awesome forum, with lots of rabbit-enthusiasts
First of all I want to let you know that I'm from Norway, and add thatindoor-rabbit keeping is not as common here as it seems to be in theStates, Great Brittain and probably other countries. Therefore, I needsome insight from you guys concerning issues of having two rabbitstogether in the living room. I have already read lots ot threadsconcerning the bonding of the rabbits, but haven't really found muchregarding the following two issues:

1. If I choose to get a companion for my neutured male rabbit, would mycompanionship be totally unwanted or not needed? And will I be unableto establish some sort of contact with the new rabbit?

2. Balder uses the litter box frequently, and it's really not a problemto have him running around outside of his cage. Could a second rabbitalter this and result in his good habits to vanish? Even if they bothwere well litter-trained before they were put together?

I earlier had a female rabbit in the house, before I adopted Balder,and she went crazy when she sexually matured. She started to poo andpee everywhere and constantly to mark both the place and us. In fifteenminutes there would be 50 droppings spread out on the floor... Since Idid not have the capacity to run around and clean up her mess all day,I had to lock her up in her cage most of the time. This was not a veryideal situation for her - and I was so sad to see her go crazy on thecage-door I ended up finding her a good home where she could spendtime outside and mark as much as she wanted.

Having this nightmare fresh in mind, I am a bit sceptical about gettingBalder a spayed female friend. The last thing Iwant is having pee and poo all over the place again. And I don't wantthe rabbits locked up in the cage all day for the same reason. I wouldalso find it a bit sad if I was totally ignored and unwantedby the rabbits... Balder is pretty social as it isnow, but does seem to be bored throughout the day.

I would really appreciate it if you could share your experienceconcerning the above issues with me... I feel pretty lost asit is now, and really need the feedback.

I'll add a photo of my charming guy Balder - he is 6-7 months old now. Love him

 

[naturestee]

Welcome to the forum! :wave: Balder is beautiful! I love those mottled ears!

I'll try to answer your questions with what I know and what I'veexperienced, but each bunny is different so your's might actdifferently than mine.

1. Nope. No problem here, unless the new rabbit isunsocial on it's own anyway. I adopted Loki to be Mocha'sfriend, and he's a noserub-begging, ankle-nudging, attention-needinggoofball. I have two pairs of bonded rabbits, and they allenjoy my company and will seek me out for attention. Somemore than others, but that's their different personalities.

2. This one really depends on the rabbits. It's notunusual for litterbox habits to go south when they firstmeet. Rabbits are territorial, and a new bunny means thatthey have to make sure all their territory is markedwell.:rollseyes: Not all of them are that bad,though. And as for permanent effects? Well, Mochahas never been good with her litter habits. It didn't changewhen Loki entered the picture. Loki still uses his litterboxlike a good boy.

3. Was your girl spayed? My Mocha was an absolutepoo-beast. She was awful before she was spayed, but then shecalmed down and behaved outside of her cage. She got a littleworse when Loki came but then calmed down again. The problemis, I adopted two more bunnies. The pairs live side by sidebut can not be bonded (bad, bad, bad experience) so there's a constantpoop war going on. The two new bunnies are both girls, andbefore and after their spays were actually pretty good once theylearned what a litterbox was for, especially since they hadn't seen alitterbox until they were 1.5 years old. They're a bit worsewith the poop war now because of the very bad bonding experience when Itried bonding all for of my bunnies together. If they didn'thave the war to "fight," they'd probably be really good with theirlitter habits. At least they all tend to keep it to onecorner, and sometimes they even mark in the litterbox there instead ofright next to it.:rollseyes:

Can you adopt a rabbit from a shelter in your area? The rescuer would know about her litter habits or lack thereof.

One thing I do have to say is that few sights compare to that of bunnies in love. :inlove:

 

[jordiwes]

naturestee wrote:

One thing I do have to say is that few sights compare to that of bunnies in love. :inlove:

Naturestee gave you some great advice. Check out this thread, it might convince you.

http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=11794&forum_id=1

My baby girl is so happy that I got her a friend and they are both very good with their litter box.

They are both spayed and neutered.

 

[monis]

Thank you very much for the feedback so far! Ireally want to do my research before I potentially get myself into thissituation, bringing home another living creature is something I takeseriously.

No, my first female wasn't spayed... She became this hormonal monsterwhen she was 3 months old, and I spent the next 6 weeks cleaning up hermess, almost going crazy myself. The vets here in Norway usually wantsto wait until the female is 6 months old before they will do theoperation, and the thought of 6 more weeks with this craziness, andthen additional weeks before the hormones left her body.... And eventhe worst case scenario: spaying not helping much at all... I justcouldn't deal with it. My boyfriend, which I'm sharing theapartment with, was also very miserable in this situation.

It's actually him who I now need to convince the most that those twoissues I've questioned about may not be big problems if we adopt afriend for Balder. I've seen the pics of the bonded and snugglingbunnies, and I would love to see Balder happy like that. We've beenoutside and met a friend of mine and her male rabbit several times thisweek, and even tho they don't really seem to be the bestest of friends,Balder has seemed somewhat depressed back in the apartment here thelast days. I'm really worried that he misses a companion of his ownspecies. :?