Why do shelters bond their rabbits?

[tonyshuman]

Our shelter doesn't do that, unless they are babies. We like to send home babies with a sibling, especially if they were born in the care of the shelter. Babies aren't hard to place in new homes, and we like to do give them the best chance of a forever home by sending them home with a buddy. They act better when they have a buddy.

We give "half off" the adoption fee when people adopt two bunnies from us, and we love to match make. If somebody wants two and doesn't want a pair we have already or we don't have any pairs, we will help them make a match. We also will help people find mates for the bunnies they already have.

I know some really full places will bond bunnies together, like Great Lakes Rabbit Sanctuary. A lot of their bonds seem to come about when bunnies are in the infirmary recovering from something and they need to have cage mates, because of the sheer number. Also, they have a large number of bunnies in a single outdoor run, so they're free to make their own bonds. But that's a rare situation!

 

[elrohwen]

Different shelters around me seem to have different ideas about this. Some, especially those run with foster networks, seem to keep a lot of single buns. However, the place I volunteer at has mostly pairs. It was kind of frustrating when I was looking for a second bun as they are not keen on splitting up pairs, so I had very few to choose from (and ended up getting my second bun somewhere else as a result). Then again, they can take in twice as many buns if they bond them together and I think it dramatically reduces stress and boredom for the shelter bunnies to have a friend. They don't get a lot of one-on-one attention, of course, so having a friend is great for them.