Bonding 2 male rabbits

[lisaloo]

Hi All,

I have a male bunnie...Willie, he's either 5 or 6, very laid back rabbit, absolutely loves attention and very affectionate. I recently got a second rabbit, my plan was to get a female bunny and have her neutered however when i went to the pet shop they had a little male bunny on his own, he looked so lonesome and without stopping to consider the implications I stopped and bought him. He's 11 weeks old, temporarily named Oscar but waiting to see what type of personality he has before settling on that name. I have Oscar in a hutch and willie is free to roam the same room, neither seem that interested in the other.
I have plans to have Oscar neutered when he is 6 months old but will not be neutering willie as he is too old and I don't want to take that chance.
I am concerned with how I get these two bunnies to bond. As I said Willie is by no means aggressive and I am more concerned for Willie than I am for Oscar, he seems to have an attitude problem already...hoping neutering will put an end to that...I was hand feeding him pellets when I got him on Friday and he was taking them from my hand and very deliberately spitting them back at me...
Anyway...I am hoping that someone can advise me on how best to get both bunnies to bond...any advice would be much appreciated...
thanks

Lisa

 

[Wabbitdad12]

Welcome to the site, I am going to move this to the Behavior section where you will get some more timely responses.

Dave

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

Bonding 2 males is possible, but can be tricky. You will need to get Oscar neutered when he is old enough. I would avoid letting them interact face to face until he is neutered and given a good chance to heal and have the hormones decline, this can take about 4-6 weeks. You can put the cages close together, but there needs to be a gap between the cages so they can't bite each other.
Neutered males tend to not be too aggressive with other rabbits, but they can still be a bit hump happy which might not be tolerated by the other rabbit. Of course some rabbits just don't get along and there really isn't much you can do about it.
Unfortunately, it will be quite hard of you can't get Willie neutered. Intact males tend to want to hump other rabbits a lot and can be more aggressive with other rabbits. Bonding males is hard, but having an intact male makes it harder. I would not really recommend trying to bond an intact male.

 

[lisaloo]

Hi Dave, thanks for the welcome and moving my question...
love the line about getting rid of the kids...very good!

 

[lisaloo]

thanks for the advice Korr_and_sophie...i should have got a female rabbit as planned but getting attached to the baby bunnie now so if they don't get along as planned I'll keep them separated...its a pity as I got the second bunny as a friend for willie...hopefull it'll work out

 

[Nancy McClelland]

We've had bonded males and bonded females. The males were much easier. But, no two bunnies are alike.

 

[lisaloo]

Hi Nancy, thanks for the post, feel alittle more hopeful now...

 

[cwolfec]

I have been happily going along bonding my two rabbits thinking the new one I got was a girl. They have bonded incredibly well. They groom, snuggle, sleep, and play together. They are together 100% of the time and I don't have to supervise them since they have never really fought. Well, today...SURPRISE! My "girl's" plums dropped today. WHOA! Wasn't expecting that.

So I have bonded two boys.

 

[BunBuns Human]

The lads get along quite well. TOO well as a matter of fact.

Both are about a year old and un-neutered. The first day they took to each other instantly and were so busy sodomizing each other that they basically weren't eating. For the first week you couldn't pry them apart with a crowbar. AND they were nasty, sticky, smelly ungroomed bunnies. Seems that they didn't have any time to groom themselves as they were too busy with other social activities.

Thankfully, two months down the road, the humping has pretty much trailed off and they are grooming themselves normally. Looking at getting them nueterd due to the spraying though. They get along quite well together.

So yeah, two males can bond.