Bonding questions!

[Stellarxoxo]

hello!
I'm new a new bunny mom, and just have a question about bonding.

I adopted q 1 year old spayed lop, and have brought home a 10 week old male lop. The first night the male escaped his pen, and numerous times after that (hes a hopper whereas my girl is not). My girl has a really sweet disposing. Very calm and loves her head rubs. He's still a bit on the skittish side as he was born in a barn lol

Anyhow, after he escaped the umpteenth time, I just decided to let him go free to see what would happen. (My girl is free roam when we are home and awake). Theere was a bit of fur flying and some circles were danced, but after that, no scuffles have happened, and I havent even seen them mounting eachother, but I assume that's ehat he tries to do when he's behind her but she won't have any of it. They spent the last few days free roaming out together

This has been going on for 3 days now. They eat together, and sometimes they snuggle but theyre snoozing closer to eachother now. My female puts her head down to be groomed, and he will but I havent seen her reciprocate

When buns have to be in their homes, I bring the males cage next to hers so they can still see and smell eachother.

What I am getting at i guess is how do I know when they can co-habitate in the same x pen?

 

[Lucas the Bun 💕🐇]

https://www.ohiohouserabbitrescue.org/bondingbunnies/

 

[zuppa]

hello!
I'm new a new bunny mom, and just have a question about bonding.

I adopted q 1 year old spayed lop, and have brought home a 10 week old male lop. The first night the male escaped his pen, and numerous times after that (hes a hopper whereas my girl is not). My girl has a really sweet disposing. Very calm and loves her head rubs. He's still a bit on the skittish side as he was born in a barn lol

Anyhow, after he escaped the umpteenth time, I just decided to let him go free to see what would happen. (My girl is free roam when we are home and awake). Theere was a bit of fur flying and some circles were danced, but after that, no scuffles have happened, and I havent even seen them mounting eachother, but I assume that's ehat he tries to do when he's behind her but she won't have any of it. They spent the last few days free roaming out together

This has been going on for 3 days now. They eat together, and sometimes they snuggle but theyre snoozing closer to eachother now. My female puts her head down to be groomed, and he will but I havent seen her reciprocate

When buns have to be in their homes, I bring the males cage next to hers so they can still see and smell eachother.

What I am getting at i guess is how do I know when they can co-habitate in the same x pen?

Hi.

I can understand that you wish to bond them as soon as possible, but I would suggest to keep them separately until he is neutered and min 2 months after that.

I'll tell you what is happening now. He is 10 week old and he is still a baby. He will start changing rapidly very soon, depending on his breed and personal development it can start sometime between 3,5 months and 6 months. He will become hormonal and will want to hump everything, she will be his main target since you will keep them together. If you are lucky, she won't get annoyed and won't get aggressive and won't be going after him, she will be super submissive and will be just hiding from him most of time.

From what you described I doubt it sounds like her to be honest.

I had a couple once where a female was 2 year old spayed and a male was intact 7 months old, female was super laid back and was just running away and she had a few hiding places where he couldn't reach her but still, he was chasing her many times a day and the worst thing was that he kept spraying her with urine a few times a day to mark her as his property, so she was constantly sticky and stinky, also everything around was covered with his urine, walls, ceilings, everything like 10ft around their enclosure, it was a nightmare they were so stinky and everything around. But she looked quite happy maybe she took it as a complement. I wasn't happy and so he was neutered soon. He kept spraying and humping 2 months after neutering.

That was a good case scenario, because she was a heart of gold and she wasn't annoyed a tiniest bit so she was just patient and happy little lady.

In the worst case scenario your lady will get annoyed and humiliated pretty soon and will go after him with her teeth and claws, and most likely she will try to castrate him. It happens pretty often that a male humps on head so a female has full access to his genitalia and it can be very painful and you will need to visit emergency vet, and it can happen every minute especially when you can't see, she can damage him in some other way just so he could get that she won't let him do it.

If you will keep them separately but close to each other because you want them to see and smell each other, that would be wrong too because especially he will be stressed all the time because he will be hormonal and here he can see a female and he can't get to her. He will try escaping all the time and it will be very stressful and he can get depressed and stop eating or there's a long list of illnesses caused by depression.

In my experience when a young male becomes hormonal it is best to keep him completely separated and neuter as soon as his testicles dropped, then wait 2 months (sometimes not enough, can be 3 months easily or even more, this is very individual), keep completely separately all this time, it will help him to stay out of stress and he won't get bad habits of spraying etc.

Then after 2-3 months after his neutering you can try bonding them, and you have to do it in a neutral territory, where she won't feel territorial because this was her turf and now this new rabbit came and want it all. So I would keep her space also limited util he is ready for bonding.

I totally understand that you would like to have them bonded much sooner and they show nice progress at the moment, but he is still 10 weeks old and he will change dramatically pretty soon. Well, that is most likely, I don't know him maybe he is super submissive or something, but what I described would be normal behaviour for healthy rabbits they do become hormonal and we have to deal with it.

I am only saying what I think and talking from my experience with more than one pair of rabbits, your rabbits and you decide, whatever was your decision please keep us updated and good luck.