Bonding Trio

[Tezarini]

Hi All.

I am looking for some advice from someone who has experience bonding bunnies.

I have had a male house bunny (Barney) for three years now and we were recommended to get him a friend as he has been on his own for this time, being left for long periods. We got him a young lady friend (Parsnip) and after a few weeks started trying to bond them, following information we had researched on the net – it wasn’t horrendous but Barney didn’t want to be with her and lunged at her a lot, needless to say that they were kept separate. Barney was then bitten by our dog and subsequently became terrified of it, hiding a lot, refusing to eat etc. We therefore, started looking for a new home for him as we felt that it was not fair for him to stay here when he was so scared. We also found another bunny (Peanut) to bond with Parsnip so that she wasn’t alone.

Anyway to cut a long story short, the people who were going to have Barney never turned up to collect him and we still have 3 rabbits. As Barney has remained with us so long he now seems to be fine with the dog again pretty much ignoring him the whole time. We have researched about bonding trios and a lot of the information is regarding 2 bonded bunnies and introducing another (a situation which we do not yet have). I read a short article on putting 3 singles together but there really is not much info out there about this.

We decided to see how it went introducing all 3 at the same time on completely neutral territory, and there have been no problems at all. Barney humps Peanut a lot and they both seem to ignore Parsnip. There has been no aggression at all, they all spend time lying down in the pen but not together yet. One thing that I have noticed is that Peanut runs when Barney tries to hump her – is this because she doesn’t like it? Also all of them go up to each other and put their head on the floor – what does this mean?

Sorry that this is so long – I am so confused as I have never bonded bunnies before. It seems to be going well (we are only on day 4 however), they are spending several hours together in the pen outside and seem to be happier for it but I know most sites say that they should only be together for a short time to start. They are all binkying a lot and lying down with ears down and legs out (not together yet). I think this is all good but just wanted other opinions. There has been no grooming yet but am guessing that this will come in time.

Thanks for any help you can offer. Hope you don’t fall asleep reading!!!

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Sounds like your alright with them. You might want to hit the search in the upper left and enter "bonding" and see what pops up.

 

[Troller]

Not to knock Rabbits Online, but I see very few threads dealing with bonding Trio's. Two other forums I occasionally lurk at, Binky Bunny and Bunspace, have forums specifically covering bonding and many of them multiple bunny bonding, up to five! Now I would never consider more then two since thats generally tricky enough but people have made it work and if you got the nerve go for it.

 

[BunnyBabyboo]

try Pawtalk? I was on there alot when I had my old bunny(RIP Buggsy) and they where helpful.

 

[hannaroo]

http://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/125145/Default.aspx

This is a great link to a bonding journal on binky bunny about a recent successful trio bonding


Http://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/125513/Default.aspx

The second is a thread about bonding 5 bunnies. I followed both users when bonding my pair and found the advice so valuable. Both users are experienced in bonding and both threads have pictures and videos included.
Please give it a read and visit the bonding section on the site

 

[Azerane]

Just thought I'd add something, the behaviour of going up to another bunny and lowering the head is a request to be groomed. If you want to encourage the approached bunny you can smear a little banana on the forehead of the bunny lowering its head

 

[Blue eyes]

I tried a trio this past year. None of the rabbits were bonded to each other at the time. I had my girl and brought her on a bunny date to our local rescue. They had 2 brothers who were NOT living together but seemed to get along just fine anyway. At the rescue all 3 showed promise so they encouraged me to try the trio.

I referenced Cotton Tails Rescue for my bonding attempt. They had their ups and down but no serious scuffles for 4 weeks. It was interesting to see them change dominance positions during that time. You can see some of the videos I took during this time here. (that will get you to 1 video, but you can see others there too)

http://youtu.be/FA2d-y8ghUk

It was at the 4 week mark that the 2 boys decided they weren't going to share my girl. It was that incident that caused me to change my tactic and just bond my girl with one of the boys.

The final video isn't on the public page, but I'll post it here for you to see. I don't mean it as a discouragement by any means, but more as a caution. They calm down for awhile in the video so you may want to drag forward to the 5 minute mark to see the end result.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRUW0-dxpJI[/ame]