kiatu24
New Member
Hello everyone!
I'm in the process of bonding my two rabbits, a male and female. Both fixed and close to the same age (7 months and a year) We've made a few attempts to put them together. We selected a room in our house that neither of them had been before but unfortunately Topher (our male) decided that this was still his territory. He took to boxing Nala (our female) and fighting. She never fought back but has developed a fear of him. We only tried this twice before trying something new and as soon as he attacked we stopped him.
So we took them for a car ride and to a friends house to use their bathroom for another attempt. This was a completely different story. Topher is displaying normal bonding behavior (from what we've read on the internet anyway). He lays down about 2 feet from Nala and just waits, she did the same. Topher is displaying dominant behavior by mounting; after about 3 seconds he starts to bite the fur on her back. As far as we can tell, Nala is okay with being submissive but she is just afraid of him. She never tries to attack him she just tries to escape and hide. She also thumps really loud and sometimes makes a soft wimper. She does this at pretty much all times, they'll walk up and touch noses and be fine, but then she'll thump, wimper and run away. We try to calm her down but we don't want her to be afriad of Topher and Topher not like her for it.
We have them in cages that sit next to each other and we've been switching them every night. Does anyone have any advice to help the process? Should we continue to try to let them meet or should we take some time off? And if we take time off should we separate their cages or leave them next to each other?
Thanks so much in advance for the help!
Kiatu
I'm in the process of bonding my two rabbits, a male and female. Both fixed and close to the same age (7 months and a year) We've made a few attempts to put them together. We selected a room in our house that neither of them had been before but unfortunately Topher (our male) decided that this was still his territory. He took to boxing Nala (our female) and fighting. She never fought back but has developed a fear of him. We only tried this twice before trying something new and as soon as he attacked we stopped him.
So we took them for a car ride and to a friends house to use their bathroom for another attempt. This was a completely different story. Topher is displaying normal bonding behavior (from what we've read on the internet anyway). He lays down about 2 feet from Nala and just waits, she did the same. Topher is displaying dominant behavior by mounting; after about 3 seconds he starts to bite the fur on her back. As far as we can tell, Nala is okay with being submissive but she is just afraid of him. She never tries to attack him she just tries to escape and hide. She also thumps really loud and sometimes makes a soft wimper. She does this at pretty much all times, they'll walk up and touch noses and be fine, but then she'll thump, wimper and run away. We try to calm her down but we don't want her to be afriad of Topher and Topher not like her for it.
We have them in cages that sit next to each other and we've been switching them every night. Does anyone have any advice to help the process? Should we continue to try to let them meet or should we take some time off? And if we take time off should we separate their cages or leave them next to each other?
Thanks so much in advance for the help!
Kiatu
