Introducing rabbits

[BeckyWeber]

I need advice on how to turn 9 rabbits loose together. There are 8 males and 1 female. All have been fixed and are now 14 months old. 5 of them have been in a cage together and get along well. The female has always been in her own cage, and the other 3 males have been in separate cages. I have just finished a rabbit enclosure about 30 feet by 60 feet so there is plenty of room to run. I was told that I would have a better chance of getting them to bond if they were in an area where they was no previous bunny pee or poo. I was also told not to introduce them one at a time, but to turn them all out at the same time. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Stinkerbunnies]

What I did with my buns is that I had a spray bottles handy. If they started misbehaving, they got sprayed. Rabbits are like cats, they hate getting wet. Also, have some heavy gloves so that you can pick them up without them biting or scratching you. Both worked with jyn buns, and I now have two happy, getting along males named Big Wig and Blackie chan

 

[JBun]

There really isn't any set rule for bonding rabbits. That's because they all have different personalities, so what works for one may not work for another.

It may work for you to just do it as a group, or you may find that you need to do some of the bonding one at a time. But doing it as a group may become chaotic, and you will need to be really careful about watching for a potential fight to break out as it could result in very serious injuries. I think what I would do is see if there are certain rabbits when placed in enclosures next to each other, that seem to be interested in each other and might naturally bond together. Then see if there are ones that have obvious aggression towards each other. Those ones I would consider bonding into the group last and separately.

I have a group of 5(used to be 6), but mine was a mom and her babies and it was relatively trouble free. I did it essentially as a group, though there is one that I bonded in later, where I had to separate out the top bun of the group and him, and bond them together before putting both back into the group.

This link has info on bonding groups. I didn't really read through it, but it might have some helpful info.
http://www.rabbitresidence.org.uk/bonding-groups.html