My wife and I got a holland flop last year she’s been great but never has been very friendly here and there she’ll come up for pets but mostly just wants our food lol
We thought she was maybe lonely and some friends of ours were getting rid of their bigger holland flop that’s maybe 5 months older both of them are girls
At first we let Hunny (originally bunny) smell and get used to Gilly (new bunny) while Gilly was in her cage. Gilly is much much friendlier and doesn’t seem to want to fight at all or be stand off ish
They would nose kiss and smell each other and even do binkies while Gilly was in her cage, after a couple days we opened the door for Hunny to meet Gilly without the gate
Hunny would let Gilly start to come out of the cage then start clawing at her picking a fight, Gilly seems to only back down or run away
Hunny acts nice but then becomes mean when they’re face to face.
We’ve kept them separated with baby gates so they can see each other but neither can hurt the other
After another few days we tried again and unfortunately Hunny bit Gillys ear pretty good making it bleed.
We’ve kept them separated since, I want them to get a long the new bunny definitely seems to want to and Hunny acts like she’s gonna accept her until it comes down to it
Any advice for what I can do to help this transition? I’m starting to get annoyed with Hunny but I understand she’s being territorial since this was her home first
Also neither of them are spaded yet I plan on doing that for them both but not might happen for a little while
Any help is greatly appreciated!!
by Jakeandacamera
7 Comments
I’m no expert at bonding bunnies but trying to bond two intact females is like trying to bond a crocodile to a shark. I recommend keeping them separate until after their surgery, then trying again progressively.
There’s tons of videos on how to bond, check some out. you’re not giving them a neutral space to bond, and you are giving them too much space i think. Try table bonding
Exhausting Bun: ” who are you”
New Bun: ” your replacement”😋
Unless you spay them both I don’t see this bonding going anywhere. You can start to exchange their litters, exchange pens, having meetings in a neutral space, but I wouldn’t invest too much time in this before they’re both fixed.
Wait until they are neutered and fully healed first. Female rabbits are especially territorial and worse when still intact.
In the meantime both rabbits should have equal sized space access. Ideally side by side, but so they cannot touch through the bars. This will get them used to each others smells and reduce any jealously over space.
Using blankets, teddies and toys to swap between the two is another good idea. It can also help guide you when might be okay to introduce them both. If they aren’t killing the Teddy bur washing it, they aren’t offended by the others smell (doesn’t always work but can be an indicator for so rabbits).
But yea neutering first for both, then just having them living in their ewlqual sized spaces for a while. When they are mirroring each other ie. Washing, eating, sleeping at the same times you can try play dates…go from there.
Thank you everyone for the help! Guess it comes down to getting them spade and swapping pens/toys and neutral spaces
I knew spading them would help but I didn’t realize it’s the only thing that’ll help 😅
Thanks again!
Does anyone have any tips of where I can get them spayed for a good price? The places I’ve seen it would cost a little over 500 for both bunnies but it’ll be a min before I can pull that together for them
We are in the final stages of bonding our 2 year old spayed bunny with our 10 month old neutered bunny. We started this process in September it’s been a very long process. We had to wait till our new bun was old enough to be neutered, which was December, then the 6 weeks for hormones to calm down. Spay and neuter is the 1st step. Our girl has been free roam since she was spayed at 6 months old, which made things even harder for us. New bunny was set up in an xpen in my room so they could safely introduce themselves. This went on for 4 months. Then we started 10 minutes a day play dates in the bathtub. It didn’t go well. Since our bun is free roam we had a hard time finding a neutral space We now have them in a 2ft by 2ft xpen in our pool table room that every day or so we make a little bigger it’s been 10 days. While they are in the small xpen we completely washed down all the walls and carpet for the entire 2nd floor where they normally would be. Since our girl bun usually sleeps with my daughter at night we moved her furniture all around tried to change the room as much as possible we did the same with the other 4 bedrooms and loft are and hallway so our free roam bunny wouldn’t recognize it as much since she has always been free roam she woukd be territorial over the space. We just brought the xpen upstairs into my daughters room they are both in it hopefully in a day or 2 we will add the 2nd xpen to make the enclosure even bigger for them after few days of that we will take the xpens down let them free roam in her room for few days before allowing them the hallway then the lift eventually all the other bedrooms. It’s been going very well with doing these steps. 1st couple of days we had to keep making the xpen smaller since they were getting into little fights and no grooming was going on. Took 5 days for one of them to groom the other. 8 days for them both to groom each other. Patients is extremely important. We had pet camera on then 24/7 and someone was in the pool table room at all times