Bonding bunnies

Question
I have recently purchased a baby bunny (holland or a mini lop) who the pet store say is a male.
I am going to alter him when he gets old enough, but I have a two year old male rabbit that is altered already.
My question is, is it possible to bond two altered male rabbits even if one is two years older?

Answer
Absolutely.  As long as they are both altered it will almost always work but they will still be territorial and will have to be watched until you are sure.  I wouldn't even try until you get the little one fixed though.  For some reason boys that aren't fixed don't get along even if the older one is already fixed.

I wouldn't really rely on what the pet store tells you.  They are wrong about 50% of the time.  Just don't be surprised if he turns out to be a girl.  It won't matter either way because any rabbit combination where all parties are altered the bonding usually works.

If you are curious and want to check yourself you can go to this web site

http://www.debmark.com/rabbits/sexing.htm

Just something fun to check.  You will see that it is not always easy.  Sometimes if we get little ones under 3 months old we call them tentatively male... etc.  We had a 3 year old rabbit named Mary who suddenly developed a very odd looking pendulous tumor.  Mary had been coming to see our Dr. since she was little.  He was all prepared to biopsy the tumor when he realized it wasn't a tumor at all.  He told Mary's parents that he had good news and bad news.  He said the good news is that Mary didn't have a tumor but the bad news was that they were going to have to change his name.


When you are ready to bond your friends you can try these sites:

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/bond.shtml

http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/introductions.html
this one is excellent

For now you can try little things to help them get used to each other.  If the older one has full run of the house make sure to keep the new one in a cage where the old one can't get to him but can get within a couple inches to get used to his scent.  You can try exchanging their litter pans.  Take a fleece cloth and rub it on the new baby so the older guy can get used to his smell.  Just make sure that he can't get to him through the bars.  I use a smaller cage within a play run.  I will let one rabbit come to the edge of the play run but never inside the cage.  I also make sure that when the free run rabbit is near the run that the new rabbit is secure in its cage.  He will still smell the babies scent just running around the same area.

The one thing I do every time is I always take them for a car ride before their meeting.  It almost always makes them forget that they are both boys and both territorial.

Congrats on your new baby and good luck.  

Pam