Bonding adult with baby rabbit

Question
I have an 11 month old male giant continental rabbit who was neutered 4.5 weeks ago.  He is well behaved and lives outside in a large hutch at night but is free range in the garden during the day and also runs around in our house too.  I have recently got a baby giant continental female to be his companion in the future.  She currently lives in our conservatory in a cage.  

I have been carefully having short 'rabbit dates' in our kitchen for the two weeks since the new rabbit arrived.  It is a neutral space neither rabbit had ever been in before. Each time, both rabbits ignore each other and investigate the space and groom themselves separately, then the male grooms the female and flops down next to her and goes to sleep.  The baby consistently ducks her head and flattens her body to the floor whenever the male passes by and the male will lick her or sniff her face in passing.  Although the baby is more jumpy thant the adult, both seem relaxed in each others presence.

However whenever I try to move on the next stage of bonding, which is to try the rabbits in the non-neutral territory, the adult rabbit flattens his ears to his body, runs around and will 'scoop' the baby female either under her body or her bottom and quickly 'move' her out of the way, or run around like this with the baby effectively being chased.  I think a few small nips have also occurred.  It is clear than he considers the space 'his' and is not happy that the baby is there. At that point the baby female begins the hop out of his way I remove the baby because I do not want her to be scared of the male or the harrassing behaviour to become the norm.

Each time, I have done 7 days of neutral space 'meeting' of up to 1 hour each day with no problem then tried one unsuccessful non-neutral 'meet'.  I am now two weeks in and am really not sure what to do now.  Should I expect this 'scooping' and be a bit more robust about this behaviour being acceptable, or is there a middle step that I am missing out?  I have run out of strategies!

I notice in some other answers that you have suggested waiting until the second rabbit has been spayed before bonding, but do not feel that this is a good option in my case, because as a giant, my female baby will be 7 months old at least before reaching puberty and I really dont want them to be separate for all this time if humanly possible!

Any suggestions gratefully received!  Thanks.

Answer
Hi Deb,

since you know what my first suggestion would be, I would instead of trying to have the male accept her in the backyard (where he pretty much is the king), try to open up the non-neutral house areas to both of them.  If you can give them a greater neutral space first, that would be good.  Expand the neutral space inside into a non-neutral space.

And, so far as I can tell, his behavior is acceptable as he is not fighting with her.  He is trying to assert dominance over her.  The light nips and chasing is all part of two rabbits determining who is going to be the boss.  This should not be interrupted by people as this is something that must be settled in order for the pair to bond.  Once this is settled, they can move on and become a good bonded pair.  And it sounds like these two have great potential (from what you describe in the neutral area).

So, unless actual fighting breaks out (body kicks, trying to bite (not a nip), especially the face or ears, or they start rolling over brawling and tussling), you kind of need to let it run its course.

I would suggest doing this in the house because you don't want her to be chased out of the yard or lose her outdoors.  You should do it in the house.

But then again, another suggestion would be to keep doing the neutral dates (you really should run them up to 3-4 hours at least) until she hits sexual maturity and then spay her, re-do the neutral dates again, and then open up the non-neutral house areas a bit at a time.

You will have to re-bond them anyways after her surgery because she will need separate space from him to recover.  

Feel free to write back anytime.  I would also recommend looking up 'bonding' or 'pair bonding' on the House Rabbit Society web site (www.rabbit.org).  They have a lot of info on this as well.

Lee