And So, The Bunny Bonding Begins ...

Aaah :) Today I'm a lot more relaxed ... aside from the having to be at work bit. My brain has definitely gone into Xmas holiday mode.

Had a somewhat more successful afternoon with the Boons yesterday. It's pretty complicated to explain, but would be much easier if my silly camera hadn't needed re-charging (there's always tomorrow!). Basically I took the cage bit off the top of the new double-story hutch and put Coal (I think it's been decided ... just out of habit now, plus I get to call him Cola Bear :) ) inside that on the grass. That way Bell can see him and smell him but she can't actually bite him thru the bars. And he gets to spend some outside time on the grass. It worked pretty well, for the first while she wouldn't leave the cage alone and every time she bite or grunted at him (yes, it's a very weird sound!) I sprayed her with water.

Let me tell you that by the time Varen got home, Bell was pretty soaked. But on the plus side, she didn't bite me at all yesterday :) She also ended up ignoring Coal in the cage and carrying on with her own thing in the garden after about 2 hours (Ignoring each other is a particularly good sign when bonding bunnies, apparently). Sadly Henna couldn't get that close to Coal without Bell chasing her too ... until Bell got bored and left him & the cage alone.

What we've done now is to separate the double-story hutch and make 2 single-story hutches that are right next to each other (as you can see from the photo, we've rather pimped out the new hutch with ramps to make getting in & out easier and a big box for inside so they have some hide-away space). Yesterday evening we put Hen & Coal into the same hutch and kept Bell in the other, to give them more of a chance to bond. And even tho they didn't end up cuddling next to each other, they were eating out of the same food bowl at the same time, which I took as a good sign. But we didn't leave Coal there overnight or today while we're at work. He's back up in the bath. Don't want to overdo things on day 2, you know?

This afternoon I plan more of the same ... although I'll probably let him have an hour of run around time with Henna in the garden and keep Bell in her cage. And tonight we'll put Bell & Henna back together in the one cage and leave Coal outside in the other. Finger's crossed people :)

If anything I'm doing sounds weird to you, or if you are having a similar problem yourself, you can read all about bonding bunnies here.

Last night, while Hen & Coal were hutched-up together, Varen & I went for dinner with his folks and BrotherSwoop & his girlf. We ate at Allora, which is far from my favourite restaurant ... they have *nothing* that appeals to me on their menu (although Varen got it mixed up with somewhere else and change the restaurant we were going to to Allora because of me liking the food there - oops!). But I found a happy solution, I had a pasta but I swapped the sauce. So a very successful meal ;) BrotherSwoop & his girlf followed us home because they're off to Mozambique this morn and had forgotten to get themselves a ZA sticker for the car. We have a magnetic one ... somewhere. Sadly after them driving all the way to our house, we could not find the sticker *anywhere*. But at least we got to give them their xmas pressies :)