I'm trying to bond my two female rabbits, i've bonded a pair of rabbits before but they fell in love straight away (they were both females)
At the moment one rabbit is in a cage and the other in a pen a few inches apart, (have been for a week) and i switch them every day, the first couple of times they met the older rabbit was chinning the younger one and seemed to quite like her, and they sat side by side for 5 minutes both times. Holly is the older Dutch and Ivy is the younger mini lop. But the past couple of times i've put them together they've ignored each other at first, then Holly will go and have a sniff and Ivy jumps on her then chases her and won't stop until i separate them. Holly doesn't seem to mind too much and still shows alot of interest in Ivy. Today when i put them together i followed some advise i was given and vaccumed while they were together and it seemed to work, they snuggled up in one corner and even when i turned the vac off they stayed there and after a while Holly had a hop around, and then Ivy launched at her and they began to fight, not badly and no blood was drawn but still it shocked me, i separated them straight away and put them back in they're houses. It seems like they're taking a step forward and 2 steps back I really want them to get along, i know how lovely it is to see 2 rabbits together and how stong their bond is. Does anyone have any tips that i could use that might help? Anything would be appreciated.

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if you want to see a person for who they really are watch how they treat their animals !

Are both the rabbits spayed? If so how long ago?
Is the area you are using neutral to both rabbits?
How big is the area you are trying to bond in?

When bonding chasing, fur pulling and mounting is all natural bonding bahaviour, splitting them and putting them back together is destroying any progress they made during the meet because everytime they are put back together they have to sort the hierarchy out from scratch.

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No they're not spayed, the lady in the pet shop i got Holly from said they should bond okay without being spayed? and the 2 rabbits i had before were both unspayed females?
Should i get them spayed and try again?
Ivy is only around 12 weeks old and Holly is about 28 weeks?
And i've been putting them in a pen that is 5ft by 5ft but started off with them on my bed (which they were fine with)
I'm not very experienced with all this, i just want what's best for them, and with me being out all day most days i felt Holly needed a friend.
When you say don't separate then does that mean even if they have a small fight like they did today?

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if you want to see a person for who they really are watch how they treat their animals !

you need to spay them both before you even think about bonding, and wait 6 weeks for all hormones to die down

keeping them in cages near each other isnt any good at all and can make the bonding process much harder

put their cages in seperate rooms, get them spayed, wait for the hormones to die down, then try bond them in a NEUTRAL area (bath tub works well) you need to keep them together, do not seperate them at any point after this UNLESS blood is drawn, chassing, fur pulling and mounting are all normal bonding behaviours, you need to keep an eye on them for atleast the first 48 hours to make sure they are getting along fine, you can then move them into a neutral cage they will be living in, start off small, and gradually increase their space, if at any point they revert back to chassing, cut back on the space again

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