Tips for getting new rabbits to bond with us

[Anjelika]

We adopted a gorgeous pair of bunnies today, both of whom are supposed to be quite outgoing. Just wondering if anyone has any tips for helping them to bond with us. They have part of the garden shed partitioned off as their home and an outdoor run. The DCs can just about sit in the shed with them but not in the outdoor run as it has a roof on. When they sit in with the bunnies though, the bunnies tend to hide away. They have been feeding from our hands though through the bars on the outdoor run. I know it's very early days and it'll take time for them
to know and trust us but any tips on how to ease things along would be appreciated.

How enclosed is your garden? We foster rabbits so have them coming and going constantly with new rabbits we leave them in their hutch and run for a week just giving them new food etc but not bothering them too much then we open the run door and sit in the garden with some treats etc near us and wait for them to come to us, it generally doesn't take long especially if you have a pair as one is always braver than the other and the timid one will soon build up.courage once he sees the brave one getting some treats. If your garden isn't secure to let them free roam another option would be to get a pet play pen like you can get for puppies etc without a top and let the kids sit in there with the rabbits but ideally only if this can be attached to the run to give them the ability to come and go as they please not feel trapped in with the kids.

Thanks. It's interesting that you just let the rabbits be for a week before trying to interact with them. It's hard as the children just want the rabbits to come to them straight away. They know not to pick them up and that they just need to sit and wait for the rabbits to come to them but it's not so easy! Our garden is fairly enclosed but I would be so scared of one of them getting out. One of them is definitely the leader and I'm sure she'd love to come out and explore us and the garden.

I have a litter who were born in a burrow, so the whole lot of them were basically wild, but one was very much wilder in nature than the others, right from the start. I've never pushed the issue with any of them. She, and her mother, have been in house since before Christmas due to illness, and, for the first couple of weeks I had to give her daily medication which, as you can guess, didn't really help the bonding process between us!

What did work was for me to completely ignore her. If I happened to look at her from another room through the doorway (ie nowhere near her) she'd bolt. If I went into the room and ignored the fact she was there, going as far as stepping over her without acknowledging her, I'd feel her tense up in annoyance. A few goes of this in quick succession and I could then bend down and stroke her.

She still bolts if she thinks I'm going to be mean and do something nasty, like pick her up (which I've not done in months) but most of the time she's quite happy, now for me to stroke her.

It's interesting that ignoring rabbits seems to make them crave your friendship. To be fair when we first met our bunnies they were both way more interested in DS1 who wasn't remotely interested than with the other 2 DCs who we were getting them for!