Day 15-18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21, Day 22, Day 23, Day 28, Day 30
Day 15 – Sunday 16th
Inside early, due to rain. Playing in their green kennel and tunnels. So exciting!
Day 16 – Monday 17th
Nice day. Covered in shade cloth. Binkies and zoomies. They found a lovely patch of grass that they decimated like a dinosaur with crooked teeth.
Day 17 – Tuesday 18th
Rainy day. Big indoor pen. I threw rocket, parsley, dandelion and sow thistle around. They had fun going from place to place to find new goodies.
Day 18 – Wednesday 19th
Inside again. Much the same. Buttons is slowly not pulling out as much of Nova’s hair. They like sitting next to each other but only if there is a fence between them.
Day 19 – Thursday 20th
They remind me of an old couple. Him, sitting in the sun reading his newspaper, and her sitting there next to him reading a romance novel.
I decided to pull the Omlet pen apart and connect it to the side to make it make it twice as long, and half as high. The height is overkill for rabbits – it took me this long to figure out that bunnies can’t fly, so they don’t need the height.
No real behaviour changes
For an update, Buttons and Nova’s behaviours haven’t changed much towards each other. She still wants to cuddle up with him, but he nips her a lot. She steers clear of him, but they copy each other. I’m just giving it time.
From Buttons’ perspective, he has lost his sister, Cotton, then Maple and Lunar, and he doesn’t want to become attached to Nova because he might lose her too. He is just being guarded about his affections.
I think they are still half bonded.
Day 20 – Friday 21st
Something lovely happened this morning. Buttons and Nova were snuggling. It was a cold rainy day, and I extended their inside pen out as far as I could. They didn’t want to walk on the wooden floor, so they stayed on the carpet. They played inside, Buttons ran around and Nova stayed out of his way. Her nails made a lot of noise in the pipes, so we thought he was chasing her, but he wasn’t.
I cleaned their pen for the night, gave them fresh grass (with parsley mixed in to make it smell nice), and thought about leaving them like that for the night. I’ll keep an eye on them to see how they go during the evening and make up my mind later.
I also got a new Bristle Brush for Nova today. Her hair is much thinner than Buttons’ and the Hairy Pony block, de-shedding glove and slicker brush don’t work on her at all.
Covered for the night to keep most of the electric light out of the pen. I must admit, it’s pretty good for only knowing each other since 21st May.
Laying very close to each other. Looking good.
It lasted until about 10:30pm when Buttons decided that chasing was fantastic. We split the pens and they settled down for the night.
Buttons is touchy because night time is snuggle time, and Nova wants to snuggle. Buttons is still moping and sad about losing Cotton, Maple and Lunar, so he doesn’t want to let himself feel those nice emotions again. He pushes Nova away because it’s hard for him to want to let her in, just in case he loses her too.
We just have to give it time, and help him through it.
Day 21 – Saturday 22nd
Nice day, bunnies outside. Their pen is getting progressively bigger, and now I think it is the right size for them because they were racing bunnies with a sense of freedom this morning. I have never seen Buttons run so fast or for such a long time before.
Because I took the top off the Omlet enclosure and put it to the side, I could extend the play-pen out a fair distance. Their new pen measures about 5m x 8m, and that size seems to bring unlimited and unbridled joy to bunnies. Buttons is used to a pen about 5m2, but that extra 3-4m is a winner. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Day 22 – Sunday 23rd
Nothing really changed. Bunnies played together a lot in the outdoor pen until I had to rush around and bring them inside because it was going to rain. Of course they didn’t want to come in, they did everything they could to not get caught. We all got soaking wet, but they dried off really quickly in front of the wood fire.
Day 23 – Monday 24th
Same as yesterday, out in the morning, in by lunch time. But at about 10:40pm, Buttons started grooming Nova through the bars of the pen. Break through!
I was so happy. That is a huge relief, slowly but surely we are progressing.
Day 28 – Saturday 29th
I skipped writing daily accounts for a week because there was nothing much to report. There was no visible progress between the bunnies. This is normal, because they need plateau days but they haven’t been getting any.
Buttons goes nuts with grooming Nova’s head, but he only does it when the fence is between them. He has started to not chase her as much outside, but rather let her come up to him and he sniffs her. He may give her a little nip, but only to push her along because she likes burying into his side.
Day 30 – Monday 31st
Buttons and Nova spent their first night together. It went OK. In the morning, Buttons decided to run Nova around the cage a little bit. I have started calling it his GPS game, where he wants to locate Nova’s GPS coordinates and goes looking for her. He doesn’t do it with evil intentions, he just goes looking for her when she is out of sight. I guess because she is black, she is hard to see in her litter box, or when she is in shadow.
We later figured out that he only does that when he his hungry.