I previously had a neutered male/female pair and decided to try and bond another (neutered) female in and form a group. The trio bonding took a while and, l though the three bunnies did eventually live together for several months without fighting, the female we had bonded in last always seemed to be left out and so we decided to get her a husbun of her own and have two separate male/female pairs. After a year of having two separate pairs we recently decided to try bonding them as a group of four. It has taken us several months of trying different methods of bonding (internet searches will bring up many options and you have to decide which works best for you) but we do now have the four bunnies living together without fighting. I still don’t consider them completely bonded as there is very limited positive interactions between the two females, however the bond is developing over time and no one bun is being left out. Our group also has the advantage of being free range house buns with a lot of space – there is one central area with litter tray, water etc where they are all comfortable and spend their nights but each bun seems to have developed their own preferred snoozing area for the daytime. We do wonder whether we would see more fights if they had more limited space. Ultimately it is the personalities of the bunnies involved that will determine whether a  group will work, and therefore it is important to know the bunnies involved before deciding whether to try and bond as a group. It is also more difficult to monitor their health and behaviour when in a group, and this is another reason why it is important to know the bunnies well so you are more  able to recognise if there is a problem. Therefore I would generally suggest that people don’t try to bond a group unless they are very confident with  recognising rabbit behaviours and / or know the bunnies involved well, however  if you do decide to try bonding a group then good luck!

I can confirm that groups (more than 2) are more difficult and higher maintenance.  They also take at least twice as long to bond.  Even when they seem to get on, you really need to be on the ball with regularly checking for injuries etc as they may have more tussles when you are not watching.  It also makes it more difficult to monitor what's going in and out of each bunny when there are more living together, so it becomes more important to do regular health checks and weighing.  I certainly would advise against taking on a group to anyone who isn't very experienced with rabbit health and behaviour. We have a few contacts from other rescues that have successfully bonded groups and they do say that four is better than three, as the two that get on the best will often pair up and kick the other one out.If you do decide to go ahead yourself and want to create a bunny group, The Rabbit Crossing have an excellent leaflet on bonding.  It's not specifically targeted at groups, but the information in it is equally applicable.  I don't think they have a website at the moment, but according to RabbitRehome this is their email address is: therabbitcrossing@yahoo.co.uk  Janice Newbury recommended the leaflet to us - she used to work for ARC and from what I have heard was an expert at group bondings of rabbits, but I believe she has left now.

Hope that's helpful!