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Phantom preg or winter nesting?

22 9:41:40

Question
My permanent indoor California rabbit is almost 2 years old (in Dec.) and un-altered, She has NEVER ever been near another rabbit since the day I got her 1 1/2 years ago, and I never plan to let her. She is healthy, super sweet, happy, eats, and drinks well. She does her normal rabbit activities, all except(She has never done this before) yesterday I noticed at 2 am she started digging and building a hay nest ( I free feed tons of timothy hay). Today I noticed that there was fur in her hay nest and saw some hanging out her mouth so I pulled it out and there was more and more, I pulled out enough hay to make a white mini lop. She playfully grabbed it out of my hand and immediately ran to her new nest, then continued to get more from her belly. This amount of fur is not her normal shedding fur. I have done 8 hours of research online about this and the results lead toward phantom pregnancy or building a winter nest. What do you think is going on? P.S. I have checked her temp, heart rate, checked her over and over again for abnormalities, even in her mouth and have been keeping close tabs on her everything is normal except for this new thing she has never done before.

Answer
Hi Cilla,

Phantom pregnancies are extremely common in unaltered rabbits.  The best thing to do would be to get her spayed.  Not only would it stop this behavior but it would protect her from uterine cancer which is extremely common in female rabbits.  The phantom pregnancy itself is not going to hurt her but she may become cage aggressive if she thinks she is protecting phantom babies.

Good luck

Pam