rabbit acting abnormal: hormone rages?

Question
Dana, This is a new one on me. I have a male and female rabbit who are both "fixed." They cant be together or they try to kill each other. I have tried everything for 1 & 1/2 years. There cages are next to each other. One gets out and lays by the other cage and vise versa. I have seen the female lick the male twice but they usually just lay next to each other or sometimes box. They seem to be happy this way. She now is literally tearing her litter box up as if she is pitching a fit and she wont come out of her cage. She is not in stasis and had her teeth trimmed about 3 months ago and she is eating. could she be thinking she is pregnant when she is not? I have heard that rabbits do this. She is almost 3 years old. When I take her out and hold her she is not aggressive and does not bite. But when I clean her pan, she goes into a frenzy digging all through it as if I had stolen something out of it and is very territorial towards the male coming near her cage. She grunts and pops her foot and turns her back to him now. Why the sudden change? Thanks, sorry so long. Donna

Answer
Dear Donna,

This is odd.  It almost *does* sound as if she is having a false pregnancy.  

In rare cases, I know of people who've had bunnies show hormonal behavior and the final problem was that a bit of ovarian tissue had accidentally been left behind during the spay.  Your trusted rabbit vet can do diagnostic tests (bloodwork with hormone panel) to check if this is a possiblity.

Medical problems, cryptic sources of pain/itching all can cause this, too.  So I'd get her to a good rabbit vet:

www.rabbit.org/vets

for a complete once-over to be sure the root of her problem isn't medical.

If this is a false pregnancy, it should resolve in about a week to 17 days, depending on where she is in the cycle.  

Hope this helps you discover the answer to the mystery.

Dana