rescued red rex

Question
hi amy
i rescued a female red rex 2 months ago and bought her home . i already had a male rabbit who had been castrated on july 2nd .both rabbits had their own hutches but my male was found to be running the female around my garden only 2 days after his operation, now i dont know if they mated before i was able to catch him but i only saw that she was petrified of him and just kept running very fast around my garden. he was not able to catch her while i was there but he may of had her before i got there.Now this was july 3rd when he got out and my  female red rex has been nest building for approx 3 weeks now.i took her to the vets last week but she said she didnt know if my rex was pregnant or not and i was just to leave her be and wait to see if she gives birth. its been 41 0r 42 days now and my red rex is still nest building in her cage and im worried about her .is she having babies or not can you please help me as my vets have let me down as far as my rabbit is concerned......... thank you from clare

Answer
It sounds to me like she is suffering from a false pregnancy, if you know for a fact that 40+ days ago was the only time he has had access to her, then you can assume even with the nest building that she is NOT pregnant.  Rabbits ovulate when stimulated, which means that if the male rabbit went through all the actions of mating (even if there were no viable sperm) the female rabbit's body may act as if she is pregnant even if their was no pregnancy to begin with.  I suggest doing an extreme clean of her cage, getting rid of all her nesting materials for about 24hrs.  And eventually she will stop feeling as if she is pregnant and won't act this way anymore. However even if the male is neutered, if they are together again, and he mounts her and goes through the mating ritual with her, she may again have a false pregnancy.  This is not a good thing to have her going through all the time so I suggest also getting her spayed as this will relive her of the hormone driven actions and will allow you to bond your two buns.

Good Luck
Amy