Phantom Pregnancy.

Question
I have two female rabbits who are a year old and sisters so have always been together.  I have them booked in to get speyed in about a weeks time but yesterday one of them, the slightly larger more aggressive one, started pulling out her fur and is going through a phantom pregnancy.  

She has commandeered the nest part of the hutch and was getting really aggressive towards the other rabbits if she went anywhere near it. Because of this i have separated them. I know this is quite common behaviour i just want to make sure that its right to separate them since i know you are not supposed to separate bonded rabbits. They are still in the same room and had they playtime out of the hutch today as normal but im just worried about the one i have had to move out getting confused and lonely, she seems rather unsettled but im very sure that if i put them back together the phantom pregnancy rabbit will attack her, she hurt her quite badly once about 6 months ago so i dont want that to happen again.

Any advice or reassurance would be very much appreciated!

Answer
This is common in bonded rabbits around the time they need to be spayed or neutered.  As long as they can still smell each other and see each other, it shouldn't be a problem.  Once the aggressive one recovers from her spay and her hormones go away you will be able to put them back together.  Sometimes you have to start all over like they are a new pair, but they will eventually go back together.

You can read information about bonding rabbits at http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/introductions.html

Kim