Nesting, false pregnancy

[Beanstew]

Hello Everyone 

I have a female rabbit that has been spayed for almost a year and seems to be having a false pregnancy. We recently starting introducing her to our 2 boys and hope to get them all into the same hutch. Today we noticed her pulling hair out and frantically holding and moving hay around. I am wondering if anyone has experienced this or knows any way to calm her down until it passes. She has built her nest in her litter box and I’m not sure if i should provide her with another place to go potty. At first i tried giving her a cardboard box to nest in so she could keep using her litter box normally. I ended up taking it out because she was going potty in the cardboard one and i didn’t want a huge mess. I have been trying to leave her alone but i will need to clean her litter box out in a couple days and don’t want her to try to start over with more hair pulling. I have heard that this can be reoccurring and i hope it doesn’t cause too much of an issue if i try to continue the bonding process with the boys. I feel like she’d be happier in the long run with companions. Thank you!

[Mikey]

Are both boys neutered? If so, for how long? If not, stop: neutering and healing are the first steps to bonding.

False pregnancies usually pass after a few days at the shortest to about two weeks at the longest.

[Beanstew]

They are all fixed and have been for at least a year which is why i was confused by the false pregnancy. She already seems to be over it but I hope this doesn’t keep happening with further bonding.

[jerseygirl]

Building a nest and pulling fur in a spayed female is unusual. How certain are you that she was desexed? Did you take her to be done yourselves or did you adopted already desexed.
Some neutered male rabbits may displace some nesting like signs (usually just carrying hay in mouth) but ive not read of that happening in spayed females.

I wonder if she still has uterine tissue or an ovary that was missed?

[Beanstew]

I brought her in myself to have her fixed. I am in the process of contacting the vet that did the surgery to ensure the uterus and the overies were removed, which they said they did when i called the first time (but that was the humane society and not the actual vet).

[Beanstew]

I brought her in myself to have her fixed. I am in the process of contacting the vet that did the surgery to ensure the uterus and the overies were removed, which they said they did when i called the first time (but that was the humane society and not the actual vet).

[jerseygirl]

Some years back, there was a member on here whose young, spayed rabbit started nesting. When she’d been desexed, there were unable to find a second ovary and concluded that it never formed. Fast forward to the nesting behaviour and it was discovered she still had an ovary. The missing ovary had finally made an appearance.

Incomplete spays can also be where a full ovariohysterectomy wasn’t performed, only the ovaries where removed. While this will prevent a rabbit having litters, it does still leave them at risk of uterine cancer.

The ovaries being left is less of a risk healthwise. In fact, there is some studies being done to see how female rabbits do with leaving the ovaries in place.

[Beanstew]

I am pretty confident that the uterus was removed but i am unsure if both ovaries were. She was quite small when we adopted her and likely too young for the surgery, which we didn’t know at the time based on her predicted age. She must have been quite a bit younger than they thought because she gained probably 2 and a half pounds since we got her as a rescue. I really hope she doesn’t need to be put through another surgery but i also don’t want health problems to occur later on because the surgery wasn’t complete. Ill let you know what i find out.

[Author]

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