My spoiled pet lop, Tadpole, made a nest of fur in the hay I put in her hutch last night to help keep her warm. she had a litter January 10th of last year but I was not planning to breed her again because I raise Angoras and she is not an Angora....

Could she just be building a nest because she remembers the hay from last winter???? I moved her to a hutch with a nesting box "just in case." I can't figure out when she could have bred because I let them exercise seperately and her cage has not been that close to a buck...

Houdini, the small black bunny who lives in the cage below her, has been remarkably able to "escape" from his hutch and I find him running around in the bunny barn floor a lot...I think I have finally fixed that probablem for good...but I don't think he could climb to the second level and sneak into Tadpole's hutch....but NOW I'm beginning to wonder....

I've been raising rabbits for years and this is the first time one has made a nest unless they were pregnant or would bred and it didn't 'take." any ideas?

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), December 26, 2001

Answers

Suzy, I'm sorry, I know you didn't mean that to be funny, but I'm sitting here imagining the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" and having a giggle attack! :)

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), December 26, 2001.

I'd say that this is a false pregnancy. I've been keeping and breeding mixed breed rabbits (part brown angora) for a few years, and a few of my does have behaved in exactly the same way, even though they were kept in a hutch with no access to the resident buck. My favorite doe, Babs even began gaurding her nesting box after tugging almost all of the fur off of her belly. They usually get over it within a few weeks, unless they've somehow come into contact with a buck.

-- Molly (nightdrgn@aol.com), December 26, 2001.

I had a angora do that once, turned out she had breast cancer. Check her chest for swelling and or ozing nipples.This is probably a case of false pregnancy escpecialy if she has bucks in near by cages.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), December 27, 2001.