false pregnancies

[Sabine]

As we already suspected Magic's recent nest building efforts she had a phantom pregnancy. As the vet confirmed there were no babies I left her out again and she promptly started frolicking around with Benny again.

The last time it happened was about three weeks ago and she promptly started signs of being pregnant, although Benny is neutered. I was wondering if she did have regular contact with Benny would that result in a false pregnancy every couple of weeks?

 

[Flashy]

Yup, could do. Oz and Tubby used to flirt with each other a lot, through bars, etc, and it got to the point where everytime she smelt him she made a nest. At one point I gave her a toilet roll of his and within half an hour she had a beautiful fur lined nest in her bed area. It seems to become a reaction, ah, male, must make a nest. I sort of wonder if breaking the habit might make a difference in that respect, so keeping them apart for a while.

If that does happen again with Magic I would sugest keeping her away from guys until maybe late summer/early autumn which should break the cycle both in terms of behaviour but also season.

 

[Sabine]

I think I may end up spaying her, since I won't be breeding her after all. That way four rabbits could have the run of the garden without me having to worry about fights or false pregnancies. There's also Oskar now who only just got spayed and God knows what he may get up to between now and the next eight weeks

I was initially hoping to leave her intact because as strange as it sounds all my spayed ones are aggressive, territorial, messy etc... and the two intact ones are so sweet and rarely show signs of aggression. You'd think it was the other way around.

I am just a bit worried about magic's health if she ends up having repeated false pregnancies...

 

[tonyshuman]

I asked that a while ago--as to whether or not it was stressful to go through these false pregnancies. Apparently it's not harmful to her health or emotional well-being to have false pregnancies. I personally wouldn't want to think I was pregnant every few months though.

 

[Sabine]

I thought there was a link between false pregnancies and the increased risk of uterine cancer?

 

[tonyshuman]

That would make sense biologically, but I'm not sure it's been documented.

 

[Sabine]

I remember reading some articles in german about it but of course never saved the lonk

 

[tonyshuman]

Well, it wouldn't do me much good as my German is very poor! I wonder if anyone else has read something like this? (bump)

 

[Sabine]

I'll have to check if i can find the articles as there were also some articles in English as far as I remember.