False pregnancy advice needed !

[bellathebouncingbun]

My beautiful baby Bella is now fully matured and she’s had her first (what I think is) false-pregnancy.

Was cleaning out the hutch today and noticed a huge wad of her fur in the corner of the ‘hidden room’ in the hutch. It’s the darkest area in the hutch and is sheltered from light and very warm so it makes sense for her to build her nest here. The fur is mixed with hay too.

I’m wondering if this could have been triggered by stress? We lost our beautiful baby Clover to a seizure on Monday and Bella seemed quite upset about this. Could this be the cause?

Also how do I deal with the nest? Do I leave it? I touched it and even called her over so she could see me touching and moving it and she seemed a little aggressive at first, nipped me as a warning, but was grooming me afterwards so clearly trusts me around the nest.

And I understand there may be questions about whether the pregnancy is in fact real and there is no way as the only contact with other rabbits she’s had for the past month was Clover who was female and only 4 weeks old.

Any advice is greatly appreciated ! - I’ve also attached a photo of the nest

 

[Preitler]

As long as she is meddling with the nest, just leave it be. Isn't going to last long when it's a false pregnancy, just clean it out after a few days. There isn't anything else you can do, just give her lots of hay and let her act out her urges. I can't tell what triggers it - more light, touching at the wrong places, stressful events maybe, changes in hierachy or territory, etc, etc,... - imho all possible, or it just happens for no reason at all.
I save the fur to supplement or replace soiled fur in occupied nests, doesn't matter which doe the fur is from.

Well, that's one of the "joys" of having intact girls, some can get really frantic and off the rail during that periods (picture of my Fury...), with others I barely notice, fur pulling isn't too common among mine. Only way to stop that for sure is to spay her.