Female pulling out her fur!!!

[Deleted User]

My female started pulling out her fur and nesting!!! She’s not due to be spayed til April 7th!!! She’s gonna strip herself bald, what do I do?????

[Deleted User]

To add to this, she has recently bonded to my neutered male, and they have been living happily together. I have now separated them until her spay, much to both of their dismay. How can I get her to stop pulling out all her fur?!?

[unknownphoenix]

Someone with more experience would probably be able to answer this better but from the very quick search I just did it sounds to me like a false pregnancy. Since she isn’t spayed yet the hormones will cause her to go through this. Try giving her blankets and ripped up newspaper it may help her to stop pulling out her fur to use as nesting material. As far as I know there is no definite way to stop her from pulling out her fur. It just has to run its course. Since she is pulling out fur, she is most likely at the end of the false pregnancy. From what I read though it sounds like giving her nesting material should help keep her from pulling her fur out. Just try to keep her distracted and make sure she continues to eat hay and drink water so that any fur she may have ingested moves through her system.

[Deleted User]

Ok, have her some paper and blankets but she’s already started a full-blown best in my daughters bed. I hope this will be over soon, it looks painful to watch her pull out her fur like this!

[Sophie, Lola, and Bailey]

Lola just had a false pregnancy and isn’t getting spayed until Thursday. I gave her lots of nesting material, and she stopped pulling out her fur. That phase is over. I hope your little girl is okay!

[Deleted User]

I hope she will get thru this ok, but right now it’s so sad, cuz I have her separated from Reno and they are miserable without being able to be with each other. They’re both sitting on opposite sides if the gate trying to get as close as they can. Should I keep Leia separate from him during her false pregnancy, or can I let them be together?

[Tessie]

Just checking that you’re sure she’s not actually pregnant?
He was neutered a while ago, right?

[Deleted User]

Oh he was neutered a couple of years ago. He’s older

[Sophie, Lola, and Bailey]

Watching the false pregnancy is really sad! Lola was very aggressive towards Bailey. I am keeping them separated until after Lola recovers from her spay just in case. It breaks my heart to see how upset she’s been.

[Beka27]

This does sound like a false pregnancy… I had the same question as Tessie regarding how long ago he was neutered. Male bunnies can retain viable sperm and still impregnate an intact female for up to 4-6 weeks post neutering (loss of people are unaware of this!) but that’s good that he’s a long time neutered.

There’s not too much to do with a false pregnancy except just wait it out. If they are fine together, I don’t even think they need to be separated during this time. Only if they start fighting.

[Linette]

Like others said, give her lots of nesting materials to keep busy with, and a box to put them in. Don’t worry about the pulled fur, it’ll grow back.

[LopNessMonster]

I’ve had several bunnies that had false pregnancies. Back when I was a kid we kept unfixed male and female rabbits and the first time it happened we were worried that they had accidentally gotten together! I would advise putting a box or hidey-place in her cage and letting her have plenty of hay to build a nest with. Usually it will last a couple of weeks. If you leave her nest intact she won’t have to redo it. This behavior is normal for an unfixed rabbit. They can have one or two a year and you don’t need to worry. It’s funny/sad to see them with bare patches but it grows back just fine. My current female Nessie had either three or four false pregnancies in a row or just one really long one that lasted a few months (that is not normal). After we got her spayed she hasn’t done it again and all of her fur has grown back. Your bunny might get extra-territorial during this period, so watch out. She’s defending her imaginary babies.

The main thing to watch out for is fur blockages. Make sure she eats plenty of hay and keep watch on her digestion. Some papaya enzyme can help too.

[Deleted User]

Wow, the false pregnancy only lasted 2 days! It’s over now, and this morning I cleaned up her nest, and there was enough fur to make another bunny! Everything’s back to normal now; that was so wierd! She’s getting spayed next Monday, so that’ll be the first and last false alarm I’ll ever see! Thank goodness!

[Beka27]

Glad she’s doing better now!

[LittlePuffyTail]

Glad things sorted themselves out.

[LongEaredLions]

Glad she is ok! You must be relieved and ready for her spay!

[Deleted User]

Oh I’m so looking forward to Lei-Lei’s spay on Monday. I’m so glad she bonded with Reno before she got it done, now she has a support system and it will make her feel better!

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