Fur pulling

[Potterbunny]

This morning I noticed Potter digging and playing in her blanket. Several minutes later I went to open her cage and let her out, as well as refill her bowl and I noticed fur tufts in her blanket. My first thought was “maybe she’s shedding”. However, I’ve seen her she’s before and it wasn’t like that. The fit in her blanket was in clumps, like she pulled it out.

I don’t know if she could be sick or pregnant or stressed, or why she would do it. She recently went to the vet, and a few days prior we introduced her to the new baby bunny, Ohana, which is about two months old (potter’s over a year). There was a few seconds in pretty sure nobody was really watching them because we were all watching a movie and had them out in the living room in pen and my mom and I were taking turns watching them but she kept looking away on her turn and then I didn’t realize it so I wasn’t watching either. Therefore, i don’t know if any mounting or anythinf occurred although there weren’t any noises from either one.

Then they were playing together with the two guinea pigs and potter kept going after Ohanas butt (sticking her face under his(?) bum. And that was probably about a week or so ago at most.
It’s been about two weeks since the initial introduction.

Could it be stress, hormonal changes, illness, or pregnancy, or what’s going on? Should I call the vet?

[Beka27]

I would contact your vet. It sounds like you’re not 100% sure of Ohana’s sex. How old are Ohana and Potter? Boys can impregnate a female sometimes as young as 12 weeks. Girls can get pregnant as young as 4 months or so. The fur pulling could be a false pregnancy, which hopefully that would be the case since you say the introduction was only 2 weeks ago and rabbit gestation is about 30 days. What is your timeline for spaying and neutering them? Are they separated now?

[Potterbunny]

The vet said Ohana was a boy, although she didn’t seem to know too much about it, so I’m taking her advice with a grain of salt and looking into other vets in the meanwhile. Where I’m not so comfortable with this vet im not going to have her do the spay just yet. The two of them are on opposite ends of the house, completely different rooms and the only thing they share right now is food which is in a separate container until it’s in their bowls. And potter is older than a year.

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