Nesting Question

[kenworthyj]

My 11 month old lop, Flapjack, has her first phantom pregnancy [she's never seen a boy, so a real one is out of the question]. She has taken large collections of hay and laid a floor in her house, covered it in phone book paper and cushioned it with her fur.

This was all yesterday, and now she is still lightly barbering herself, but nothing intense like yesterday. She has pushed all her bedding up towards her house to create a wall outside her nest.

My question is when is it ok for me to remove her nest?

I'm contemplating adding some bedding so she's not laying on the bare floor of her cage [also b/c she has no bedding to pee on and she's using the same little spot and it's getting quite saturated]. And giving her some more hay as I've resorted to giving her little crumbs of hay lately because she keeps taking the big pieces for her nest and not eating it!

I'm just looking for some advice as to how we can go about getting rid of her nest and so on.

Thanks!

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, we got her a few months ago [she was 6+ months at the time], my girlfriend and I are both college students on a tight budget, so we've finally saved up and she is getting fixed on the 29th.

[Dragonrain]

Hi

Since there's no chance of her being actually pregnant, I would think it would be fine to remove the nest. She may rebuild it though.

Good job saving to get her spayed. After her hormones die down she shouldn't have any more phantom pregnancys and spayed females are usually sooo much healthier in the long run.

Does she have a litter box in her cage? If she's just peeing in one corner, sounds like it would be really easy to litter train her. I use a plastic rabbit litter pan that you can get in most pet stores and online. You can fill it with something absorbant like Yesterday's News (a brand of cat litter) and a little bit of hay and then you wouldn't have to worry as much about the rest of the cage getting wet. Just change the litter box when needed - it's soo much easier than having to clean pee out of the whole cage.

Sorry if you already knew all that - it sounded like from your post that she's just peeing in a corner in the cage? But my three rabbits are all litter box trained and it's soo much easier to clean up after them

[kenworthyj]

We've tried to litter train her but had problems.

First, the store we got her at had her for a couple months and she used the whole cage, and she's never really taken to litter training. Our other bunny, Whinnie, took it up right away, but Flapjack has just been stubborn.

Second, her cage is pretty large, but so is she, and between her house and a litter box she wouldn't have much room to stretch out.

We've tried getting a smaller box, but she just flips up the pan and spills everything everywhere, then chews on the overturned box! I know it may take time, but she's good about peeing in her own little corner [it rotates though] so we're pretty content with not struggling with a litter box.

I don't want to pick up her nest right away, I feel like I should give her a couple days, is there any harm to leaving it? Will it stress her out if I pick it up now, or more so if I leave it?

[Dragonrain]

Ahh I see. My bunnies use to tip the box in their cage too but I got one that has clips that attach it to the side of the cage. That works out well for me, but I have a huuge cage and pretty small bunnies so space isn't an issue for me either.

I don't think their would be any harm in leaving it as long as it isn't gross (pee or anything in it). I'm not sure what would stress her out more. I only have 1 female rabbit and she was spayed when I got her, so I don't really have any experience with this. Maybe someone will come around who does

[kathydip]

I don't have any experience with phantom pregnancy but I would like to say that once she is spayed she will probably do better with her litter box.
I swear that my rabbit Ophelia was not good using her litter box until the day of her spay. I picked her up and brought her home and she has been pretty good ever since. She was a young bun so she probably didn't have a ton of hormones yet but I really think she was afraid of what we may have cut out next if she didn't start using her box.
Good luck with her!