Please Help - Mini Lop doe pulling out lots of hair

[mr_rebecca]

Hi everyone, I have been a lurker on your site for quite some time, but have never made an account of posted untill now.
I will apologise right not for how long this is, I just want to cover everything

I have two mini lops, a girl and boy, and they're both spayed/neutered, and have lived together since the beginning of the year. The female is the one I am having problems with, and she is two years old, and called Penny. The male will be one in july and is called Peanut.
They are house rabbits, but are only in the cage for the 8 hours while im asleep, or If i go out. They live in a two tier cage, so they have lots of space And i would say they are generally very happy and very helathy, or at least I try my very hardest to keep them that way.

Ok brief background over, now for the problem.
For a while now, we keep finding Penny pulling mountains of hair out of herself, with a giant pile of hair next to her, as well as a worrying amount of hair in her mouth. Everytime I find her I pull all the hair out of her mouth (obviously) and then put her back in her cage for a little while with some alfalfa hay and medow hay (I only give them alfalfa hay as a treat, or when she does this as she really likes her and it encourages her to eat it. I worry that shes going to get a blockage and possibly GI statis which Ive been through once and wasn't fun, so I hope that the hay will prevent this from happening. I keep her in her cage for a little while just so I can watch her and make sure she dosen't do it again, but so far she never has. As soon as all the hair is out of her mouth, she is totally fine and back to normal. She eats and drinks normally, and is the same as ever, jumping about and playing.
One time, however, she started coughing, and did so for about... 4-5hours, but i suspect she just had some hair lodged in her throat that she couldn't move. She still acted as normal, just with the odd cough here and there.
One of the really odd things about it though is that she has only ever done it in my mams room. Shes allowed pretty much all over the house (With supervision of course ) but she has only ever done it while sitting under my mams desk in her room? So we've completely banned her from there now, in the hope that that will stop it, but even so, why on earth would being in a certain room trigger her? Its not as if it is very differnt from the rest of the house?
She has only done this about 7? times in the past 3 months, but to be quite honest its 7 times too many.
I wondered if she could be going through a false pregnancy, but she shows no other symptoms of this. I also wondered if she could be attention seeking or unhappy, but my whole family adore her and she gets constant attention from me. Even when my boyfriend is around, he seems to play with her more than I do!, and she responds so well to him. It absolutly breaks my heart to think there might be something making her unhappy, that could be causing this, or even worse that there is something wrong with her.

I haven't contacted the vet with this yet, since its not really a medical problem, and I don't really want to waste a valuble appointment if its going to be nothing, Plus, im pretty sure that people on here will be far more helpful and probably will be able to help better than my vet lol

I don't know what to do about it. I don't know whether I should let it ride its course, or if there is something I can do about it for her. I love her very much, and I would do absolutly anything for her. Im happy to spend as much time and money on fixing this, if anyone knows what this is, or has any ideas of what I can do, it would all be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time, and again, I apologise for the length of this post!

 

[mr_rebecca]

Please can anyone help at all?
Anything would be appreciated

 

[rabswood]

I'm sorry I can't advise as I haven't come across this before but I am sure someone on RU will be along soon with some ideas. I hope things work out for her. It is very distressing when you don't know what to do to help them.

 

[Furry]

Is she spay? if not could be false pregnancy. one of mine did it before but after spaying she hasn't pulled her fur out.
Other reasons could be boredom if she is the only bun. bunnies are social animals and need companionship.
if in doubt do take her down to see the vet, better be safe than sorry.

 

[Roseberry]

OP has said that bunny is spayed. i think i read something about this on here recently. it could be boredom, or stress? i dont have experience of this though.

 

[mr_rebecca]

Thank you for your replys They're very much appreicated.

Yes shes spayed, and she also lives with a male mini lop who she gets on so well with, hes neutered aswell.

I did orginally wonder about bordem being a cause, but she never ever seems to be bored. Shes either running about playing with her favorite toy, or having a nap with Peanut. We have -so- many tunnels and boxes and every single toy we can find it would be amazing if she was bored lol. And i always swap toys around so they never get bored of having the same things all the time.
Stress is something else I had looked into, but she has no reason to be stressed either? If she did it when she got in trouble then I would assume this is the case, but ive never told her off before shes pulled fur out -its normally when shes been running through rooms all happy, and then we find her in there pulling fur out. Its really odd. I can't find a single cause of this, which is why im worried it might be linked to something serious.
Surely if she was completely healthy and happy she wouldn't do this?!

Ive banned her from my mams room now - the door is constantly closed, and if she pulls fur out in any other room then I will be taking her straight to the vet. But I cant imagine a room could trigger something like that?!

 

[Tamsin]

I think your idea of banning her from the room is a good one. Sometimes trying to understand what they are thinking is very difficult so trying things out is the only way forward.

What area is she plucking the hair from? Nesting fluff is usually taken from the chest. Although she's spayed it doesn't 100% rule it out as even the odd male buns try nest building occasionally.

Seven times in three months, doesn't sound like something physical causing her to pluck, I think she'd do it more often and in more places.

One thing I would say though, don't reward her with tasty food if you find her doing is... just to avoid her catching on to the idea of pulling fur = tasty treat

 

[biscandmatt1]

were they both rescues or anything like that? could it be something in your mums room triggers a stress response maybe? maybe a certain smell or just something like that. that's all that comes to mind really. :?

again, i thought boredom maybe. :? does she do it at certain times? maybe after being shut away for the 8 hours? maybe it might be worth extending the cage although i don't know what size it is already.

it's really strange it just happens in one room isn't it. i've read that sometimes something will just trigger a memory and they react to that.

it will be interesting to see if it happens even when she isn't allowed in your mums room.

what about mites? and she is agitated and pulling fur and it is just coincedence you have seen her pulling it out whilst sat in the same place? :?

it might be worth a quick check up at the vets anyway to see if they can see anything on her fur or skin. just to rule it out. find a rabbit/exotics vet though and just explain what has been happening and see what they say.

what bedding do you use? could she be sensitive to that maybe?? and just has a favourite place to go and pull at the fur?

sorry for the long post, just thinking out loud

 

[mr_rebecca]

Thank you both, Tamsin and Biscandmatt1 for your helpful replies

@Tamsin I never thought of it as rewarding her. Thank you for mentioning that, Ill keep a look out for it
She pulls the hair from her dewlap :/

@Biscandmatt1 Neither are rescues. Penny (the one who is pulling out the fur) I got from a breeder when she was little, and Peanut came from my friend when he was only 6 months, and she had looked after him well when she had him and he had come from Pets at home before that.

Shes normally been out for a good few hours before aswell. I let them out while i have breakfast, etc, to run around my room for an hour or 2 before I usually let them run around the upstairs :/ She never seems to be bored. She used to be bored sometimes before I got Peanut (Which is why I got him) But since then she's always been happy. Its so weird that shes doing it.
The Cage is a large two-tiered one, I would deffinitly say its big enough for them both, Peanut likes to run around the bottom teir when the doors open
She deffinitly doesnt have mites, but I had never thought it could be that.
They don't really have bedding actually, Their cage is carpeted, and i used to put that pet friendly digestable rabbit bedding stuff in, but she really doesnt like it, and i used to have hay for her to sleep in aswell but she just used to push it all out of the way...so i decided she doesn't like bedding haha

The long post was appreciated (Incase you haven't noticed my posts are rather lengthy aswell lol) It gave me alot to think about