Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

There is a relationship between the first two photos: can you guess what it is? The first photo is of a nest and it was made by the rabbit in the second photo... BUT the nest does not contain any babies. Basically, this rabbit has had a 'phantom' pregnancy and bizarrely, she is the second rabbit this week to do so (the other being Waffle). Something has triggered their nesting instincts and they have pulled fur from their bellies (a natural process that all rabbits do just before they are due to give birth) and collected lots of straw to produce a really soft nest! It looks as though there is masses and masses of fur there and yet when we examined both rabbits, you would not know they had any missing!!
There are various reasons why a rabbit might have a phantom pregnancy but most common are to do with living with other females who become dominant and try to mate with them OR having a male close by but NOT mating with him. Both of these apply to our rabbits. What actually happens is that the 'egg' within the rabbit is released into their uterus, the uterus starts to develop and the mammary glands start to swell. However, as there is no sperm from a male, nothing can actually happen and so after a few days the rabbit's body returns to normal.
Crumpet, our brown rabbit, is hopefully pregnant as we put her with Pancake on 23rd March but we won't know for sure for another couple of weeks when either she gives birth or does not!!
And so to our broody bantam with the four chicks who on Saturday we moved to a small house outside so she can take her chicks outside and start to teach them how to scratch on grass and pick up bits and pieces to eat. She is proving to be a fabulous mum but also a stubborn one, as each night she dutifully leads her chicks all the way back into the barn in an attempt to find her 'hutch' and each night we dutifully carry them all back out again and put them in the outside house. We have a feeling this one could be a hard one to break...