Sure Sign Spring is Really Here...

Well, it has begun already...the annual rounds of Rayna rescuing bunnies. I was in the kitchen this afternoon when Doug came blasting through the front door yelling something about Rayna finding a baby. Rayna was hot on his heels. They both were intercepted almost instantly by their father in the living room and all I heard was him admonishing them to "get that rodent-thing out of here now!" Wanting to SEE the "rodent thing" I came running from the kitchen asking, "What is it? What does she have?" Grant replied, "I don't know. Some kind of rodent. I don't want it in here!" Catching up with Doug and Rayna out in the front yard, I finally got a glimpse of the treasure Rayna was cradling in the palm of her hand...a newborn bunny. This one's eyes were still shut and it's little umbilical cord, though dried, hadn't yet fallen off. It had almost no hair...and did, I guess, look a little rodent-like...unless you are already used to seeing newborn mice and rats...in which case you wouldn't have mistaken this for one of those.

I asked Rayna WHERE she had found it, explaining that we had to put it back in the nest because it would die without the mommy rabbit. Well, there was no nest. There were no other bunnies. At first I thought maybe this one, which Rayna had found lying in a bare, muddy place in our yard had been rejected by the mother and kicked out of the nest...but after searching and searching for the non-existant nest, I realized that in seven years out here, we have NEVER had a nest right in our front yard. Three actively hunting dogs is a real detriment to nesting mommies. We have TONS of rabbit nests all around our small yard, in the woodsey brush that surrounds our yard, but, never any right in the middle of the yard where this little guy was found laying right out in the open. Rayna told me, "I thought it was something the dog's killed, Mommy, but, then I saw it was ALIVE! He was just sleeping! I could see him breathing!" She was so delighted with her find, even though I kept stressing to her that wild baby bunnies (particularly NEWBORN ones) just never seem to survive without the mother rabbit.

There is no nest to put him back in. The more I think about it, the more I am certain that he was BROUGHT up into the yard in Shanachie's mouth. Every year she raids at least one nest and will come running back to the yard with four or five baby rabbits all in her mouth at one time. Last year, all four were injured and out of compassion I took them from her and my father-in-law and I quickly euthanized them rather than allowing them to suffer. (Believe me, they were all injured beyond any hope of recovery.) Of course, the children were not present.

Shanachie tends to gently scoop up even her dry dog food in her mouth and take it out to a comfy spot in the yard and then drop the food on the ground, lay down, and leisurely eat it one nugget at a time. I suspect she brought her bunny snack back up in the yard today and layed down in one of her favorite spots to eat the tender little morsels at her leisure. When Rayna went out to play, none of the dogs were around. They were all way off in the woods, once more. I think Shanachie had eaten all but one when something distracted her back into the woods again. She was probably surprised, later today, when she came back expecting to finish up her snack.


Meanwhile, Rayna was just delighted. She just doesn't understand that wild things are WILD...and consequently TERRIFIED of people. And, though I keep telling her this little rabbit will most certainly die no matter how hard we try to save him, she doesn't really believe he will. He doesn't appear to have any injuries at all... and curled up quite comfortably in the welcomed warmth of Rayna's hand (after lying in the cold, damp, bare ground) he slept peacefully until I picked him up and then he squeaked in protest. Now he is on the back deck in a shoebox burrowed down amongst hand towels. He drank two drops of Kitten Milk Replacement tonight...with much encouragement. KMR obviously does not taste like mother rabbit's milk. Maybe he is used to nursing in the early morning, instead of dusk. At any rate, he didn't take anywhere near the little 5 cc amount that a newborn rabbit is suppose to take every 24 hours. Then I used a warm, moist cotton to stroke him to stimulate defecation and voiding (also necessary...the mother rabbit does this after each feeding, by licking each bunny and cleaning them up), but it didn't work. I really wish there had been a nest available for us to put the little guy back in. I dread it dying where Rayna will know it has died...but, this time there is honestly no way I can tell her that the bunny will have a better chance of living if we put it back where we found it. It had a 100% chance of dying a slow death where she found it. It will probably die in spite of our efforts, anyway...but, I guess at least it has a sliver of a chance with us.

Darcy looked up a lot of really good information on the internet about how to care for wild bunnies. It sounds like if the little fellow lives, we can release him when he is five inches long and able to nibble on grass...and that he will have the best chance of survival being released at that premature age than if he is kept in captivity longer, waiting until he is closer to being full grown.