Question about baby bunnies

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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I let the dog out front yesterday to see what she would look like bounding all over the place and slipping on the ice that covered everything.

Dog is a dog so right away sprints to the center of the yard and starts trying to claw through the ice to the point her paw starts bleeding. I think "What's that important?" I walk over and hear "Squeaking"

I break through the ice and see what appears to be 2 dead baby bunnies and 1 alive baby bunny. The 2 dead ones are frozen and the alive one is frail and very lethargic.

I scoop up the whole nest and grab a space heater and start warming up the nest thinking I will give the alive one a warm place to pass away comfortably.

Damned if I don't come back in and have 3 alive baby bunnies.

We have been feeding them heavy whipping cream (Sugar free) from eye droppers and they appear to be doing a good job of consuming it.

We saw an adult rabbit in the yard last night around 10:00 PM. I assume it is probably mom.
I have read mom stays away from the nest to avoid attracting attention of predators and comes by at night to feed the babies.


TLDR; if mom came by last night and the nest was gone, will she come back again tonight or will she see its gone once and go live her life assuming the coyotes got the babies?

I'd like to bundle them and put them back in the hole this evening in hopes that she can give them proper food but I don't know if she will just move on after not finding them once.



It is supposed to get above freezing over night and up to 36 ish tomorrow
 
As I see it, you have two choices - 1) give it a try. If you're worried about the cold, maybe rig an extension cord and heating pad to put under the nest. 2) plan on raising baby rabbits.
 
Third option….find an animal rescue for rabbits and such in the area. Is there a zoo nearby that can provide more info?
 
bflynn said:
As I see it, you have two choices - 1) give it a try. If you're worried about the cold, maybe rig an extension cord and heating pad to put under the nest. 2) plan on raising baby rabbits.
Click to expand...

My daughter would LOVE option 2.
Me, not so much.

And the canine that found them knows they are in her room. She hasn't left my daughters door since we brought them in.
 
murphey said:
Third option….find an animal rescue for rabbits and such in the area. Is there a zoo nearby that can provide more info?
Click to expand...

I suspect this will be the most likely scenario.

I think now that they look healthy, I will set them back in the nest and cover it.
Maybe place some string on top so we can see if momma came back and fed them.

If that doesn't happen, we will probably hand them off to an expert.
 
Usually, if there are "human smells" on the babies, the mom won't take them back. There's always a chance, though!
 
Bunnies are fantastic pets. But I don’t know about wild ones. Best part is they’re excellent home defense as well:

982294CC-0540-40B1-A0DC-79BFC0EE599C.jpeg

I don’t have a useful answer to your question, but if you take them to a rescue or something they likely won’t do much. Wild bunnies are anything but endangered.
 
wascally wabbits.

put this on your front lawn and see what happens with mom


upload_2023-2-1_9-27-6.png
 
Three little ones just might be enough for a decent rabbit stew








J/K
 
Sorry no help here...
A few years ago our poodle brought a baby bunny through the dog door into the living room. I grabbed it from him and put it outside in the bed of my pickup truck so the dog could not get to it. A few minutes later he was back with another one in the living room! Good thing my wife was not home...He is a standard poodle and has a soft bite bred into him. So the baby rabbits lived.
I kept the him inside after that until later in the day.
 
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SkyChaser said:
Usually, if there are "human smells" on the babies, the mom won't take them back. There's always a chance, though!
Click to expand...
NealRomeoGolf said:
I've always been told what @SkyChaser said. The mom will now reject them.
Click to expand...

Bad information that gets passed down, sort of like the downwind turn.

Kaiser found 4 rabbits in the same manner a few years back. He just wanted to play with them. Nudged them out of the nest and kept trying to get them to play. I rebuilt the nest and handled all four of them. So they had dog and human smell on them, and the mother came back. Was in contact with a zookeeper at the time who said that handling them won't be an issue. Fast forward a couple weeks and they were bouncing around the yard with mom. Had to rebuild another nest once when I went over it with the lawnmower. Poof, hair all over the yard, but no blood or yeeted bunny. They were under the blades, but I get them out and checked them for injuries. No worse for wear, rebuilt the nest again and in a couple weeks again they were in the yard with mom.

Be careful with the heavy cream. Might want to actually go with lactose free product as a lot of animals can't digest bovine squeezins.
 
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I'm so glad this story does not include dead bunnies.

That would ruin my day...
 
IK04 said:
I'm so glad this story does not include dead bunnies.

That would ruin my day...
Click to expand...

Nah, we like animals a little too much in this family.
I got out and drove 30 minutes on the ice to go get sugar free heavy whipping cream and eye droppers to feed them.
It's kinda working.
 
SkyChaser said:
Usually, if there are "human smells" on the babies, the mom won't take them back. There's always a chance, though!
Click to expand...
NealRomeoGolf said:
I've always been told what @SkyChaser said. The mom will now reject them.
Click to expand...
OWT - completely untrue, and probably responsible for the death of many animals.
EdFred said:
Bad information that gets passed down, sort of like the downwind turn.
Click to expand...
https://www.livescience.com/33620-baby-bird-touch-mother-abandon.html
 
Hasenpfeffer, Lapin a la Cocette -- yumm!
 
When I was a kid we had a large field behind our house and just about every night at dusk you would see a half dozen or more rabbits grazing out in a open field. Don't ever remember seeing hawks much in this area years ago and rabbits seems safe only to worry about neighborhood dogs! lol. This was when birds of prey were effected by DDT I am told.
Now we have lot's of hawks, eagles and turkey vultures flying around since DDT has been outlawed according to my dentist who is a bird expert for the state.

I took this picture about 8 years ago in our backyard in the rain. 2 hawks eating a rabbit on top of a large fence post. Not saying this is what is going to happen to your bunny's!
SDC11296.jpg

It was raining pretty hard this day. Didn't keep them from eating. He would stand there with his wings out.
SDC11270.jpg
 
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EdFred said:
Bad information that gets passed down, sort of like the downwind turn.

Kaiser found 4 rabbits in the same manner a few years back. He just wanted to play with them. Nudged them out of the next and kept trying to get them to play. I rebuilt the nest and handled all four of them. So they had dog and human smell on them, and the mother came back. Was in contact with a zookeeper at the time who said that handling them won't be an issue. Fast forward a couple weeks and they were bouncing around the yard with mom. Had to rebuild another nest once when I went over it with the lawnmower. Poof, hair all over the yard, but no blood or yeeted bunny. They were under the blades, but I get them out and checked them for injuries. No worse for wear, rebuilt the nest again and in a couple weeks again they were in the yard with mom.

Be careful with the heavy cream. Might want to actually go with lactose free product as a lot of animals can't digest bovine squeezins.
Click to expand...
You are half-right. All mammal milk contains lactose. Most animals lose the ability to digest lactose as adults, but baby mammals handle lactose just fine. Humans are somewhat of an exception, since some of us keep the ability to digest lactose as adults. Some of us become lactose intolerant like most other animals.

I used the word "lose" properly. So I must be correct :)
 
This is the year of the Rabbit. May good Karma shine on you.
Buy a lottery ticket.
 
Take them up flying asap. Gotta learn them while they young. You got lots of years with them.

Generally, spayed or neutered rabbits live between 8-12 years of age.
 
Next SixPC video: "Can flying baby bunnies replace The Monkey?"
(Hopefully, the bunnies fly better than Elf on a Shelf did!)
 
Rabbits make good house pets, train similar to cats or dogs.

As they become adults, feed should have hard to chew included, or they will chew furniture. Avoid feeding them lettuce, gives them diareah.

I think that your dog will accept them as friends. Since you say that he went straight to the nest and started digging them out, he knew they were there, and was concerned when he found them frozen in. I suspect that he went by for a sniff each "walk", before going to do his business, but since all was OK, you did not notice the pause. Finding them frozen in, he dug them out, not realizing that the crust of ice did not impede air, but provided insulation. Mama would have dug in, and snuggled down, warmed them, fed them, and covered them again.

Is your dog female? They are more tolerant of edible animal infants than males, but many males react as your dog did.

My brother in law had a pet rabbit for many years, great pet.
 
Baby bunnies make a terrible sound if you get too close to them with the weedeater.
 
Alright, was going to put them back in the nest in hopes that mom would come around but rain, freezing rain, etc kept filling the nest with water. Didn't want them to drown.

Found there is a local rabbit rescue about 5 miles from me and I called them and learned quite a bit.
She said Don't feed them anything. Their stomachs have a very specific pH before around the time they open their eyes and we could cause more harm than good.
She said normally she would have us put them in the nest so mom could come as well but given the weather she would not.

I drove them over to her place and I swear this was a cat lady except rabbits. Probably 20 HUGE rabbits flopping all around her living room.

She said these 3 looked a little malnourished but otherwise healthy. She is going to get them healthy and release them on a farm north of here along with a hundred others that got rescued over the last week.

My daughter was very happy to learn that rabbits don't like live as a family. Mom feeds them for about 3 weeks then they all go their separate ways.
She was very concerned that this mom rabbit was going to live out the rest of her days missing her kids. I suspect she will be pregnant again in a couple weeks.
 
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