It Was A Sad Day

 I hear the common thread throughout the rabbit groups I belong to about not realizing a rabbit is pregnant until you see babies. I am now one of those people! And I don’t understand. My boys and girls are all in separate coops and only mingle when I am right there watching. But obviously I missed something because on Thursday there were 5 babies in a nest. 

So now things get hard. One was cold and dead. But I have read that a bunny is not really dead until it is warm and dead. So I brought it inside and worked for two hours to warm and revive it but with no success.

Then morning came and I went out to find one more dead in the middle of the coop and two babies in the nest. Wait...what? There should be three more babies. I scooped up the two and began rooting around to find the third. There was no other bunny anywhere to be found.

Now comes the graphic part...stop reading here if you need to...as I went to put the two babies back down I noticed one had a missing ear and both were scratched and bruised. 

I had read before that some moms, especially first time moms, will eat their babies (mystery of missing third baby solved). That meant out of five babies, only two had survived the first 12 hours, and I didn’t have any expectations that if I left them with mom she would suddenly start caring for them. So inside they came. Zoe and I set them up with a heating pad under a milk crate filled with blankets locked in the dog crate to keep them safe and sound from the dog and cats. 

We had formula and bottle fed them for three days. Unfortunately, Sunday evening they both died. 

I understand that life and death on a farm are always close to the surface, but it doesn’t make this loss any easier .