I was mowing the yard this evening and noticed something a little out of the ordinary. Something moving through the grass. I took a closer look and realized that I had come within about three inches of running right over a nest of baby rabbits. I had moved a plastic Fisher Price type slide that my daughters have in the backyard to mow underneath it and noticed this.
I tried to grab the little feller to put him back in the nest but he actually hopped away and got under the fence before I could grab him. There were at least two more in the nest and they appeared to be unharmed.
I covered the nest back up with the plastic slide, as it was, and mowed around this spot in the yard. I just mowed this same spot on Friday afternoon, just 3 days ago, so the babies can't be more than 3 days old. I've read that if a nest is uncovered, to try to get the babies back in the nest and covered up because the mother will still come back to feed them with the human scent on the nest. The mother only comes to the nest two or three times a day, once usually right after dark, to feed. Hopefully she will manage to get the one that got away coaxed back into the nest.
I tried to grab the little feller to put him back in the nest but he actually hopped away and got under the fence before I could grab him. There were at least two more in the nest and they appeared to be unharmed.
I covered the nest back up with the plastic slide, as it was, and mowed around this spot in the yard. I just mowed this same spot on Friday afternoon, just 3 days ago, so the babies can't be more than 3 days old. I've read that if a nest is uncovered, to try to get the babies back in the nest and covered up because the mother will still come back to feed them with the human scent on the nest. The mother only comes to the nest two or three times a day, once usually right after dark, to feed. Hopefully she will manage to get the one that got away coaxed back into the nest.
3 comments:
Once, while a youngster back in Florida we had a domestic female rabbit (large white with black spots) I was about 11 years old at the time.
We built an outside enclosure in the back yard for her and she dug under the fence and escaped.
We would still see her as she lived in the backyard and would come and graze and eat the pelleted food which we kept out for her.
My mother told me that a wild (Swamp Rabbit) would occasionally come to visit our domestic female. "We lived way out in the swamp in rural Orlando"
Then one day Mama said that our girl had dug a hole in the yard and would come to visit the hole about 4 times daily.
Mama asked me about a week later to look in the hole, I went out and pulled up the circular door flap of earth but the hole was too deep to see anything. I then ran my arm down the hole (very slowly, did not want to grab a moccasin) and low and behold, warm furry critters met my touch at about the elbow length of my arm.
I pulled out 11 fully weaned baby rabbits all but 3 were colored a wild grey and those three were black and white.
The neighborhood kids all got one as well as us!
That memory still is as vivid today as if it had happened yesterday!
Nature is a wonderful thing ain't it. I saw a beautiful rabbit the other day hopping across the road. I slowed down enough so as not to scare the little critter.
So so cute! At my husband's fire station, they have rabbits that visit them often - the guys at the fire station feed them their leftover salad. So there are frequent flyer rabbits.
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