Late last night the devil came in from her last chance pee with something in her mouth. I didn't notice the thing in her mouth until the devil put the thing down on the rug and made it scream it's little lagomorpha head off. The sight of something furry-ish screaming on my den rug made me scream, which made the devil back away, which made me jump off the couch and gather the previously screaming bundle of fetal lagomorpha up in a paper towel. It was unharmed.
To make a long story short, I had no idea what it was. It's a bunny. Matt named him Casey Kasem, because my kids love to imitate Casey Kasem. I sent him off to an animal rehabilitation center today. Then my doctor's secretary told me to look for a nest.
I found an empty nest. It looked like the devil had maybe dug it out. Then I found 5 other baby bunnies scattered on the lawn. The rehabilitation center told me to put Casey Kasem's siblings back in the nest and cover them with the grass and fur that that the mama bunny had collected. But not before I snapped this next shot.
My neighbor lent me some fencing that would keep the devil away and that the mama bunny could jump through. Then Matt read me something off of the web that said that Mama rabbits stay away from the nest so as not to attract predators and only spend 5 minutes a day at the nest. I took some string and draped it across the opening so I could tell if the mama took care of her babies. I was worried that she might reject them because two were kind of dog spit crunchy as if the devil had been licking them too. (I think she has a maternal instinct) but then, because I could not take my eyes off the back yard (don't ask what time I finally served dinner tonight!) I saw the mama rabbit circling the fencing and sure enough after about 15 minutes of gradually getting closer and closer the mama rabbit hopped into the nest and spent 5 minutes caring for her young before hopping away again.
I was so relieved. I feel kind of guilty for not knowing about the nest when I brought Casey Kasem to the rehab. I hope the mama bunny isn't too frantic wondering where her 6th baby is. Also, I hope Casey makes it. He was kind of small to be on his own.
We had a bunny nest in our front yard this year. About 3 feet from the road! We accidentally disturbed it and bunnies shot all over our yard and across the street. It took us an hour to round them back up but they wouldn't stay in the nest(they were about half-grown I think). I finally just got the kids to put them in our ground cover up near the house. Hopefully the feral cats didn't find them.
I think Casey has a good chance and so do the others. Sometimes being that close to a dog will cause the bunnies to have a heart failure and die on the spot. If the devil didn't scare them to death they must be strong!
Molly
Posted by: molly | June 17, 2010 at 09:44 AM
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, how beautiful they are!
Posted by: Pippa | June 18, 2010 at 12:52 AM