Being an adoptive mom to a tamed cottontail has been one long emotional roller coaster of a journey; in fact, Squirrel's story begins a bit before she was even born!
Once upon a time, around the year 2006, I came home from school to find a peculiar message on the answering machine. Some lady had heard that I raised/bred rabbits, and had a little Holland Lop doe that wasn't getting enough attention from her kids. The poor little thing spent most of her time locked in a dark, cold basement. The timing was impeccable; one of my other Dutch does Chip had to be separated from her mother and two sisters, since they weren't getting along as well as they once had. Chip had been alone in her section of my "bunny palace" ever since, and I had been feeling bad about that.
We immediately made the trip to the nearby city and brought Persnickety home! The picture below (on the left) is one of the first I ever took of her, right after unloading her from the car. (Yes, the first order of business was ditching those nasty cedar shavings.) I gave her a few days to settle down before introducing her to Chip, and her new home in the bunny palace. They fought almost violently for a couple days, and I had to check on them almost every hour to make sure they hadn't seriously hurt one another. Then, the next day, I found them flopped side by side, lovingly grooming each other. The unlikely couple were inseparable from that day forward.
Once upon a time, around the year 2006, I came home from school to find a peculiar message on the answering machine. Some lady had heard that I raised/bred rabbits, and had a little Holland Lop doe that wasn't getting enough attention from her kids. The poor little thing spent most of her time locked in a dark, cold basement. The timing was impeccable; one of my other Dutch does Chip had to be separated from her mother and two sisters, since they weren't getting along as well as they once had. Chip had been alone in her section of my "bunny palace" ever since, and I had been feeling bad about that.
We immediately made the trip to the nearby city and brought Persnickety home! The picture below (on the left) is one of the first I ever took of her, right after unloading her from the car. (Yes, the first order of business was ditching those nasty cedar shavings.) I gave her a few days to settle down before introducing her to Chip, and her new home in the bunny palace. They fought almost violently for a couple days, and I had to check on them almost every hour to make sure they hadn't seriously hurt one another. Then, the next day, I found them flopped side by side, lovingly grooming each other. The unlikely couple were inseparable from that day forward.
Although Persnickety and Chip clicked rather quickly, the neglect that Persnickety experienced for an unknown length of time left her with a distrust for humans that was impossible for me to help her overcome easily. I empathized with her situation, though, and never judged her when she went running with a thump of a hind foot when I'd try to pet her.
Unfortunately, that tendency to be skittish was her fatal flaw. Because I rarely got a chance to pet her, I never realized she had lost a significant amount of weight under all that fluff until it was too late. One day in 2008, a bit too weak to run away, I ran a hand over her body and found her to be practically skin and bones. I rushed her to the nearest exotic vet, who ended up being a complete quack who claimed I only needed to give her more hay (which she had constant access to, but refused to eat). A second opinion from our trusted cat/dog vet yielded a guess of cancer or liver failure, neither of which was that treatable in er situation.
I regretfully separated her from Chip by bringing her indoors where I could watch over her and tend to her around the clock, always making sure she was comfortable. I continually watched her for any signs of pain or an indication that I should take her in to be put to sleep, which she never showed. My little Persnickety was still full of vigor and spunkiness that led to her being quite a fighter, hanging on longer than I ever thought possible.
Her last days with me made up for the years of skittishness. Her cage door was always open. She followed me around the house for treats and sunbathed in the sunshine every morning alongside my cats to keep warm. I took her outside for walks every day that the ground was dry, letting her roam without a halter. I'd wake up every morning to find her sitting outside my door, waiting for me.
She died while I was out shopping with my mom; ironically, right after we stopped in the pet store and found a shirt for a small dog on clearance with a cheesy graphic that read "some bunny loves me". It was the perfect size, and I thought it was a good way to keep her warm with her lack of body fat. I buried her in it that night.
When you're 14 years old, that sort of thing rips your heart out a little. I felt an empty void in the house without my little floppy-eared lady to care for...so just a few days later, I started looking for a bun to fill that hole, with one stipulation: it had to be a rabbit in need. I started checking humane societies for one that was tough to adopt out, but none really tugged at my heartstrings or needed special care.
Well, it seems the universe itself heard my offer. Only 8 days after Persnickety died, I was outside tending to my Dutches in the bunny palace when I saw my neighbor crossing over to my backyard, two hands cupped as if she were holding something tiny.
She opened her hands just enough to let me see what she was holding: a very tiny wild cottontail! "I found it last night; I think our dog might have bitten it. It just won't move...can you help it?"
Oh no, I thought. Not a baby cottontail. Living in an area swarming with these little guys, and with a house built right next to over a hundred acres of untamed woods, I was very familiar with the challenges involved in raising one of them. I'd researched what to do in case I found one many times, just to be prepared.
I thanked her for saving the little guy, and took him into my hands, reassuring her that I'd handle the situation. I placed the baby bunny right at the edge of the field, where I saw its kind come and go all day. I waited for it to come to its senses and dart into the safe cover of the weeds.
It just wouldn't budge, standing stock still for over two hours, even after I left to see if I was scaring it too much to move. The sun was descending rapidly, and I started worrying that a predator would take advantage of the opportunity for an easy snack. The little bunny clearly had no intention of going home that night, so I had no choice but to bring her inside.
Unfortunately, that tendency to be skittish was her fatal flaw. Because I rarely got a chance to pet her, I never realized she had lost a significant amount of weight under all that fluff until it was too late. One day in 2008, a bit too weak to run away, I ran a hand over her body and found her to be practically skin and bones. I rushed her to the nearest exotic vet, who ended up being a complete quack who claimed I only needed to give her more hay (which she had constant access to, but refused to eat). A second opinion from our trusted cat/dog vet yielded a guess of cancer or liver failure, neither of which was that treatable in er situation.
I regretfully separated her from Chip by bringing her indoors where I could watch over her and tend to her around the clock, always making sure she was comfortable. I continually watched her for any signs of pain or an indication that I should take her in to be put to sleep, which she never showed. My little Persnickety was still full of vigor and spunkiness that led to her being quite a fighter, hanging on longer than I ever thought possible.
Her last days with me made up for the years of skittishness. Her cage door was always open. She followed me around the house for treats and sunbathed in the sunshine every morning alongside my cats to keep warm. I took her outside for walks every day that the ground was dry, letting her roam without a halter. I'd wake up every morning to find her sitting outside my door, waiting for me.
She died while I was out shopping with my mom; ironically, right after we stopped in the pet store and found a shirt for a small dog on clearance with a cheesy graphic that read "some bunny loves me". It was the perfect size, and I thought it was a good way to keep her warm with her lack of body fat. I buried her in it that night.
When you're 14 years old, that sort of thing rips your heart out a little. I felt an empty void in the house without my little floppy-eared lady to care for...so just a few days later, I started looking for a bun to fill that hole, with one stipulation: it had to be a rabbit in need. I started checking humane societies for one that was tough to adopt out, but none really tugged at my heartstrings or needed special care.
Well, it seems the universe itself heard my offer. Only 8 days after Persnickety died, I was outside tending to my Dutches in the bunny palace when I saw my neighbor crossing over to my backyard, two hands cupped as if she were holding something tiny.
She opened her hands just enough to let me see what she was holding: a very tiny wild cottontail! "I found it last night; I think our dog might have bitten it. It just won't move...can you help it?"
Oh no, I thought. Not a baby cottontail. Living in an area swarming with these little guys, and with a house built right next to over a hundred acres of untamed woods, I was very familiar with the challenges involved in raising one of them. I'd researched what to do in case I found one many times, just to be prepared.
I thanked her for saving the little guy, and took him into my hands, reassuring her that I'd handle the situation. I placed the baby bunny right at the edge of the field, where I saw its kind come and go all day. I waited for it to come to its senses and dart into the safe cover of the weeds.
It just wouldn't budge, standing stock still for over two hours, even after I left to see if I was scaring it too much to move. The sun was descending rapidly, and I started worrying that a predator would take advantage of the opportunity for an easy snack. The little bunny clearly had no intention of going home that night, so I had no choice but to bring her inside.
I called my mom and let her know what had happened, and asked her to pick up some kitten milk replacer on her way home, since the little bun seemed to be about 1 1/2 weeks old and wasn't quite ready to have a solely solid diet. My history of rabbit breeding helped to determine her age; it appeared that she had just recently opened her eyes for the first time. She was also lacking that typical "baby pudge" of well-nourished kits and had a small wound on her flank that was likely from the neighbor's dog.
I knew what I was getting myself into; although my prayers had been answered, the survival rate for cottontail babies in their natural, well-supporting environment is already roughly 10-15% (hence the phrase "breeding like rabbits"...the population has to make up for that somehow). I didn't expect the baby to survive long to be suitable enough for release, but I thought it was worth a shot.
Luckily for me, cottontail moms spend the majority of the time away from the nest foraging for themselves, so just 2 or 3 feedings per day was enough to keep the little one satisfied. Feeding time is notoriously difficult with cottontails, as milk has to be delivered drop by drop with a syringe to avoid overfilling the baby's mouth and causing them to aspirate and die. Just one small slip of finger could be the difference between life and death.
Once she had a few meals in her belly, I reached out to every wildlife rehabilitator within a reasonable distance...and got only silence in return. I could only assume that this is due to their slim chance of survival in a rehabber's care, and the overpopulation of cottontails that was already a bit of an issue in the area. Pretty soon, I gave up on turning her over to someone more experienced, and became a full-time cottontail mom.
With their reputation of being so fragile, I definitely wasn't expecting this little dude to be such a trooper, with a strength similar to Persnickety's. Nevertheless, Squirt (as I half-seriously dubbed her just so I had a name to call her by) grew stronger, larger, and more energetic every day. After a couple weeks, I began switching her over to solid foods, making her "salads" of fresh fruits, vegetables, greens, and grass every day. I introduced her to small amounts of pellets before long.
Now that I had a self-sufficient cottontail, it was time to consider releasing her...but I had a problem. Despite being raised with every intention to send her back into the woods that had given her to me, she had still become far too friendly, even approaching the household cats and trying to play with them. My only attempt at releasing her ended with her sticking very close to me and stopping to wash her face while I tried to grab her (imagine what would happen if I were a predator!). That sealed the deal: Squirt was getting a permanent spot in the house, filling the void in Persnickety's old cage.
I knew what I was getting myself into; although my prayers had been answered, the survival rate for cottontail babies in their natural, well-supporting environment is already roughly 10-15% (hence the phrase "breeding like rabbits"...the population has to make up for that somehow). I didn't expect the baby to survive long to be suitable enough for release, but I thought it was worth a shot.
Luckily for me, cottontail moms spend the majority of the time away from the nest foraging for themselves, so just 2 or 3 feedings per day was enough to keep the little one satisfied. Feeding time is notoriously difficult with cottontails, as milk has to be delivered drop by drop with a syringe to avoid overfilling the baby's mouth and causing them to aspirate and die. Just one small slip of finger could be the difference between life and death.
Once she had a few meals in her belly, I reached out to every wildlife rehabilitator within a reasonable distance...and got only silence in return. I could only assume that this is due to their slim chance of survival in a rehabber's care, and the overpopulation of cottontails that was already a bit of an issue in the area. Pretty soon, I gave up on turning her over to someone more experienced, and became a full-time cottontail mom.
With their reputation of being so fragile, I definitely wasn't expecting this little dude to be such a trooper, with a strength similar to Persnickety's. Nevertheless, Squirt (as I half-seriously dubbed her just so I had a name to call her by) grew stronger, larger, and more energetic every day. After a couple weeks, I began switching her over to solid foods, making her "salads" of fresh fruits, vegetables, greens, and grass every day. I introduced her to small amounts of pellets before long.
Now that I had a self-sufficient cottontail, it was time to consider releasing her...but I had a problem. Despite being raised with every intention to send her back into the woods that had given her to me, she had still become far too friendly, even approaching the household cats and trying to play with them. My only attempt at releasing her ended with her sticking very close to me and stopping to wash her face while I tried to grab her (imagine what would happen if I were a predator!). That sealed the deal: Squirt was getting a permanent spot in the house, filling the void in Persnickety's old cage.