Nurse maid

Update: The percentage of bunnies who survive being hand fed is very low. In keeping with that low percentage, we lost our two on Tuesday.

Ah, who would have thought? Well, we lost most of the bunny litter over the weekend. It was somewhat of a surprise because Momma Rabbit seemed to be doing the right things. She put lots of fur in the nesting box on Friday, and more on Saturday. But evidence suggests she also decided to use the box for a 'her business' too. In the course of that I think she injured a few. To top it off, she never started feeding them.

So we had lost two on Friday. By Sunday we had lost another four. Two others were in bad shape and two looked okay. We decided to hand feed these last four. The local feed store wasn't open. The recommended formula is cat milk replacement formula. Of course there is no store carrying this within 50 miles which is open on a Sunday. So we used people milk. We captured a couple drops at a time with a coffee-stirrer straw and fed the bunnies. After a while it seemed that only the two healthy one were taking the milk and getting better. So we did what had to do with the other two.

Now my trip this morning will be to the feed store to see if I can get "formula" for two bunnies who made it nicely through the night.

There is a move afoot in the house to say that since we are nursing the baby rabbits, they should be named and become pets (in fact names have already been picked I am told). I am fighting this revolution-we need no more pets around here. I can use delaying tactics successfully now because there is no guarantee we will be successful nursemaids to these two survivors.

For all my problems with chickens, those now seem a wild success versus our rabbit-raising problems. But this goes back to my post last weekend (here) where I talk about hobbies versus part of the daily fabric of your life.

Oh and by the way: I am way behind at acknowledging the comments received in the last week or so. Be assured I have read them and appreciate your taking the time. I will get to them sometime this week.