Monday, May 12, 2008

Four Bunnies are still alive!

And it looks like we have become their caregivers. My hubby sat at the dining room window for about an hour late last night, in the dark, watching for the mama bunny to return. She came. Found the umbrella and the lighted jar (our makeshift incubator) and took off. It appears that we have messed with the delicate balance of nature a little too much.

By this morning 3 of the 7 babies had died of exposure and dehydration. We brought the remaining 4 indoors and put them back in the glass aquarium, on top of a heating pad. While they warmed up I read up on what to feed baby bunnies. We started with warm pedialyte, which they all SCARFED down. It was obvious they were terribly hungry. It was so cute to watch their teeny tiny mouths working on that pedialyte!




Our plan at this point is to try and stabilize them for a couple more days and then take them to a bunny rehabilitator who is equipped to raise them until they can be released back into the wild.
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About this time last year we successfully rescued a baby possum that was found back by our shed. She was also pretty young, but her eyes were already open. We had her for a week. The children fell in love with her and named her Isabelle. We found a possum rehabilitator near us, and took Isabelle there to continue being raised until she was able to be released. We got to see many other possums of varying ages, and even a baby racoon. So I'm sure we can find a bunny rehaber too.
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In the meantime I hope we can figure out the special bunny formula that these bunnies are supposed to have, and I hope they thrive while in our care! The four older children have each adopted one to be "theirs", and are in the process of naming them. :-)
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That's the latest on our bunny adventure!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How exciting! Thanks for posting the pictures; I will show them to the boys. Is having 4 more babies terribly time consuming?!

Pam said...

Rosie,

Yes, bunny care basically took the place of school today. Love you and miss you!!

Anonymous said...

They are so tiny!
Blessings,
Laurie

Anonymous said...

wow, they are so tiny! I never would have thought to give them pedialyte. Very exciting day for your family.