Our neighbor called us last night with worry in her voice. “I just found a baby bunny under my newspaper at the end of my driveway, and now he’s heading across the street!”
Seems we’re not the only yard facing a bunny invasion. My neighbor was weeding and accidentally upset (actually, destroyed) a bunny nest, sending the kits scattering. Now, a day later, one of the homeless bunnies was still homeless.
“Let’s add him to our nest!” I suggested. “It’s got to be better than facing certain death on our road!”
We collected the poor little guy from the middle of the street, and then on the way back to our yard found another homeless rabbit. This guy was tougher to catch, and when we finally got our hands on him he screamed “Yi! Yi! Yiiiiiiiiii!” His cries sounded so pathetic and terrified that our hearts broke a little.
Would our bunnies reject the new guys? With little ceremony we plopped them in the nest and watched them both nestle in as if they belonged there. Cool!
The big questions: would mom accept the foster-bunnies as well?
The next morning we checked on them and found that mom had indeed been back to the nest, and it looked like all five bunnies were still there. No bloody infanticide – hooray!
I checked on them almost hourly, and as the day progressed I noticed that one of the new addition bunnies had flown the coop, and another one wasn’t looking so hot. His adopted sibling were shunning him (the blood-sibs have red arrows, the step-sib has a blue arrow):
His breathing was shallow, and he wasn’t responsive to my gentle touch:
Soooo, maybe we made a mistake by blending the families. My thinking was that it’s better to perish with your own kind than alone in the middle of the street. Plus we figured that their real mom could find them if she wanted to, as they’re only one yard away (and with the way that screaming carried, a bunny in the next county could probably find him!)
As of my last visit to Bunnyville, two bunnies are sitting side-by-side about 6 inches away from the nest in the grass, and two are still in it. Hmmm. A house divided. Interesting …
