Mehreen Alberts
Rabbits hide their nests in plain view, often putting them in the open, sometimes in the middle of the lawn, as well as in brush piles and long grass 😊 If you find a nest that has been disturbed, do all you can to restore and protect it 😉 It is best to keep it out of reach. Do not allow your dog to find the nest. You can also move the nest to a safer distance if necessary, up to 6 feet. The nest must be wrapped in string and tied with a tic tac tee. This will ensure that the mother finds it and returns to her babies. She will scrabble away the surface area to feed her babies beneath her and then scrabble the earth, grass, leaves, back over the nest to hide it again so it’s pretty easy to see if the string has been disturbed and if the babies are warm. [1]
Mothers of rabbits nurse their baby babies approximately five minutes per day. Their babies spend their mornings in the nest, or nest box. They return in the evening. The milk is very rich and the babies “fill up” to capacity within minutes. Mother rabbits do not “sit” on the babies to keep them warm as do some mammals and birds. The babies are kept warm by their mother rabbits building a nest of fur and grasses between meals. You should not force the mother rabbit into sitting in her nest box. You can pick up the babies and see if they are feeding by checking the size of their stomachs (should not be sunken in), the pinkness of their skin and activity level (they should not be blue in colourr or sluggish in movement) and the amount of time that you hear them crying (baby bunnies should be quiet most of the day….if they are crying constantly then they are not getting fed). You can tell if they are comfortable and warm that their mother is feeding them. But again, this happens only in the middle or late hours of the night. Garnett Mayberry edited this article on September 23, 2020. [2]
It is important to determine the type of rabbit you are finding. Rabbitrunaway advises that you determine if the rabbit is a bush rabbit, baby hare or leveret, or domestic pet. As their nests, mothers, and babies, could be close by, bushbabies or leverets should not be disturbed. If you find these wild rabbits, try to make sure they are somewhere safe from harm, but it’s better not to move them. Put markers around the nest to check in the morning. You’ll know if the mother has come back to feed her babies or not. Lennis Muller (Montvideo, Uruguay) has highlighted this. [3]
The specialists at wagsandwhiskers.comYou should not assume the nest is abandoned if the mother doesn’t appear to be there. When you observe a nest and see the bunnies in their “Bunny Pile”, it is likely that they are being taken care of by their mother. The chances of them being abandoned increase if they’re are finding scattered around the nest. However, it is important to not disturb the nest in order to inspect the inside. Mothers who abandon their babies can be evicted from the nest if the nest has become cluttered. Agalactia, mastitis and hypothermia are other reasons for abandonment. Megan Allen (Enugu, Nigeria) modified the above text on February 23, 2021 [4]
