About a week ago, i found 2 wild cottontail baby rabbits while I was mowing. I know you're supposed to leave them alone, but by the time I learned that, I had already touched them and their nest was destroyed by my mower. I read online that if you touch them AND destroy the nest, the mother won't take care of them, They were relatively healthy when I took them home, and I fed and watered them regularly. If I had to guess, I'd say they were probably around 3-4 weeks old, maybe older. One of them was really timid and didn't move much, it would let people hold it in their hands and it never protested. The other one constantly avoided anybody and wouldn't let anybody hold it. The timid one was a boy, I believe, and the other was a girl (as far as I could tell). They were perfectly fine for a week, and suddenly, last night, I found the timid, male one, dead. It couldn't have been starvation because I had just fed them that morning, and it wasn't overfeeding because he was fine several hours afterward. It was only about 7 hours later that it died. It was laid out on its side, in the middle of the basket (I kept them in a basket because I didn't have a cage), with its eyes open. Could it have been disease that killed it? I also read that it's somewhat easy for rabbits to accidentally snap their necks when they jump around, but he didn't move a lot so I'm not sure if that was what killed him. I don't think the other bunny did it because they got along fine before, and I think they were brother and sister. I'm releasing the other one tomorrow but I want to make sure it survives until then. Does anybody know what could have killed the bunny, and how I can prevent the other one from dying?
Responses (2)
I had an experience like this before. When I came back from a 4-H meet up my dad had found a nest of baby rabbits while he was mowing, and as a far we could tell there was three. "Sam" was semi-conscious so so I picked him up easily, we took and hour to find "Toriel", and she jad fighting spirit. The third kit was killed, and I didn't want to risk my brother's cat killing them so I took them inside. I feed this milk and then again before bed. Their mom was hit by my bus. We weaned them from milk, to water, and grass. A week before we released Toriel, she died in her sleep, and she was smaller, and I knew that that the runts just don't survive. Sam, however, we realeased. If you find any other babies give them a mix of milk and water, leave pieces of grass in their container, and give them hay so they are warm.