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| Housing & Bonding |
| It took me awhile to figure out what I thought was best for my cottontails living arrangments. I went to great lengths to make them feel as UNconfined as I could. When I went to bed was the ONLY time they were in their cages. A bit of information on cages, it is not recommended to keep them in hardware cloth cages because if they become stressed and try to flee, they can hurt themselves seriously smashing up against the sides of that particular wire. I had a homemade cage from this, and lined the inside with the small animal pen fencing. Also, I dont recommend keeping them outdoors in a cage, being confined if they become frightened by a predator could be fatal, and they can get hurt by chicken wire if an outside hutch is made of this. I became a firm believer in NOT keeping them confined and giving them plenty of room to run. You see, if they live in captivity, they are not able to run and play and practice their skills of escaping and speed. They just cant do that in a cage. That is one of the reasons I keep mine past the age of a weaned bunny by its mother. Living with mom, they begin to wander about shortly after their eyes open, and they are practicing skills vital to their survival in their free enviroment. Some rehabbers think that baby cottontails can be released at 3-4 weeks since they are weaned at this age. If the babies have been raised since before their eyes are opened, they can also be susceptable to dying from the diarrhea after being released, the diarrhea not grabbing their life until 4-5 weeks old sometimes. But do they know or care, I'm not sure. Some rehabbers also believe in never touching the babies except to care for them, after all theyre wild animals and shouldnt be handled. I believe, and believe in what the rehabber who helped me believes in and writes in her article, that if rabbits can get so easily stressed by human contact, then why not hold them and interact with them so they DO NOT become stressed by contact with you?? They'll get use to you and accept you caring for them without being stressed, altho they still wont want to be held as they get bigger!! My babies have actually came running out of their nest to the sound of my voice, or running back out from under the couch when I called to them. This doesnt have much affect tho the bigger they get as well, the wildness starts to kick in and they let you know it!! So since they are captive while you are raising them, I recommend keeping them until they are about 7-8 weeks old. I regret letting my first babies go at 5 weeks old, but I was just beginning to learn. Its amazing how fast they grow in 2 months time. If youre not sure how old your babies are because their eyes were already open when you got them, at about 2 months old they will be slightly longer then the palm of your hand, they definitily will not just fit in the palm of your hand like a little bundle anymore. To see them sitting hunched, they will look to be about the size of a softball almost, some may be bigger or smaller depending. They may look small yet, but they are well ready to be free, having had extra time that they lacked from not being free, to practice their skills and speed. Trust me, you would see this for yourself. The times we would run back and forth up and down the steps trying to wrangle up the bunnies at bedtime!!! When they first opened their eyes and started to roam, I purchased a small animal pen and wrapped it around my lazyboy. There they could hide under the chair(no one got to sit in it!) and also have room in the front of the chair to play. By a few weeks old they were able to jump the pen, so by day, I would block off my steps and hallway and let the babies have the run of that area. Every night when it was time for bed, it meant picking up paper, sweeping up bunny poops that didnt make the paper, and rounding them all up to go to their cages for the night. The next morning I laid paper down and let them back out and went out to pick breakfast. When the night cages seemed to small for growing bunnies, I enclosed off under my dining room table to give them more room at night. I went to extremes to make them as comfortable as I could possibly think. Please remember, if you find a bunny thats NOT injured and is the size of a small orange or bigger, please leave it be, its own its on already. They are just self sufficient at a young age and incredibly little at that age, but growing rapidly. Size wise, they do not even come close to comparing in size of a domestic rabbit at the same age. My house bunnies at 6 weeks old were bigger then my wild rabbit Buddy Bear was at the time being 4 months old!!! |
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