Baby Bunnies

The big news around here is that Lily finally had a surviving litter of babies, and they are pretty much the cutest things ever, especially now that they have fur and their eyes are open.  (They resembled naked mole rats at first).  While the photo is not the best (they are looking a little demonic with the glowing red eyes) I assure you that in real life they are unbelievably cute and it's all I can do to keep myself from picking them up and snuggling them every day.

So, the story about the rabbits is that they were given to us.  We originally got two females and a male, Lily, Magnolia and Peter.  I honestly don't know anything about rabbits at all.  I really need to buy a book about it or something.  Our neighbor has a really nice rabbit set-up in his backyard, where all the waste from the rabbits goes into an earthworm bin.  Occasionally when I catch him walking by in the afternoons I can ask him questions about it.

Lily has had four litters before this that didn't survive, and a lot of that had to do with the nest box we were given.  It was just a square of wood, with no bottom.  It might have been totally great for in town, which is where they came from, but it just didn't work out in the wilderness of Fox Grape Farm.

The first time, I messed things up because our neighbor told us we should pick up the babies so they'll be used to being handled.  That  freaked Lily out and she stopped taking care of the babies.  The next litter she over night ate all of the straw I had put in for her to make a nest with and had the babies on the wire floor, and they died.  The third litter I put cardboard down on the bottom, then some straw, and she ate the straw and the cardboard and had the babies on the wire and they died.  The fourth litter (and I was feeling pretty awful about the whole thing by this time) I put extra layers of cardboard down, and straw, and she made a nest in it, had the babies and they got eaten by ants.

I was in despair after this, so I left her alone for awhile.  I finally realized it was time to spring for a new nest box, so I did, and it's made such a big difference.  This time, right around when she was due I bought some bag balm and smeared it on every possible place that ants could get into the cage.  And so, a year and a half after getting rabbits, we have our first surviving litter!