Baby Rabbits

Back around the 9th I posted that we had discovered there were kits in the burrow dug by a couple of the does. Someone said they thought the kits looked about 16 days old back then. These photos were taken on the 25th so I'm guessing the babies are around 4.5 weeks old in these photos. The does are definitely sharing a burrow and I think they're not too picky about whose babies they nurse. I know I saw one baby approach both does to nurse (but at the time, neither doe was particularly interested and they pushed it away).


I know for certain at one time we had seven babies running around. The most I've seen and been able to count recently is five at a time. They get through the fence, so it's possible we've lost a couple to predators. I'm planning to put hardware cloth along the bottom of the fencing as soon as I get time and the rain lets up. The babies are eating lots of solid food now. They eat pellets, dry leaves that fall from the trees, and grass. I think they sneak out of the fencing to get to the grass and other delectables.

Here's the daddy, a Californian buck, with a couple of the kits. The Moms are New Zealand White does.

If you look at the kit in front, you might notice he's blind in his left eye. We have two kits like that and we think it's because the does picked them up by their heads. It's just a guess, but it's all we can come up with. They seem to get around just fine, and their eyes were like that the first time I saw them, before they'd ventured out of their burrow.