Here’s the ‘and a bunny!’ Kind of a long one but here’s the full story of why we had a wild bunny in our care at all cause we normally would not keep one- even overnight!
So, we have deep window wells and live semi-rurally; big field behind the house etc. There are a LOT of rabbits, which I always love. Each year one or two littles will find their way into a window well before they can quite jump out. We usually get to enjoy them for a minute before releasing them- a quick pet etc. Usually not a big deal,- we keep watch, and generally the mom can jump them out herself if need be anyway, except maybe one of the windows. But also, our car alerts us immediately from inside the house if we don’t see it first! When it happens we will set them over in the thick cover beside the porch but somewhat close to the original space so they can use either and mom can find them later. (I will add here that the reason we move them at all is due to some neighborhood cats. Most are gone now but they’re just trapped if one came along in that instance so we do remove them.)
Well, the day we found Slinky we had been scaring up baby buns all over. Literally. We are caring for the vacant house next door until newest owners close on it etc. and we have two lots ourselves- plus two other neighbors had been mowing that day. They were, quite literally, running all over the place!
So, my husband thought he saw a little one when he started w the weed eater in front of our place (away from where most usually are,) and then didn’t see anything. Til he fired it up again. This poor tiny thing took off like a shot- straight into the brick wall. Then fell into the window well. On top of a toad. Which croaked at the poor thing. (I swear I couldn’t even make this one up guys!! It’s so funny how it happened except kinda not of course- lol!)
Obviously this scared him even worse- by, like, a mile if that’s possible, and caused little Slinky to ping pong around in there a few good times- which means running head first at Mach 10 into glass and metal sides and so after all this, my hubby finally catches him. He’s to the point of hysteria and verging on bunny heart attack (we used to keep rabbits as pets also) and knew instinctively he HAD to get calm. (We did, after a few minutes.)
Well, then we realize he’s all bloody on his face too- he had busted his nose and also cut his lip, and was generally dazed, with a fairly sore patch on his nose/forehead. As dark was coming up on us at this point we didn’t want to let this TINY bloody bunny run loose hysterically. (One who also has a white patch on his forehead, and a dark patch closer to his nose- the white kinda ruins it for him sometimes!.) That’s just asking for a disaster tho. So we used the tote our chickens had just used with a towel and set him out and watched for mom.
Mom never showed that night, or the next, and we tried from 8pm-7am the first night, and 7:30pm- midnight or so, and again from say 3:30-7:30 the next. So anyway, no luck w mom, for whatever reason, but thankfully he was (BARELY) old enough to eat regular bunny food- and I discovered he is a blackberry devourer! Lol- he had lots of fresh greens along with some berries and my homegrown strawberries and leaves- he ate like a king and would cuddle in my robe for an hour or so each day, and let us let him from time to time. We were as respectful of his moods as we could be, if he acted freaked out or something we just let him be, that kind of thing. It was so hard tho cause he’s so dang cute!!. After the third night he finally was back to acting like a little wild bun should, and so we released him down and away from the house around 6:30 in the eve so he had some time to find a good spot- or mom!
He was SOOO tiny when he was with us guys. We are talking this may have even been his first day away from mom or got scared away, idk, but he wasn’t long from having been on moms milk which would’ve made it oh so much more complicated. Our final assessment was he did actually give himself a little bunny-cussion that took him a couple days to heal from. Our combined experiences mean that’s a very educated guess tho not professional obvs!
Guess what? He now has decided he likes us best after all and lives under the porch!
I was so thrilled to spot him dancing on my porch a few days ago, during the daylight too, silly thing. He got the name Slinky bc he would let us slide our hands under him but it always wound up half and half, front to back, and he would let us move him out and back raise and lower either half, just like a Slinky.
He was a sweetie tho.
K here we go with the bun pics too- I’ll share my favorites, thankfully we only had him those 3 days or so or there would be too many to share!! (We let him out in the bathroom a couple times to change the bottom to aspen chips and to let him explore a bit so he knew more of where he was. Little darling loved to hide in the clothes, that’s him sitting at my sons knee in the one pic. Look at those itty bitty paws! Oh my
!)
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