A Bunny Update

I've written about our resident bunny a few different times. She came to us a year ago this spring. Reggie, the ranch handyman, found her abandoned in an apartment complex and brought her to live at the ranch. We thought the rabbit was a he, but we've since had her sexed. She's a she, and I somehow like her better for it. She's proven herself to be quite an independent and resourceful young gal.

When she was younger and smaller.

In the sixteen months that she's been with us, she's changed quite a bit. She's gotten much larger, and she's grown bolder and also a bit more leery - which is a good thing. A few months ago, I found her three-legged lame. She hates to be picked up, and I every time I do it, our trust balance drops to nearly empty, but it just had to be done. I was so worried that she had suffered a fatal injury and was suffering.

I cautiously scooped her up - she kicked and clawed at me pretty ferociously, but after a moment she went still. I carefully felt all four legs as well as her body. There was no blood nor any other obvious wounds. Whatever had happened to her, a bum leg seemed to be the extent of her injuries. I gently put her back down knowing that she wasn't going to let me touch her again for a quite some time, if ever.

She loves pelleted feed!

It took a while, but she healed up nicely and eventually forgave me. It doesn't hurt that she's highly food motivated. She comes out to see me on most days, darting between my feet waiting for me to hand her a pile of pellets. Initially, I fed her Speedy's senior feed (no molasses), but since discarding that, she now gets his rice bran pellets. In the beginning, she lived under the pallets in the hay barn and seemed to prefer the alfalfa to anything else. Now, she has made a new home (video below) and seems to prefer the grasses and weeds that grow nearby. 

She's quite industrious. She has carved out an extensive system of tunnels all by herself. When she's not working, I've peeked down into her burrow and was surprised to discover that she has several tunnels. We've watched her both claw the dirt loose and use her teeth to loosen it. Then she either kicks it out with her feet, or more interestingly, she pushes it out with her chest.

A photo from yesterday.

We've seen her range quite far from her burrow which worries me to no end. Where she lives now, she has plenty of cover to protect her from predators, namely snakes, hawks, owls, and coyotes. When she wanders farther away, there's very little to protect her should a hawk spot her. In fact, sometimes we see her cooling her belly under one of the trucks. If we're sitting in our Equestrian Lounge, she'll pop over to see what we're doing, but she's extremely wary of strangers. She seems to understand that she's pretty vulnerable, but she does trust the ranch owner and myself, at least enough to beg goodies. 

I definitely have to watch where I am walking.

Wild rabbits, ​Lepus sylvaticus, typically live only one to two years while domestic rabbits, like Oryctolagus cuniculus, can live eight to fourteen years. (source - I know virtually nothing about rabbits.) Since our bunny doesn't live in a hutch, she probably won't survive as long as her breeding would suggest, but we think she's pretty happy none-the-less. If too many days go by without seeing her, I get really anxious and worry that she's been preyed upon, but then she reappears.

​She has quality shelter, access to plentiful food and water, and the larger predators don't tend to come too close to the barn. We hope she's with us for many more years.