AWWW!!!

We were playing in the back yard yesterday when we saw something furry laying on the ground. Thinking the dog had gotten an animal, I put the dog inside and made myself scarce while my husband investigated – I’m sensitive about animals, and if the dog had killed a furry little creature in the back yard, I wanted to pretend like it didn’t happen. So I come back outside a few minutes later, and my husband is still kneeling over the fur, saying he hasn’t figured out what it is yet. What? Clearly the fur was not moving; why couldn’t he figure out what it was? I fetched him a stick, and when he poked it, he found that it was just fur. And underneath the fur was a hole containing teeny tiny baby bunnies – live ones! They are incredibly cute, and they even hop! After some investigation on the internet, we found that the best thing to do is to leave them alone and that their mother didn’t abandon them. Baby bunnies only get nursed for 5 minutes per day, and if the mother were to stay near the nest, she would alert predators to the babies. I couldn’t resist pushing aside the fur to take a picture. It’s very inconspicuous yet also in the middle of the open yard. I sure hope nothing happens to those babies. The first one is of the nest, then you move the fur, and the second picture is of a little head, note the white blaze on the top of the head. The third picture is a baby bunny face with eyes closed, see if you can find it in the middle of the fur:

I’m too afraid of hurting them to examine them closely enough to count them or take better pictures, but aren’t they cute! From what I read, they will venture out of the nest at around 3 weeks old, and they will leave it altogether at 6-8 weeks. Judging by the size of our babies and the fact that we didn’t see the nest before yesterday, I’d say ours are probably only days old; perhaps they were even only hours old when we found them yesterday! I am so glad we have a fenced yard now to keep the neighborhood cats out – we have a few, and I’ve been feeding one of them. I feed her at the front of the house though, so I wonder if continuing to feed the cat will encourage her to come over here or if it will distract her and keep her in the front of the house, away from the baby bunnies?

I’m excited to watch them grow – they already look bigger than they did yesterday! Maybe I’ll post their progress on my blog – stay tuned!