How to ensure a baby rabbits survival.

[wasteofo2]

My mom found a baby rabbit in her garden just standing there, didn't try to escape her or anything. We searched around to see if we could find a mothers nest anywhere, and haven't seen rabbits around at all. So my mother and I have a bit of a decision to make. The rabbit is pretty small, about the length of my palm, but it's eyes are open, has all it's fur, can hop around and move fine, but seems to not have a clue what to do (hops into trees, doesn't know to avoid roads). We scattered some random vegetation around it's cage and it's been eating some, along with drinking water we put in a dish in there. My mom think we should keep it in a terrarium we used to have an iguana in for about 2 weeks until it gets bigger, then release it. I think that because it's so young, that having it in captivity for those 2 weeks would ill prepare it for living in the wild, and that it would get used to not having to do anything for itself, getting fed and having water delivered to it daily might make it lazy and appathetic. Also, it can move around in the terrarium, but the terrarium is only like 3 feet, so it can't get a huge amount of exercise, and wouldn't need to do much moving at all if food and water are given to it daily. So, I think after 2 weeks it might just be too attached to us (and us too attached to it) and that it might not want to go off into the woods, and might develop an attachment.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Anyone know in detail how wild animals that are held in captivity fair once re-released into the wild?

 

[Marijn]

Don't you haver a petting zoo near your home?

If not well there are some things you can do.
First check if it eats enough of the food.
Keep the terrarion out of the sun, you don't want to fry it,
If you have a garden, keep it in an exclosure there as much as possible, and don't pick it up and pet it as much as possible.
Once it starts to dig up your garden and eat that stuff (trust me that won't take to long), release it in an area with a lot of rabbits, he'll probably follow them.








Last option , keep feeding it plenty of lettuce and other stuff it likes, ti'll X-mas. :surprise:
By then i'll pm you how to skin it and some really nice ways to cook it.

 

[wasteofo2]

There aren't many rabbits around here, it was eating plenty of food and hopping around fine. We ended up releasing it into the woods, it hopped around a bit and soon I couldn't see it against the dead leaves, I think it will be safe.

 

[Evo]

There aren't many rabbits around here, it was eating plenty of food and hopping around fine. We ended up releasing it into the woods, it hopped around a bit and soon I couldn't see it against the dead leaves, I think it will be safe.

It will probably be fine, sounds like there is enough vegetation there for it. The mother might have been killed, if not, the baby might find her.

 

[Moonbear]

Since it was old enough to be out eating, it will probably be okay, but as a general rule, don't disturb rabbit pups when you find them! They only nurse once a day, so you won't see a mom around much, which leads many people to believe the pup has been abandoned and do more harm than good by disturbing it and taking it from its nest.

 

[wasteofo2]

I actually did some research and found out that rabbits only stay with their mother for 3 weeks, and it looked like it was at least 21 days old to me.