Stahlke Adoption

Mother's Day

On Saturday, our dachsund Kentucky killed a bird. Or so we thought. I looked across the yard at him, and he spit out the animal and nosed it. My heart sank. Paul raced over to him, exclaimed "It's a rabbit!" and pulled the dog away.

It wasn't just one rabbit, but three. Very young ones, about two inches long with eyes still closed, and covered with beautiful black fur. And they were alive and unharmed! I guess Kentucky didn't quite know what to do with a baby animal that didn't run away.

I telephoned the local wildlife center that we use when we find injured animals. They advised me to find the nest and put the babies back in it. After some searching, we discovered that Kentucky had pulled the babies out of the nest right where we found them. Looking down the hole in the ground, it became apparent that this was a large litter of rabbits--eight in all!

The wildlife center instructed me to cover the nest with an upturned laundry basket, covered by a heavy stone. At dusk, I uncover the nest so the mother rabbit can nurse them at night. So far, she is taking care of them--they look ok when we've checked them once or twice.

The babies are very cute. Here's a photo taken right before we discovered the nest and placed them back into it:

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:29 AM