BUNNIES

Completly amazing, I have been watching our oldest female bunny for the last week or so as she has worked on this burrow in the ground. You see our rabbits are in a large dog kennel, they have freedom to go in the shed attached for shelter or to be in a large running area. Well Charmin (girl rabbit) has been getting larger and larger for the last 28 days. I have watched her dig large holes and then fill them back in. She always seems to come back to one hole she really likes, it goes under the fence and under a tree. I think the tree protects her from having the ground come down on her. I couldn't figure out why she kept filling the hole back in and then would dig it out again. So tonight when I went out to spend some time with them I noticed Charmin was very thin. Yep she had her babies. But where on Earth did she put them. I looked everywhere and her burrow opening was closed. I got worried thinking she burried her babies and was going to kill them with lack of air. I ran inside and googled baby bunnies and burrows. Sure enough, mamma bunnies bury there babies and once a day they go to the hole dig out the top run in and feed the babies briefly. When Jeremy got off the phone I had him come out with me to make sure he thought she had her babies too just in case I was feeling wrong. Well when we got out there sure enough her burrow was open and she was inside feeding them. We tried to get the flash light in there to see them but she is so smart her burrow goes down and then up. All we could catch a glimpse of was her nose sticking out at us. We also found one baby pushed out of the nest that didn't make it. Jeremy buried it immidiatly. I guess it just goes to show all animals including no how to birth on there own and if you just trust your instincts you will know what to do. What I mean by this is a domestic rabbit who was born in a petting zoo knew how to make that burrow so the other rabbits couldn't get to her babies. We have 4 rabbits 3 are boys which kill little babies. The dad, is so wonderful, we put the other two boys in a seperate cage so they couldn't get to them, the dad sits next to the opening and will not leave it. He keeps watch for anything bad. Jeremy even tried to cox him to the other side of the cage with food and he would not leave her side. They say the male is very attached to the female and if you seperate the two when the female has her babies they can suffer a type of depression. If you must seperate them you should only put a wire fence inbetween them so they can still lay by each other. The father will also watch the babies if the mother is gone and will not hurt them. I will try to snap pic's as soon as I can. We need to decide if we should dig the bunnies out and put them in cage with her or keep her and the bunnies in the habitat they love. My worries are there is some woodsy animals that would love to chomp those bunnies up, and once they start walking and we don't catch it immediatly they could squeeze right through the fence. Our Julius is about 2-3 months old and she can still squeeze out of the fence, that is why she has to be in a cage still. Jeremy and I were out there the other night and some big animal like a bagger came right up to the kennel sniffing. Jeremy looked behind him and scared him away but he looked hungry and he didn't even care Jeremy and I were sitting there. This was about 10pm at night. Also all our neighbors have dogs that run loose. Exspecially one neighbor whose dog is always in our yard. Our other neighbors have an outside cat that puts Garfield to shame by his size. Oh what to do. Please let me know you opionions. I really don't want to pull her from her natural habitat but I don't want to loose another bunny. Plus my children would love to see the bunnies grow. It would so wonderful for them to experience life.