I got home from work and let the dogs out. Shortly after I noticed one had caught and killed a baby rabbit. Sad, but I got it from her and disposed of the body. I did find a big fat tick on it though.
A few minutes later I caught Shadow nosing around in my vegetable bed which is unusual as she only goes in there when she smells something interesting, like organic fish or bone fertilizer. She was nosing at a hole dug into the side of one of the raised mounds next to one of my tomatoes. I saw something moving in the hole, so I pulled her away. A baby rabbit! It was mostly covered in dirt and was doing it’s best to pretend to be a rock, but every now and then it’d move.
The dogs are inside for now. What can I do for the baby rabbit? The dogs will need to go back outside at some point and if the rabbit isn’t moved by me or it’s mother, it’s going to get killed. I’ve seen plenty of rabbit scat in the yard, but they’ve learned to only come in the yard when we go to sleep or they’ll get chased out (and sometimes get caught.)
I do want it gone as I do not want to encourage ticks (or fleas) in the yard.
Thank you. After the panicked post, I looked up local wildlife rescue organizations and read up a bit. I’m going to try and restrain the dogs when we let them out. The hard part will be everyone remembering to put the on a leash at night or closely watching them. I’ve done this a couple of times already. Shadow smells something but has listened to me when I tell her to leave it. If she gets out without supervision, it all may be over.
Some animal mothers will quickly move their young, if the location becomes compromised… I did a Goog Search to see if Rabbits were known to do that… and found that below…
… Rabbits don’t carry their babies by picking them up in their mouths to move them from place to place or to keep them from crawling outside the nest.
…
Since that does not appear to be an option… it is sad but true that the most humane thing to do may be to just kill them. If you are not up to that, you may know someone who hunts regularly and I expect they would do that for you. If I were near you I would be glad to take care of that for you.
Good news, I think the momma rabbit came and moved her surviving kit! At least it was gone this morning and there were no signs that something bigger came and got it. To my knowledge coyotes have not visited my back yard (knock on wood!)
It was a bit of a pain to walk out with the dogs every time, but everyone was willing to do it to protect the baby.
Our local wildlife rescue had some information about our local rabbits. They will only visit their kits once or twice a day so as not to lead predators to them. They will also move them as needed.