Missing week-old bunny

by Dana
(Elm Mott)

We were gone for the evening and asked our friends if they would please close up our chickens. When they walked by our rabbit hutches they noticed one of our week old kits on the wire cage floor. They reached in and put the kit back in with the litter. The next morning they told us what had happened. When I went out to check on the bunnies, I found only three of the four bunnies in the nest. I called and asked them what color the bunny was that they put back in the nest (all four babies where different colors) and they said brown. The black kit was missing.

I wondered two things. One was, did the doe eat the bunny for some reason? Do does eat week old young? And two, did she carry out attached nursing bunnies as she hopped out of the nest and one baby crawled out and drop to the ground through the larger wire openings in the side of the cage? Any insight on this happening?