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?

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May 01, 2018
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starstarstarstarstar 		Missing kit
by: Katen

One of my rabbits had a litter of what I thought was 2 babies and left them out in the open. One died and the other was adopted into another litter. Well yesterday I found a 3rd baby, very fat and healthy. I tried to put the siblings together but the foster mama took her foster baby out and was being very protective of her. I couldn't reach him to put in a safe place. This morning I can't find him at all. Is it possible she put him in an impromptu nest that I can't reach?
Jul 28, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar 		Cannibalism very unlikely
by: Bunnyluv

The chances that the doe ate her week-old kit are slim-to-none. Rabbits are vegetarian, so that would make them not even have the desire to eat meat. The only thing they do sometimes is eat the afterbirth that comes out with the baby ONLY right when it's born. They wouldn't eat the afterbirth later.
May 26, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar 		RE Missing bunny
by: Moderator

We're pretty sure the likely scenario is that the doe jumped out of the nest with two little cling-ons. Both of them likely crawled around looking to get back into the nest (does are notoriously useless with putting kits back - they don't have the instinct for it). Being blind and crawling, they simply fell through the wire and onto the ground, where your friend found one of them.

So...did your friend simply not see the black one, or had it crawled 25 feet and around the corner (they do that sometimes), or had a cat or raccoon gotten to it first?

Don't suppose you'll ever know, but given that the one kit was found alive leads us to strongly doubt the doe did harm to the other one.

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