wildliferehabber.com - Bunny Brochure - this article submitted by Mary Anna Babcock
http://wildliferehabber.com/modules/wildlifesection/item.php?itemid=14
"Cottontails are not physically able to move their young either with their mouths or with their feet so if an occupied nest is suddenly empty it has most likely be predated. Mom rabbits cannot find a nest of bunnies that has been moved although some success has been realized by moving the nest no more than a few feet each day until the nest is out of danger."
^ From the Bunny Brochure article on wildliferehabber.com
TF input: - Cottontails have been kept by concerned humans and lived up to the age of 5 to 9 years; such as when a field injury will sever a leg and the cottontail is now impaired. Special permits are obtained. It is not impossible for cottontails to thrive in appropriate captivity settings. Two acquaintances and one super knowledgeable friend have kept cottontails in their homes before the laws were widely publicized. --
-- When rehabbing juveys we noted on a rare occasion that one would dash against the side of the hutch while preparing for a release (a soft release is when they are housed in protective wire units outdoors on hay and supplemented with weeds and greens' feedings
to acclimate to nature sounds). We would give small bits of apples to our patients. Nothing like kale or stuff they wouldn't naturally find without going to a grocery store.
Most tend to hunker down in the brushy environment inside a rehabilitator's long enclosure. For the one juvey who did slam himself into the wooden hutch wall, s/he's risking fracture. This is not the case for every rabbit being contained in rehab mode. We released at 4-5 weeks or larger, to give the e/c's a higher chance of survival due to sizing.
Obviously it is not the right thing to do to keep a wild animal as a domestic or captive creature. Yes, yes, cottontail rehabbers get overwhelmed with calls to accept infants and juveys from an official wildlife center, as I did years ago. So let mom do the best she can to teach her young, and natural instincts prevail. Cottontails focus on eye contact, and dart to safety when eye contact is averted. Smart thinkers!
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FWIW, a domestic rabbit parent has seen a cottontail carrying an object in her mouth and she perceived the object to be a baby bun.
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If you see a cottontail sitting out in the open (where he/she shouldn't be without freezing, fleeing at motion) there is a chance that cottontail is sick. And he/she chooses to "die" by making himself available to overhead predators. Such as the case of poisoning from eating a toxic substance. Plenty of roundworm (from raccoon feces), e.cuniculi, mites, fleas, flystrike, and ticks for outdoor critters.
