Kitty, you're doing really well with the baby bunny, but there are a couple of things you may not know. I wouldn't myself except that I am hanging out in the HT rabbit forum, and there are posts there from time to time about raising orphaned baby rabbits.

Are his eyes open yet? They usually open at about 10 - 14 days. If you can get him to that point there is a better chance he will make it. Mother rabbits normally feed their babies only once or twice in twenty-four hours. Their milk is incredibly rich and the babies grow fast on it.

During or just after feeding, the momma rabbit licks the baby to stimulate it to pee and poop. The baby is often not mature enough to do this spontaneously and can actually rupture its bladder and die. Take a cotton puff or a soft bit of cloth, moisten it with warm water and stroke the baby's abdomen right back to the tail to encourage him to eliminate. It may take a bit of practice to make it work.

I am going to post a link to an excellent thread on that forum so that you can read how one woman raised baby rabbits when the mother died unexpectedly. Actually the link leads to a thread, within which is a link to another thread. Please read both... I think you will find them helpful and interesting.

By the way, cottontail rabbits often do not make good pets because they are very nervous. Once they can eat solid food, they leave the nest and are independent. If your bunny doesn't take to domestic life, consider releasing him when he is about a month old at the edge of a wooded area next to a field. If there are thick tangles of raspberry bushes or the like, so much the better. With lots of cover, he will have a better chance of survival. At this point he will not need his mother or siblings, so don't feel you are leaving him lonely. Rabbits are rather solitary and there will be other rabbits around there anyway.

Good luck with Roger... I hope he does well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Handraising baby rabbits

I'll try the moist cotton swab, because we aren't getting much action on that end!

Also he's been pretty hungry, I won't worry about not getting him fed on a 2 hour schedule anymore.

Thanks for the input and the link!

The baby rabbit gave up the ghost yesterday. I wasn't able to get him to do his business the day before. Too bad, he was so cute! Everyone I have talked to says it is very very hard to get wild rabbits to survive before their eyes are open.

I will concentrate on the 4 chicks and the 4 ducklings. Got a little pen for these youngsters with a shelter. I bring them in at night so the preditors can't get them. These is the second year in a row that we've had such a small hatch. I'm used to getting 100 to 150 a hatch, four hatches a year. I've got 2 ducks setting eggs, I'll keep all the females I get this last hatch for breeding stock.

Last spring I didn't have a coop, this year we had two dogs get 8 ducks before we ran them off. So I've got 4 females and 5 drakes left down from the flock of 22 I started with. Then the chickens wouldn't let the ducks set, so it's been a learning experiance.

We finally got some rain but the stalls have flooded! I'm pretty frustrated. Been stripping stalls all morning. We are getting a few more things done, the round pen is up, and can double as a duck run for winter. The old gelding is lame again, the farrier was 2 weeks late, always a disaster because they loose shoes and can't be reshod, only trimmed.

September is right around the corner, things will be better when the heat breaks.

Glorious morning!

Kentucky summers, especially August, can be so hot and humid they literally take your breath away. We've gotten a short break from the heat this week, after a couple days of rain. This morning has been simply gorgous! Fresh breezes from the North, insects buzzing, birds singing.

Temps in the 70's. I've got my windows open, the AC off. Got the morning horse chores done in good time. The sky is clear, no haze, no choking pollens. The promise of a long lingering autumn to come.

After weeks of stress for myself and my family members, we have a few hours of perfect weather, and utter peace.

Another beautiful and hot day here on the B.C. Coast. We have had a long long stretch without rain. Some wells are dry but, tap wood, our two are still good. Our daughter comes and gets water to water the little trees on a hedge she has planted on a acreage they hope to move to. My three baby chicks are growing. This is the first for the Mom and she is being a fantastic Mom. We all get a kick out of the babies having a dirt bath then they stand up and shake. So far, I think they are females. One is brown with what looks like a black back pack on it's back, one white with loads of feathers on top of it's head and green legs, the third is all white but has a real long neck. I'm heading out to pick blackberries. There is a good crop this year, large and juicy. Lets hope we hear from more of you folks in the Journal for September.

Thanks ladies for contributing to the thread.

This used to be a weekly journal, and some of the best reading on the internet. Things happen and everything changes.

I'm seriously considering buying a heritage breed of chickens next year. Can't get what I want at the feed store, the avain flu scare stopped them from having chicks available. That would mean a big batch of chicks, in the house, unless I made a brooder in the barn.

We lost more poultry to the puppies. I'm down to two chicks. There were more ducklings hatching. We saved three from one nest and 2 from another. The birds are all in the coop, the bottom wire has been reinforced with a strip of wood. All together we have 9 ducklings from 3 hatches. I'm used to getting 25 to a hatching. My ducks are getting older, and I've lost a lot of breeding stock. I'm hanging onto all the female ducklings.

The puppies are a problem. Don't know what we are going to do, besides make the bird cages safer. Need a chicken tractor, quickly. There is plenty of scrap wood, and a roll of wire. The poultry are such good bug control when we can let them roam free, I'm tempted to put the pups in the cage! We are being eaten by mosquitos for the first time in years.

We have worked a little bit around the place, getting the weeds down. Need the pastures bush-hogged, but that is in the works. The lawn tractor has been a tremendous help! The place is starting to look groomed again.

I must have missed the one about the four legged duck, did it really have four legs?? How??
Did it live?
How does it walk?
thanks

The post is under "Three legged Duck Honest"

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/farmlife/msg0612190725391.html

Or that message.

Or you can look at my home page:

http://webpages.charter.net/bobkat

Here is a link that might be useful: This is the story of Quaddie

Sorry to hear about the bunny, Miss Kitty. Sounds like you did all you could. Sorry to hear about your flooded stalls, too, ugh. That happened to me five years ago. It rained on top of a heavy snow, and the water just sluiced right into our barn. Especially memorable because ice-cold manure/water splashed into my MOUTH during the clean up. Dee-licious.

Not much going on at our farm this August. The horse and sheep are fat and happy, as are the chickens and cats. Pastures look good, especially with the recent rains. We've got a decent crop of pears for the first time, I'm excited about that.

The wild ducks have arrived on our pond already, seems early to me. And I've noticed lots of young fawns in the local deer herd, looks like some of the does had a second pregnancy this year (is that possible). I wonder how they'll fare this winter.

The guy who's going to re-side our barn stopped by this morning to take measurements, so I guess that's going to happen soon. Hooray!

Kitty, I am so sorry that you lost your little bunny. It is so hard to give up on them. This has been a very difficult summer for our animals. Horrendously hot and so very dry....we are way behind on rainfall. The hot spell was off and on (seemed mostly on) for July and most of August with 108 being the highest temp we reached. The past week has finally seen a bit of a turnaround. We have had three spates of rain with a total accumulation of about three inches. Things have turned green again.

We lost four of my little grey Japanese bantams one day despite regular water changes and a box fan blowing on them. Then, the youngest of our three peacock chicks just faded away. The other two are doing great, though, and I just had to giggle when I saw one of them "courting" the other one. Wish I could have gotten a picture. He was draggging his wings, with his tiny little tail stuck straight into the air while he was slowly circling the other chick. He was just about a month old so they do learn early in life.

On August 19th the last of our summer's guests left for home so we have been trying to readjust our lives a bit. The first arrived the second week of June and we did not have a dull moment for two whole months. Three sets from Florida and finally, my son & family from North Carolina. While they were here we did some house searching for them and his wife did some job interviews. They are planning to move here in November. We did find an old farm house for them to rent about six miles from us so they will have a place to land until they get their house built. Great fun.

I fell late in July and fractured my right wrist. Am a bit osteoporotic and the break was not cleanly across the bones but caused some splitting. It has been the most painful break of my life. And, having a cast on my right arm (am right handed, of course) during this 100+ degree weather has truly been something I do not want to repeat.

Even with the guineas working tirelessly we have had a bumper crop of teensy-tiny, little ticks this summer. Just out in the yard a half an hour today and got two on me. Looks like we will wait until after frost to finish cutting the winter's wood supply to avoid the ticks as much as possible. Am sending in reinforcements! We just turned twenty lavender and pearl guineas out of their pen for the first time today. Here's hoping they can find the little blood suckers!

My young americaunas will be the next of our little group to be "freed". We got ten little pullets in May that look fully grown now. Funny looking girls, with those fuzzy faces.

Jude, would give a bunch to be able to pick blackberries with you. Ours burnt up on the vines before they got a chance to ripen. Here's hoping for next year.

Sure good to catch up with you all again. More later!