Ten tiny cottontails growing wild

It happens every year. Wild Friends—the wildlife rehabilitation center at Best Friends—receives a passel of desert baby cottontails. It’s the season once again, as the rabbits are being born and some just as quickly are winding up in peril.
So far this season, licensed wildlife rehabilitator Carmen Smith has received 10 rabbits, some related, some not. Five were, as she says, “kidnapped”—that is, taken out of their nests by some local children who didn’t know they shouldn’t do that. Another was found in a horse stall and, judging by the rather pungent smell of her, was apparently at the wrong place at the wrong time. Two were caught by dogs, and the last two by cats. Carmen expects all 10 to be released back into the wild.

In the meantime, she has separated the cottontails into three groups, by age and size. “You can’t put really small rabbits in with big ones,” Carmen says. “Big ones move fast, and little ones don’t know how to get out of the way. So the little ones are likely to get trampled.”

For such little creatures, they require a lot of work. As a prey species, they’re understandably skittish, and vulnerable to stress. And because they’re so young, all of them need to be bottle-fed at least once a day until they’re big enough to be weaned, at which point they will start eating timothy hay, dandelions, and anything they’re likely to come across in the wild. Once they have been wholly weaned over to solid food, they’ll be on their way, sent out to brave the wild again. More than likely, several more will come in to take their place at Wild Friends.

Story by Ted Brewer
Photos by Sarah Ause