Rabbits Gone Wild In Plainfield IL| Living In Plainfield
May 27th, 2007 by Julie
Last Sunday, my husband woke up early to cut the grass. He was nearly done with the back when he noticed a hole in the middle of the yard. He went back over to the hole with some grass seed when he noticed it was moving around….
He lifted the dead brown grass and saw that there was a nest of very young baby bunnies. They were completely bald and didn’t really look much like rabbits at all.
Of all of the places to build a nest in our neighborhood, this had to be the dumbest rabbit in Plainfield. We are the only house in our cluster of homes that has a fence, and the only family with two 100 pound dogs! Seriously, you couldn’t have picked a different yard?!
We tried to keep the dogs out of the yard, which worked for about 28 hours. During lunch on Monday, my 3-year old son opened the door to let the dogs out. This is part of his daily routine in hopes of sparing his lunch from their lips. No sooner than I yelled, “NO!” did Ceaser find the rabbit hole. Because the bunnies were less than 48 hours old, they were much too delicate to be picked 
up by the likes of my massive beast, and poor little bunny #8 didn’t make it.
I did a little research on-line as to how far I could take the nest out of the yard and still have the mother find them. There was no way they would survive another 4 weeks in our yard if I wasn’t able to move their nest.
I found out it’s safe to take them up to 10 ft away from their original nest and have the mother return to them. It is an urban legend that if you touch a baby bunny that the mother won’t return to the nest, but just to be sure I crossed two small sticks over the nest. (By crossing the twigs, you are able to tell if the mom came back to them by whether they were disturbed or not.)
With 7 little guys left, I did what any woman with a motherly instinct would do… I made a new nest!
Now, while I’m no bunny, I must admit my nest was pretty darn good! In the first trip to the nest I nestled 3 little bunnies in the palm of my hand. On the second trip, the remaining 4. They cuddled up and settled down before I even turned to walk away.
It’s been a little over a week now, and their eyes are open and they have fur. We check on them every day, and so far so good!
As of tonight there are 6 little bunnies curled up in the bunny hole. Earlier today bunnies #6 and #7 went exploring in the yard. #6 came home close to night fall, and hopefully #7 makes it back by morning.
Here are some adorable photos I took of them yesterday. I couldn’t resist, they are SO cute!
Julie Ferenzi | Realtor®
Plainfield IL Homes
630-673-6233
