May 21, 2006

You found a what??


8:15pm Saturday evening. I hear my niece come into the house and thumpety-thump-thump down the stairs into the basement. She never goes into the basement unless I plead with her to get me something. I stick my head in the doorway and ask her what she's doing.

"Looking for a box and a cloth." she says

"Why?" I ask with doubt in my voice.

"Cuz the neighbor's cat found something, and I saved it." she hurriedly tells me as she's searching through my pile of boxes for just the right size.

"Whatt? What did the neighbor's cat find?" I question.

She tells me that she was outside and saw the neighbor's cat playing with something in the driveway. When she approached, she saw a baby "something" and had to throw wood chips at the cat to get it to run away. She picked the baby up and put it into the play fort and then ran in to get a box. Hence where the story started.

In looking at this thing, I had no idea what it was. It was gray, had a tiny tail, a bit smaller than a newborn kitten, it's eyes were still closed and it had no fur. While my niece did her motherly duty and put it in a warm safe place, I search on the internet -- thinking baby what? squirrel? rabbit? Found some pics and we compared... looks like a newborn rabbit. Let me tell you... They ain't the cutest things around! So now what?

She talked to her mom, who said she could bring it home and keep it. Then we ran to five different stores looking for kitten formula -- cuz that's what the net says to feed them. Think any of the stores we went to had it? NO! The one place that probably did have it was closed. I could tell my niece was getting concerned -- she needed to feed the baby!

Well the little guy (or girl) survived the night (The cat did manage to give it some surface wounds because it was bleeding a little bit). Since we couldn't get any kitten formula, we gave it watered down milk until the kitten juice could be bought. It drank some Sat night and again Sun morning. Which is a good sign, I guess.

My niece took it home with her. If it survives the week, I'll be surprised.

Update: It's 4:56pm on Sun. Got a call from my niece. The bunny died. :-( Funeral services were held in the backyard a short time later. The wee lil one was buried with a towel wrapped around it so it wouldn't get cold.

1 comments:

beckygtx said...

I just had to comment because we have tried SO MANY times to raise baby wild rabbits. It is a losing proposition but so wonderful for a child or even young adolescent. Thanks for sharing!