UPDATE: June 1, 2005. Five years later, Mom is slowing down a bit. A few years ago, we took her off of the oxybendazole medicine for 30 days, hoping that the parasite had been killed. However, at the end of 30 days she lost her ability to stay upright without assistance. She now has a “tunnel” that she pulls herself into when she wants to sit upright and groom, and she has a fan club who’s members visit her whenever they stop by to purchase supplies for their own critters. All things considered, Mom is quite happy. Mom communicates by body language when she wants to be scratched, have her ears rubbed, or just wants to be petted and adored. ========================================

Today is January 16, 2001. As incredible as it is, Mom's been with us for 9 months now.  We've been using a high dose of the same medicine to fight this insidious raccoon round worm as we use to battle E.cuniculi...and it's working! So far it's bought her at least an extra 6 months of life...and she's enjoying every minute. With donations from friends of mom, we just bought her this wheelchair from Doggon Wheels and she loves it! It keeps her upright and she's learning to manuever around the shelter. In the last photo, I swear you can see her smiling.

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Mom’s bunnies born on May 17, 2000.

I spent day one and two contemplating how I was ever going to afford to spay and neuter all of these bunnies. Six spay surgeries x $85 = $510 and five neuter surgeries x $65 = $325. Wow! a total of $835.00!  People who say they are going to have "just one litter" don't understand that unless they do spay and neuter, they will be responsible for way more than "just one litter." 

And then these same people don't usually stop to think that for every bunny they breed, one will die at a shelter. If their friends and relatives really want rabbits, they should head straight for their local shelter or rescue group to adopt and save a rabbit from being killed.

I finally got over my financial shock to realize that this might be an opportunity to share the rapid growth of bunnies with the internet community. Perhaps by sharing in the life of this litter, it won't be necessary for someone to produce more unwanted rabbits. In eight weeks we're going to be looking for homes for these 11 rabbits and we still have one rabbit looking for a home from a litter we took in last July 1999 and there are two rabbits from a litter we took in August 1999. These now adult rabbits, were once cute adorable bunnies like the ones you are about to see, but now they're adults just sitting in our shelter waiting for their very own home. You can visit them on our adoption page after you oooh and aaaaw over these cute bunnies.

DAY THREE: May 20, 2000:

Proud Mom. We rescued her from a local animal shelter and she had her babies that same night. Mom was found abandoned in a local park. She is being a terrific Mom, taking very good care of this extra large litter. The really sad thing is that Mom is infected with the raccoon round worm and we are hoping she will live long enough to get these babies off to a good start. The raccoon round worm gets into the rabbits brain and travels throughout until various life functions no longer work. This is an extremely common (and always deadly) situation for dumped rabbits.  If any of the bunnies are infected they will either show symptoms or die before they are 8 weeks old. (The odds are against their being infected so we're keeping our fingers crossed.)

Mom made a beautiful nest in a dish pan and within a half hour after she completed her nest, she had 11 lovely bunnies! Lots of different colors.

Newborn bunnies can be easily sexed before they have too much hair. If you look closely, you can see the rows of nipples down each side. (Male rabbits may have one or two nipples but they are never fully developed.) Once the babies are fully furred you can no longer see their nipples, or lack thereof and they become more difficult to accurately sex until they are 6-8 weeks old.

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DAY Four: May 21, 2000:

DAY Five: May 22, 2000:

DAY Six: May 23, 2000:

Check the amount of space that the bunnies are now taking in their dish pan, compared to even yesterday, and you can see how fast they are growing.

Have you ever seen anything so cute! There's 11 in there somewhere.... :-)

DAY Eight: May 25, 2000 (OK! Now they're starting to grow!):

DAY Nine: May 26, 2000: Their eyes have started to open.

See how they grow....

DAY Ten: May 27, 2000: Unbelievable,

I can see! I can see!
See how they grow.
Talk about cute............
Leave me alone, I'm so tired.
Just which end is up?

DAY Eleven: May 28, 2000: Last day in the dish pan! Time for a new home

It's getting crowded in here and we can pop right out when we want to.	A bigger home. They are actually starting to munch on hay.
Don't have my sea legs yet, but you can see what a big guy I am now.

DAY Twelve: May 29, 2000:

When they're not sleeping they're exploring

DAY Thirteen: May 30, 2000:

I'd like to make this photo really big so you can see the very cute sleeping positions. And again, when they're not sleeping they're exploring. Today we're now seeing most of them munching on hay.

DAY Fourteen: May 31, 2000:

See how round their noses are.  As they mature their faces will become more rabbit like.	Above (left) is the runt and (right)the largest bunny. The runt opened his eyes the same day that the rest of them did, but he's less than half the size of the others. It will be interesting to see if the size proportion stays with them as they grow.

DAY Fifteen June 1, 2000:

Runt is on the left and the big guy (check the big feet) is on the right. The rest are all in between. The tight grip is because they will suddenly sprong straight up in the air if not held securely. One has already started popping out of the box on a regular basis. It won't be long before they're all getting out. "It's too crowded in here!"

DAY Seventeen June 3, 2000: Skipped a day and they've grown tremendously! No way will they stay confined any longer. They're out doing bunny dances, grooming themselves and one another ... and annoying mom constantly for more milk.

I know that many people recommend against feeding baby bunnies veggies until they are three to six months old. I've never understood this. Their mom is eating veggies, so they will also get veggies in their milk. Unless you separate them from their mom they naturally munch on whatever veggies she is eating. I've never experienced baby bunnies getting diarrhea from eating veggies, but if the day comes when I do, *then* I'll stop and slowly introduce one veggie at a time to him. But until that day comes, all of the other baby bunnies won't be deprived of enjoying their veggies.   (I keep looking for the pellet feeders hanging on the trees in the forest, but so far I haven't found any. :-) 

DAY Eighteen June 4, 2000

Yummmmmm. Apple.
This green stuff's pretty good.

DAY Nineteen June 5, 2000

Every time I try to get a pic of them sitting inside the food bowl they jump out! You'll have to trust me, it's soooooo cute.
Learning to share.

DAY Twenty June 6, 2000

Outta my way, I'm a *big* boy now!  Note that his round face has started to elongate into a more pointed (adult) nose.

DAY Twenty two June 8, 2000

The bowl shrunk!

DAY Twenty three June 10, 2000

Still trying to get into my bowl! It's starting to be embarrassing.
I swear, they're starting to pose for the camera...
See...another pose.
We're living in a 5' x 2.5' house and even that is starting to get crowded.

Mom's getting worse, day by day. At just over three weeks of age, she's weaned her babies. Does she know she doesn't have much longer and nature is preparing them knowing that she will have to leave them early? Maybe that's why they were eating as soon as their eyes opened. We've had litters who have actually nursed after the mom was spayed and all of the babies were spayed/neutered. In that litter, the last baby was adopted at about 4 1/2 months and still nursed the night before she went to her new home.  Only time will tell.....

DAY Twenty six June 13, 2000

Ears are growing... :-)
"The Big Guy" tries one more time to fit in the dish.

Five Weeks!

Notice that they almost have their adult pointy faces now.

Because mom weaned her kids so early, we've sent 6 of the 11 bunnies to 3 different foster homes in order to get them used to being handled. 11 bunnies were just too many to constantly handle and they were turning into "snotty" little bunnies who were "refusing" to be picked up. Even though their house is 5' long by 2 1/2' wide, when the kids started doing bunny dances they were bashing into one another. It's been amazing how rapidly they have grown out of each of their houses and it really emphasizes how ridiculous those "starter homes" are that most pet stores sell. The poor bunnies end up living in a house that was designed for a 3 week old until they are 6 months old, or sadly, sometimes all of their lives.

Our 3 foster homes will only keep their two bunnies for the next 2 - 3 weeks. Sadly, Mom is rapidly worse each day and falls every few steps. She's having more and more trouble getting back on her feet and I fear that it will only be a few more days until she'll no longer be able to get up again.  Because of the rapid deterioration we're trying a medication that will penetrate into the brain, but we don't know if it's strong enough to kill the parasite. At this point we have nothing to lose by trying to stop this deadly parasite. We've taken blood to check kidney & liver functions prior to starting and if by any chance this works to even slow the parasite, we'll be able to check organ functions again after the medication is stopped to see if it might lead to a treatment for this nasty bug. We will keep you all posted.

Five 1/2 Weeks

Mom appears to be teaching one of the kids how to stand in the food bowl. (Just a few short weeks ago, they were able to sit in the bowl.)

What a big bunch of kids. Most of the people who come to our shelter looking for rabbits, head straight for the babies and totally ignore the adults. After a few moments of explaining how destructive babies can be (and how cute) and how they have to be litter trained (but how cute) and how they'll be very hard to remain litter trained until they are spayed or neutered (but how cute!)...people tend to head back towards our more adult rabbits, who are also quite cute!

Six Weeks old now! How time flies, they are about 2/3 the length of mom.
PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare Society in Lynnwood) contacted me the other day and has generously donated the 11 spay/neuter surgeries for these bunnies! PAWS and the HRS began working together in 1990 when the HRS first started rabbit rescue in the Seattle area. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! (Now I can enjoy the baby bunnies even more! :-)

Seven weeks old

Mom is in the background, still watching over her playful kids. At eight weeks they can begin going to their new homes. Two girl buns have adoption applications pending (to the same family) as a friend for an existing male house bun. Only 9 more homes to find!

7 1/2 weeks old!

Seven of the eleven babies can fit on top of a box, which is inside a large kids swimming pool! (The other 4 are still in foster homes.) You can barely see moms head in the background. She lays against the side of the pool in order to support herself and keep from tipping over.  The "runt" (a little girl) in foreground has almost caught up to the others in size.

Week 9

Check out the happy bunny feet.
Five of the bunnies are in this photo. For size comparison, each black/white square is 12". At 9 1/2 weeks these little darlin's are starting to sexually mature. There is the occasional spraying, and you can see the bottom left baby chinning the legs of a cage. They've just been let out of their exercise pen for a romp around the exercise room and are now exhausted.
Best Friends
This is a 4' x 4' exercise pen. You can get a pretty good idea of how large the babies have become.