The cottontail rabbit is one of the wild animals in our mid-western region that we know best. We find it in our yards and gardens as well as in the open woodlands and meadows. A familiar sight to all of us is a cottontail rabbit bounding across field or road, its white bunchy cotton tail flashing through the thickets and signaling its retreat.
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| A family of cottontail rabbits. |
The timid cottontail has many enemies. Almost every meat-eating animal and bird preys on it, and only because it has the ability to hide and dodge, and also to produce many young, does the species survive at all.
A mother rabbit usually has three or even four broods a year and each brood numbers from four to seven young ones. Baby rabbits are born naked and with their eyes closed. They look more like mice than rabbits, and each one weighs about an ounce. They are born in a nest so cleverly concealed in the grass that even experienced hunters have difficulty in locating it. The nest is lined with fine grass and leaves, and with soft fur that the mother rabbit pulls from her belly with her paws and teeth. 'In order that the naked young ones may be well protected from the cold, the mother rabbit pulls out more of her fur and spreads it over the little ones like a blanket.
The father rabbit seems to pay no attention to the baby rabbits and does not even help to feed and protect them. The mother guards the nest carefully. She usually remains close by during the day; at night she forages for her own food of young green shoots, buds, berries, and inner bark of trees. Between her trips away from the nest for food she feeds her young ones. They live on her milk for about three weeks.
The little rabbits' first coat of soft, fine hair appears after a week or so and it grows thicker each day. Every time the mother rabbit uncovers and recovers her babies, some of the loose fur of the blanket blows out of the nest until finally it is nearly all gone. By this time, after three or four weeks, the young rabbits are warmly clad in their own fur coats and are exact miniatures of their mother. They begin to forage for themselves, to hunt the young tender green plants for food. As they move from place to place, they learn to seek the protection of shrubs, clumps of grass, and large plants. At the first sign of danger, they become very still and often remain almost motionless for many minutes or even for an hour or more; the only visible movement is the twitching of their noses.
By wintertime, many of the rabbits have been killed by their enemies but out of the great number of broods there are many rabbits left to live on through the winter. Cottontails do not hibernate and so they must eat during the winter months; since they do not store up food in advance they must continue to hunt for food all winter in spite of the cold and snow. Their tracks and paths crisscrossing in the snow tell a part of the story of their constant search for the few. remaining berries, buds, and bark.
Spring finds the rabbits lean and hungry. They eat and eat on any young green shoots available; they often invade our gardens. After a few weeks of springtime feasting, last summer's baby rabbits are well fed again. They are fully grown and ready to produce broods of young cottontails. Wood
Craft paper bunnies to enhance the learning:
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