So, Queste was the female I took out of the cage because she refused to lift for any of my males. It has been a little over a month. Before rabbits give birth in the wild, they dig burrows into the ground. Well, I went to bed Sunday night after feeding, and there was no hole in the shed. Monday morning (the 20th), I went out into the shed, and saw wiggly movement in a hole.

I went to get my camera, and found Queste feeding her babies. Since I have dogs, I wanted to get her caged up and protected. I go to dig out her nest, and find waterlogged, saturated fur and hay. It rained the night before, over two inches, and even though she was in the shed, our soil is so badly drained that water flowed in laterally. She was at the highest point of the landscape, but water was pooled up less than five inches from the soil surface. She managed to pull out three from the rapidly rising water. The hole was past my elbow, and I had to pull out seven babies who had drown. It was really sad.

They were all fat and seemed to be totally healthy. This may be why we don’t have any wild rabbits in the area.