West Coast Webbers: Animal Rescue Mission!

This week there was a litter of bunnies born at the farm whose mom is being terribly neglectful and the poor things haven't been eating. A few days afterward, another bunny had a litter that didn't survive...except for one little guy all alone. The mom is sick now and not up to nursing her baby, which leaves five adorable tiny baby bunnies in desperate need of a lot of attention and bottle feeding. Yesterday Chris went to the farm store and picked up the tiniest bottle you've ever seen and some kitten formula. She's totally the type to find a way to squeeze bunny feedings into a full farm rotation, but she doesn't mind some help when she can get it...so we get to take the bunnies off her hands for the weekend and see what we can do for them. :)

I gave the kids a warning before we got home that baby bunnies often don't make it without their mom, even if you try *everything* you can. Particularly one of them, who looks a little odd. I don't know enough about baby bunnies to know what they're "supposed to" look like beyond the obvious, but he just doesn't look like the others exactly. Chris thought he was dead this morning, but then he kicked a paw, so into the bottle rotation he went. He's eating and breathing, but he's awfully lethargic and the only word to describe him is "floppy" as opposed to the others who are pretty feisty and tightly packed. The kids say they can handle it if the bunnies don't make it, so long as they know we DID try everything, so we're going to give it a shot.

In between getting home at 4:00 and bedtime we did nothing but snuggle them half to death, sing them "Baby Beluga" about thirty thousand times, feed them each a bottle, and put them to bed in their nest (a sweatshirt in a cardboard box) for the night. We're having an absolute blast!

The kids are thinking of all sorts of names, but nothing has stuck yet. I, meanwhile, have been mentally referring to them as White, Black, Brown, Baby, and Deformed. I suppose that sounds callous as hell, but honestly I can't go giving him a cute little name and get all attached when I know there's a pretty significant chance he won't be here in the morning. Anyway, enough with the horrible possibilities, we fully plan to outwit the probabilities and enjoy the weekend with some thriving adorable bunny friends.

I'll be sure to send out an update on Monday!