Well, they were as happy as a bunny can be!! They were jumping from joy to walk and run freely around our quite big garden, so much to discover! It was so cute to see. Winter with her 5 babies enjoying Paradise!! We had so much fun to sit in the yard and just look at them!
But then after the first night, we discovered only 4 babies... we looked and looked everywhere, no 5th bunny to be found. That is weird, maybe he/she is hiding in the burrow we thought and let's wait till tomorrow. The next morning we still couldn't find her and now we are worried, but it is time to go on vacation, so we tell Betias our gardener to keep an eye on them!
After 2 days in Holland we are getting a call from him, another one is gone!! Now we have only 3 left. We are speculating and guessing how can that be.... an owl or a cat that is taking our bunnies? But by this time they are almost as big as the mother and the adults never got eaten by predators?? Weird, but we give Betias the advice to put all the baby bunnies into the cage again, till we are back from our vacation.
After a few days home we decide to let the 3 out again, they are the same size now as the mother and we are hoping for the best. A few days it is OK, but then suddenly the 3rd one is gone as well. Devastated but not knowing what to do we talk to the girls and tell them the rules of nature. Survival of the fittest! We can't keep the babies, who are not babies anymore forever in the cage. So we decide to keep the last 2 out with the mother in our garden. And if they get eaten, well, then so be it! It wasn't an easy task to decide, but what we were doing the last few days wasn't easy either. We left them out of the cage during the day and then at night before sunset we would catch them and put them in the cage for the night. Well, this catching took us most days 45 minutes to 1 hour, that gets boring fast too!!
Mother Winter with one of her babies Amarula.
Luckily these 2 which are left over, are we guess now, fast and smart enough to run away from either an owl or cat that is roaming our garden at night. Because mother Winter and her 2 survivors are with us now since we are back from our Xmas vacation. We are happy with the family of 3 and hope we can keep them for a long time!!
This whole bunny story was quite the ordeal. We had 9 in total and now we ended up with 3... An important life lesson for JJ and Jezz. First the pregnancy, the feeding and taking care of the babies, seeing them growing up so fast, the attack of the others, then the disappearing of 3 babies. Life is not easy for a bunny ;-(
I had enough drama with these bunnies. I hope they just will live in peace in our garden without giving us too much trouble anymore.....
Have a FAB Friday!
Mireille
