12-3-23
This is my post for #freewriters 2649 prompt impostor on the throne hosted by @mariannewest
12-3-23
The day I found one of the dogs jumping on something in the yard I knew my world and his changed. He was as happy as a bug in a rug in his mother's nest until the dog found it and pulled him and his sibling from the nest. The dog had already killed his sibling and was jumping on Rudy.
12-5-23
I was lost as to what to do with his fragile life, he was so small and everything I had ever heard was you can not keep a baby rabbit alive. I was determined to give him every chance I could, I did a lot of praying, too.
12-6-23
I also went to the one who thinks he knows all, aka Google. I read everything I could about how to raise a baby wild rabbit. The first thing they tell you is to take it to a rehab place but I did not know of one close to me and he needed to be cared for now. By the time he was this size, it was too late, I was head over heels for him from the moment I picked him up on the first day.
12-6-23
I was so excited on the day he started eating greens. I remember trying to get him to eat different grasses and veggies and he would not touch them. One day I was trying to get him to eat one and he snubbed his nose at it, for some reason, I dipped it in water and held it out to him. He sniffed it and took a bite. From that day on he went to eating like a big boy rabbit. But I did not wean him from the bottle, I had mixed emotions about doing that. I liked the closeness I had with him while bottle feeding and I did not have that feeling when he ate the greens, my baby was growing up.
12-21-23
I had not had him for a month yet. He is growing so fast, not weaned from the bottle, but could be, he is eating plenty of green vegetables, hay, and rabbit food.
12-23-23
He is still not a month old and could jump on top of his house.
12-24-23*
It is not him that is the problem with weaning, it is me. I was afraid that when I stopped feeding him from the bottle our bond would be broken but thankfully that did not happen.
12-19-23
He is now 3 weeks old, it is amazing how fast he is growing.
2-8-24
I have no words as to say how cute other than how cute is he?
1-20-24
It is like still giving a 3 year old child a bottle, I think by this time I was mixing more water than goat's milk in his bottles, I was starting to wean him.
2-15-24
I miss moments like this. I can no longer do it because the last time he jumped off my lap and ran into the bedroom bathroom. He thought it was a fun game running from me to my husband, we were sitting on the floor and he would run so fast up one arm to the other and down it and run to the other person and do the same. We finally caught him but after he bloodied both of our arms from his toenails. He thought it was a fun game.
3-15-24
This was before he jumped from my lap, he was lucky that day. If the dogs would not have listened to me, he would have been caught by one of them.
5-15-24
Rudy is now 5 months old and doing everything a full grown rabbit does, except be free. Everything I read about releasing them said to never release a rabbit by itself. I still wish he was free but by now, he knows nothing about survival.
8-18-24
Now 8 months old, the wild grapes are ripe and he like to eat them. I keep a bowl of rabbit food but try to feed him as much wild stuff as I can find for him.
1-27-25
Every morning I give him two apple slices before he goes to bed for the day. He goes to bed around 7am and if I have not given him his apple yet, he will bang on his dish that I put it in.
12-20-24
If I slept late and did not hear him he gives up and goes in his house, but when he hears me making coffee, he makes his house hop up and down and sticks his nose out the hole he made in the side of his box.
Rudy has grown into a full size wild rabbit, he is now a year and 2 months old, there is no other impostor on the throne, Rudy is king, unless he is Rudett, then she would be queen. I say this because the other day while Rudy was on his back feet, I saw nothing between his back legs, maybe male rabbits don't have anything there. I will need to read about it.
photos are mine
-