Being a breeder and taking care of these animals doesn't ever end in a day. If something might be going wrong outside at 3am, I'll have to go check on them, no matter if it's freezing out there, or if I'm still half-asleep.
This was one of those nights.
My sister woke me up at around 3:30am and said that she heard a really loud noise outside with the cages, and that the cages had been rattling like crazy. She's a light sleeper and probably wasn't asleep at all when she heard it, but I'm a heavy sleeper, so I would've slept right on through. She was concerned, since we've had problems with dogs back there, as well as cats, raccoons, you name it. I'm glad she woke me up, for sure, and you'll see the reason why.
After the loud rattling she had heard initially, the rabbits were thumping every second. After getting out of bed, I looked outside my window (which was open because our room was hot and musty), to see if there were any animals that were out there that shouldn't be. Nope. But the bunnies were still thumping every couple of seconds - I wasn't sure exactly which bunnies were doing the thumping, but based on where I know each rabbit's cage is, and how we could hear them, I thought it was mainly May, Wicket and Angie, who were thumping constantly. When it's literally right outside your open bedroom window, bunny thumps are LOUD!
So, I had to go and check on them. I put on my Holly's Hollands sweatshirt and my rainboots, and trudged to the rabbitry to see what the problem was (bunnies don't thump a ton for no reason... usually).
Standing at the entrance of the rabbitry for a little bit with my sister, who came with me because she was up already, I assessed the situation. Nothing was there that could've startled them...or maybe it was gone, scared by all the loud thumping. I waited a second to see who was doing all the thumping, and it was May, she was running around her cage and thumping like a lunatic. Every once in a while another rabbit would answer her, either Clementine, Angie, or Wicket, with another thump. So I went to May's cage to try and calm her down.
A little thing was stumbling around the cage with one eye open to greet the world - it was May's baby, and she was thumping and freaking out because her baby was out! As if she was saying, "Mom! Come look at this! Get this thing out of here!!!" She was obviously running away from it, and very startled!
I put the baby back in the nest, and covered it with fur. I realized that if I left the baby there, throughout the night, even though it was a warmish night, it probably would have died, because it had no hay to cuddle in, it's mom was being a lunatic, and it couldn't get back into the nest. So I spread some hay all around the cage in case it got out again. If it did, I didn't have to worry because it could cuddle in the hay and bury beneath it and stay warm.
This morning, I went to check on everything, and the baby had gotten out again, but it was nestled in the hay. It was cold though, but after being put back in the nest it's doing great. I feel like if I hadn't gone out there, if May hadn't "called" me, the baby would've gotten too cold, and could have passed away.
The baby must've startled her and tried to nurse and she got spooked and went crazy. She's such a panicked doe already - everything scares her. So May probably saved her baby's life this morning, by being terrified of it.
~Holly