Finally, baby bunnies!

Ok so we weren't sure if our doe was expecting.  But they had gotten over the barrier, so I made a guess on when she might have babies.  We put some wood chips in the nesting box.  The next day she pulled out a bunch of her tummy fur & added it to the chips.  This is what they do shortly before giving birth.  And a few hours later, there were baby bunnies!  They are not cute when they're born.  They're bald, & their eyes are closed, & they just lay there in a pile in the nesting box.  But we were excited!  There were 7 bunnies & they were all alive!
About a week later, we found 2 out of the nesting box, back in the hutch, dead.  We emailed & asked around, & the best guess was that they were still nursing when the mother left the box, & they got dragged out & died without the warm nest.  Bummer!  So once again my stoic son disposed of dead baby rabbits.  But we still had 5!
Eventually their eyes opened & they got fur.  Now I'm not all that into "cute" animals, but DANG!  Those little tiny bunnies hopping around on the grass were adorable!!   Again people were questioning me about if I was really going to be able to butcher them.  Wendie assured me that by the time they were big enough to butcher, the cuteness factor would have gone way down.  And that we'd be sick of taking care of that many & be glad to get rid of a few.  I hoped she was right.  In the meantime we had a steady stream of kids coming by to see the baby bunnies & chase them around the lawn.  It was worth having bunnies just for how much fun that was!

Brand new bunny

In nesting box