A Walk Through Moonwood

Wild Baby Bunnies - 9 days old

Posted by roo on June 16th, 2010 — Posted in Bunnies

Notice anything????  Look closely

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Wild Baby Bunnies - 8 days old

Posted by roo on June 15th, 2010 — Posted in Bunnies

There was much rain today, so around noon Jesse and I raced outside to place a small pastic table over the nest so that the babies would not get flooded out in case of a downpour, which is what we were expecting for much of the remainder of the day.  I peeked briefly under the pile of grass and saw that their mother had come to visit them late today, for they all had just been fed and were sound asleep in a pile.

The table worked really well!  Inspecting the nest half an hour or so ago everyone was warm and dry, and again with full bellies… mom must have checked on them early today, darting in and out between rain showers.  You can see in the first picture that baby has a rounded belly - this indicates a recent meal of milk.  In the previous photographs they look long and skinny, as those had been taken before their mother made her daily dusk rounds.

The babies are developing nicely, their fur is fully in now, even under their tails, and it won’t be long now before they’ll start opening their eyes.  Once they start wondering from the nest it is going to be so much fun to watch them play!

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Wild Bunnies - 7 days old

Posted by roo on June 14th, 2010 — Posted in Bunnies

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Wild Bunnies - 6 days old

Posted by roo on June 13th, 2010 — Posted in Bunnies

Yesterday I discovered a nest of wild cotton tail baby bunnies in my garden while pulling weeds and trimming a tree.  It’s a miracle I did not step on them!  After the initial ‘oh no!’ and worrying that momma bunny would be so upset by the weeds gone and therefore a lot of the shelter of the nest that she would not return to feed her babies, I did some research.  It turns out that wild rabbits are not put off by human scent, in fact it is even possible to move the nest a few feet and mom would be quite happy about that.

This morning I checked on the babies and dug a couple out so that I could determine how many there were and if mom had fed them during the night.  There were 5 bunnies in the nest, all with rounded bellies which meant mom had fed them very recently.  I covered the nest back up and decided to return in the evening to take photographs once it was a little cooler.  I also dug through my photos of Sienna’s litter back in 2008 to determine how old these babies were:

I was able to see that the wild bunnies are 5 days old.  Sienna’s babies are Satin Angoras which means they have much larger muzzles, but the likeness is obvious.

This evening I returned with my son Jesse to look at the bunnies and photograph them.  Mom had not fed them yet.  I noticed that the late afternoon sun is hitting the nest directly, so I placed a log and planter to cast shade on the bunnies.  Temps today were around 95 degrees, so direct sun, even the late afternoon one, can be devastatingly hot.  I’ll keep a photo log of the bunnies as they grow, I think it will be a lot of fun, especially if they grow up to be relatively tame.

Tonight’s photographs:

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Alpacas with heart

Posted by roo on April 7th, 2010 — Posted in Unreal, Arabella, Serious, Julia, Demi, Penelope

Unreal and the two young males that Pam brought back from the AlpacaRosa have been quarantined in a pen in the barn since their return, to ensure that nobody was introducing unwanted parasites to the rest of the herd.  Their fecals revealed nothing of interest, so they were released from the pen to join the other juveniles.  What a joy it was to watch them run and pronk with excitement, happy to feel the grass under their feet and the wind in their ‘hair’. 

 When Serious was in ICU at the vet recently, and we had to reintroduce him to his mother Mazara who I brought as his companion, I was struck with how highly emotional alpacas truly are.  He was so relieved, so surprised, so comforted, when I led her into the stable where he was cushed, depressed, in a corner.  They hadn’t seen each other in months, and yet they immediately resumed their roles as mother and child.

The way in which Unreal and his new friends behaved when released from the pen was also a display of emotion, one of pure happiness and excitement.  When observed closely, and in many different situations, it becomes very clear that alpacas are delicately balanced creatures, who absolutely thrive only when herd relationships are maintained.

In another pasture, 4 of my girls were grazing together.  My intention was to get some ‘belly’ photos of Penelope, but I got sidetracked because I wanted to take in the peace of of their private little herd, and because I can’t help but be impressed by the amount of fiber that Arabella is carrying around.  After they posed for some pictures, they dismissed my presence as thought I wasn’t even there.  Just the way it should be.

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