# wild rabbit or drop off?



## WannaBeFarmR (Jul 10, 2012)

Found this guy in my field edge/back yard this evening. He was just laying there, I caught him and put him in a crate in the barn with some rabbit feed water and hay for bedding. He was listless at first and I noticed he has a few wounds small scabs/puncture wounds scratches on his "lips" mouth, and nose and hair ripped out on his muzzle, head, neck, chest. I'm assuming something had a hold of him and he got away. He is also slightly underweight.  After I put him in the crate he drank an entire dish of water and part of a 2nd dish right down. A few hours later he seemed more active and fearful of me. He sure looks like an eastern cottontail but he could also be a drop off former pet that just resembles a wild rabbit. How can I tell for sure?


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## ILuvSheep (Jul 10, 2012)

I dont know what cotton tails look like, but looks like a pet to me

Arent cotton tails thinner and scruffier and, well, crazier wild eyed looking? XD


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## Bunnylady (Jul 11, 2012)

Eastern Cottontails. There are several species of Cottontail rabbit; I don't know which might be native to your area.









Western Brush Rabbit









Desert Cottontail









Swamp Rabbit


(I collected all of these pictures from the internet, so there's a good chance they could have been tagged wrong, and the animal in the picture isn't the species identified!) 

Native North American rabbits generally have long, slender faces. Ear length varies with species; the Desert Cottontail has significantly longer ears than the Eastern Cottontail, for example. 

Wild rabbits vary quite a bit in size, too. The Pygmy Cottontail weighs less than 2 pounds, while the Swamp Rabbit may weigh more than 5 pounds. 


My inclination is to think that what you have is a domestic rabbit. The eye looks a bit small in proportion to the head to me, and the head looks a bit more broad and round than any of the wild rabbits I've seen. How big is this rabbit? It's not easy to tell from the picture, but if he's say, as long as my laptop keyboard is wide when he's sitting hunched up like that, he's too big to be a native North American rabbit.


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## lastfling (Jul 11, 2012)

I agree.  That looks to me like a domestic rabbit that someone has abandoned.


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## manybirds (Jul 11, 2012)

its owner probably let it loose because they didn't want it anymore and assumed it would be fine in the wild. it probably found your house, and being domestic, saw it as a source of food/water etc and dropped by


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## WannaBeFarmR (Jul 11, 2012)

Any ideas on the breed mix in this little buck, hes about the size of a mini rex and I would guess close to being full grown...hes rather mature in the nether regions I noticed when I first caught him.


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## manybirds (Jul 11, 2012)

Sylverfly said:
			
		

> Any ideas on the breed mix in this little buck, hes about the size of a mini rex and I would guess close to being full grown...hes rather mature in the nether regions I noticed when I first caught him.


with mutts of any species it can get really hard to tell. we have a neighbor with a dog that looks like spaniel/ boxer mix or something and you would swear he was part rotweiller/lab or something. he looks like he may have some chinchilla in him or maybe one of his parents is part flemish. alot of people with breed pets breed there very favorite mix pets so he may have as many as 8 different breeds in his back ground. i remember before we bred show bunnies we had a mix buck, he was english spot/flemish. he was english spot patterned but he was build like a new zealand. yesterday we had a neighbor drop off a mutt at our house thats alot like yours. sorry i know its not any help but its the best i've got. it dosn't really matter much if he's just going to be a pet, if you advertise him i would advertise him by his weight and color stating that he showed up at your house. i would probably get some wormer in him once he starts to look better, you never know what they pick up on the way. (i use a pee sized amount of horse wormer or if its available you could get wazine)


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## ILuvSheep (Jul 11, 2012)

Bunnylady said:
			
		

> http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=I4599803228520600&pid=1.7&w=227&h=149&c=7&rs=1http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=I4625607396557673&pid=1.7&w=194&h=146&c=7&rs=1
> 
> Eastern Cottontails. There are several species of Cottontail rabbit; I don't know which might be native to your area.
> 
> ...


Oooh i see! That top right one looks nearly identical, except eye size and general size 

Cute bunny, glad he found you, he wouldve been killed !


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## mama24 (Jul 11, 2012)

Looks like a Tennessee Redback, which people around here use to train hunting dogs. That's probably what got him, too.


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## bellasrabbitry (Jul 12, 2012)

To me the rabbit looks like a domestic rabbit, he doesn't have the characteristics of a wild rabbit. I'm not sure what breed he is, but his color is called chestnut (It looks very similar to the coloring on a wild rabbit). My guess is that he is a mixed breed rabbit that someone let go because they no longer wanted him.


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## redtailgal (Jul 12, 2012)

mama24 said:
			
		

> Looks like a Tennessee Redback, which people around here use to train hunting dogs. That's probably what got him, too.


Thats what I think, too.  He looks like what round is called a "teaser bun".  They are a captive bred rabbit, bred to look somewhat like a cottontail, but heavier and slower moving and used to train young dogs or dogs that need a "morale boost".  The rabbits are released for the hounds to trail/chase/kill, a contentious hunter does this in a fenced area but not all are so careful.  With the dogs that are worked being so young, usually a couple rabbits escape and are quickly killed by predators.  This little guy got lucky.

They are usually poorly kept and poorly bred, so I'd be careful if you have other rabbits.


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## WannaBeFarmR (Jul 13, 2012)

He's in the barn with the other rabbits but not near/in contact with them. I'll probably keep him as a resident rabbit since I already have a little peanut rabbit that I bottle feed and somehow it made it. But she is very small and doesn't have breeding in her future. Her name is beetle, I used to call her my little water beetle when she lived in the house because she had bug eyes and her legs were so spindly and always splayed out around her, so the name beetle just stuck. Shes 4 or 5 months old right now but no one thought she'd make it when they saw her as a kit, at one point she was 1/3 to 1/4 smaller then her litter mates. Shes still small but looks really healthy.


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## pennylove (Jul 13, 2012)

Sylverfly said:
			
		

> He's in the barn with the other rabbits but not near/in contact with them. I'll probably keep him as a resident rabbit since I already have a little peanut rabbit that I bottle feed and somehow it made it. But she is very small and doesn't have breeding in her future. Her name is beetle, I used to call her my little water beetle when she lived in the house because she had bug eyes and her legs were so spindly and always splayed out around her, so the name beetle just stuck. Shes 4 or 5 months old right now but no one thought she'd make it when they saw her as a kit, at one point she was 1/3 to 1/4 smaller then her litter mates. Shes still small but looks really healthy.


Wow, that's the first I've ever heard of a peanut surviving! Do you have pictures of her? I would love to see.


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## Bunnylady (Jul 13, 2012)

pennylove said:
			
		

> Sylverfly said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There are other genetic problems that can cause odd-looking kits, not just the dwarfing gene issue (one that I can think of right off the top is the Max factor). This may or may not be an incredibly rare case of a rabbit with two dwarfing genes that survived for more than a few days, but without genetic testing, it would be impossible to know for sure.


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## WannaBeFarmR (Jul 13, 2012)

I can't find any pics of when she was really peanutty looking or any side by sides with her littermates, but heres a few I do have. She was all head for a while and her body didn't seem to put on any weight or muscle for the longest time she was constantly on her back and couldn't flip herself back over. I did a lot of strength training with her, and a few times I thought for sure she wasn't going to make it but today she is a healthy young rabbit.






Her hair was not wet in the pic it looked like that all the time, and it took forever for all her fur to come in. 

Today she looks more like a really bad tan or something, all the others looked normal. Not sure why her ears and face turned out so long? 













Heres her mom the babies are beetles brothers and sisters from a different litter, same dad a netherland dwarf.


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