Rabbit facts

Facts

Rabbit Facts      Rabbits are not rodents but belong to their own order called lagomorphs.  The evolutionary split between rabbits and other living mammals probably occurred about thirty million years ago.     There are twelve species of rabbits in the United States with the eastern cottontail being the most widely distributed.  

   Cottontails vary in color from gray to brown and have large ears and hind feet and fluffy tails.  They average about a foot in length and weigh 2 to 3 pounds.     Cottontails are generally found in brushy hedgerows and the edges of wooded areas with dense cover, but also do very well in suburbs and urban areas.   Rabbits feed on leafy plants during the growing season and the buds and bark of woody plants in the winter.  

   Famous for their reproductive abilities, cottontails breed from February through September.  Gestation is about 28 days.  Three or four litters of four or five young known as kittens are born each year.  Young are born helpless in a shallow depression lined with grass and mother’s fur, but they grow rapidly and are weaned when less than half the size of the adult.     Mothers nurse their babies for approximately 5 minutes a day.   The milk is very rich and the babies fill up to capacity within minutes.   Mother rabbits do not sit on their babies to keep them warm. 

Baby rabbits are often "rescued" by well-meaning humans who think that they have been abandoned.   Fewer than 10% of these babies survive.     Cottontails may live to two years in the wild, but where predators are numerous, they seldom live more than one.  85% of the rabbit population dies each year.  This includes at least one out of every three babies that are born per year.     Many mortality factors affect rabbit populations.   Weather is a major factor in nest mortality as ground nests are susceptible to flooding in heavy rains.