When Jessica Lee, 25, spotted a tiny newborn cottontail rabbit near her home in Marietta, Georgia, she didn't know that a whole brood of rabbits was in danger.
A little one was crawling through pine straw desperately looking for her mom.
"I put on gloves and picked her up and she was rubbing her head on my fingers," Lee recalls. "Florida rabbits are born blind and deaf, so she probably mistook me for her mom."
Jessica spent 10 minutes searching for the rabbit's burrow. To her surprise, she found there two more sleeping babies.
She put the baby rabbit back in the burrow in hope that her mom would soon return. Unfortunately, she never came. The next morning, Lee went to check on the rabbits. All the three babies were still there alone, hungry and sad.
To check if the rabbits' mom took care of her brood, Lee sprinkled the ground before the burrow entrance with flour. The next morning the flour remained intact, but the rabbits were gone.
"All three rabbits managed to crawl out of the burrow, which meant they were hungry. That's when I realized that their mom had abandoned them, so I took them in."
Lee bought formula for kittens, mixed it with goat's milk and fed each baby with a dropper every three to four hours. Unfortunately, only one survived. She named her Honey.
When Honey opened her eyes and could eat solid food, Lee added hay, green leaves, blueberries, and oats to her diet, weaning her off formula. She took the 2-week-old rabbit outside every day to her to get used to nature. Gradually the baby got stronger, started eating grass and running around the yard.
The bond Lee shared with Honey was so special. Honey would eat out of Jessica's hand and jump into her lap.
Jessica built an outdoor rabbit house for Honey to keep her safe from predators. As Honey grew older and turned 9 months old, she enjoyed her outdoor walks more.
Now Honey is two years old. She's left her rescuer's home and lives in the woods. Honey has recently come to Lee's garden:
"I called her name but she kept her distance," Jessica recalls. "I saw her a week after, then a month after; I would approach her but she would stay super still, and each time I got really close she would run away."
There is some advice from Jessica for those who have found a newborn rabbit left without a mom:
"Only take orphaned rabbits if you are really sure they are orphaned. The mother rabbit only returns at dusk and dawn to feed her babies, so it's best to put the babies back in the nest and wait."
Thank you, Jessica, for saving this beauty!
Source: theepochtimes.com
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