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In winter the cottontail's pelage is more gray than brown. The kits develop the same coloring after a few weeks, but they also have a white blaze that goes down their forehead; this marking eventually disappears. This rabbit is medium-sized, measuring 36–48 cm (14–19 in) in total length, including a small tail that averages 5.3 cm (2.1 in).
An expert vet shares her top tips for rabbit care in winter. An expert vet shares her top tips for rabbit care in winter. Skip to main content. Subscriptions; Animals. Business. Fitness ...
Pygmy rabbits are the only North American rabbits that dig burrows and live in a sagebrush habitat. In the wild, pygmy rabbits eat sagebrush almost exclusively in the winter; during summer, they eat a more varied diet. They may have two to four litters of about two to six kits during the spring and summer breeding seasons.
The rabbits remain active all year. When spooked a rabbit will run a couple meters then hide and freeze with ears erect, if further pursued the rabbit will hop away in a semicircular path to try and trick the predator. The only behavior to reduce predation is limiting active time to dusk and dawn, and the semicircular path they hop when chased.
Typically, they feed on leaves and bulbs of marsh plants including cattails, brushes, and grasses. [11] They can also feed on other aquatic or marsh plants such as centella, greenbrier vine, marsh pennywort, water hyacinth, wild potato, and amaryllis. [12] Marsh rabbits, like all rabbits, reingest their food, a practice known as coprophagy. [7]
The mutating RHDV2 virus appears to have become more deadly than earlier strains.
Cottontail rabbits typically only use their nose to move and adjust the position of the food that it places directly in front of its front paws on the ground. The cottontail will turn the food with its nose to find the cleanest part of the vegetation (free of sand and inedible parts) to begin its meal.
The Kansas Department of Agriculture says a veterinary lab detected the first case of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus serotype 2 (RHDV-2) in a domestic rabbit in Leavenworth this month.