Since last summer, two rabbits were frequently spotted around our neighborhood and were the topic of several Nextdoor posts.

I was happy to learn that they survived the winter when one of the rabbits started visiting our cul-de-sac. She even let us come within a few feet of her before hopping away.

On Easter morning, a neighbor stopped by to show my husband and me a photo of a coyote on the corner of our cul-de-sac in broad daylight. My first thought was that our rabbit friend was toast—surely, she was the reason for the coyote visit. I was relieved to see her show up a few hours later, hopping across my driveway. But I feared her days were numbered.  
I made a clumsy attempt to lure her with treats and throw a laundry basket over her—but she outmaneuvered me and was in the next yard before the basket hit the ground. Luckily, that afternoon, she retreated to the shade under a woodpile against my house which happened to only have two ways out. My husband and I blocked off one exit and set up an x-pen and dog crate on the other side. At first, it looked like she was going to wait us out under the woodpile but when my husband beckoned her, she walked out and straight into the dog crate. He concluded that she liked him best and gave her his namesake, “Steve”.

My husband isn’t normally a fan of small pets so, I was surprised when he suggested we could keep Steve the Rabbit. However, his idea of “keeping her” was to build an outdoor pen. When I showed him how affectionate and social Rabbit Steve was, and dramatically declared that I’d rehome her before I put her outside, he begrudgingly consented to a free-roam house rabbit!

A couple of days later, I caught a glimpse of something flitting under my backyard deck—a tiny rabbit butt diving for cover. I peeked under the deck and saw two…no, three…. six tiny pairs of eyes peering back at me! “How did our yard suddenly become a rabbit haven?” I thought. After a friend suggested that the tiny rabbits looked a lot like Steve and could be related, I rudely examined Steve’s nether regions—and with the help of YouTube—determined that Steve was most likely a ‘she’. Suddenly, all those times she stared pensively out the back window made sense. I had taken her away from her babies and they were forced to come out of their den to feed themselves!

At this point, I decided to call in some experts. Over the next few days, with the help of Nathaniel and Burke, we wrangled all six baby rabbits. (And by “wrangled”, I mean we waited quietly for hours, dismantled the deck, squeezed into spaces no human should fit, and attempted to outsmart a tiny rabbit that foiled nearly every one of our attempts to catch her.)

Finally, the family of seven was reunited! Steve became known as “Mama Steve” (my husband insisted no name change was necessary) and just as I began to wonder what to do with seven rabbits, Mama Steve started to gather bunches of hay in her mouth and pile it up—she was nesting! The following morning, the day I was scheduled for surgery, she began pulling fur. While I was away, Mama Steve delivered nine tiny hippos in various colors.

When I wished for a rabbit, I think I hit “send” too many times. I only wanted one but ended up with fifteen! Mama Steve will have a home with us, and I look forward to sending all fourteen of her kits to happy, loving families.

Adoptable Bunnies Spotlight:  Betty Poof and Cookie Crumb