THE EASTER BUNNY

Easter is around the corner and we all know what that brings – The Easter Bunny!  In honor of the Easter Bunny, and in hopes that he will bring me lots of chocolate, I thought I’d share some bunny biology.  The Ozarks is home to two species of rabbit including the eastern cottontail who gets its name from the characteristic appearance of the rabbit’s tail.  Which, when raised, the white undersurface is clearly visible and looks like a fluff of cotton. 

An adult cottontail rabbit ranges in weight from 2-3.5 pounds.  Cottontails feed almost entirely on plants, their choice depending on what is available during the seasons.  Their most preferred foods are grass, wheat, and clover.  When heavy snow covers their usual food, they eat buds, twigs, bark and sprouts of shrubs, vines and trees. 

In the Ozarks an individual rabbit usually spends its entire life in an area varying from 1-5 acres in good habitat, but possibly as much as 15 acres where food and cover conditions are poorer.  Cottontails often move along regular paths, forming trails or runways in the vegetation.  They are most active at night and early in the mornings.  They spend the rest of the day in their homes.  Their homes consist of a spot concealed in a dense clump of grass, under a brush pile or in a thicket.  When nesting, a female cottontail will dig a nest cavity in the ground which she lines and covers with grass and fur plucked from her belly.  This is not a Bugs Bunny hole with tv.