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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

What Do Bunnies Eat in the Winter?

Rabbits are crepuscular, meaning they're most active at dusk and dawn, and are generally found in areas with dense cover. They also do well in suburban and urban areas where lawns, gardens, and various shrubs meet their habitat requirements.

Rabbits feed on leafy plants during the growing season and the buds and bark of woody plants in the winter. They produce two types fecal pellets (the round, dry ones and cecotropes). The cecotropes are produced in a region of the rabbit's digestive tract called the cecum. The cecum contains a natural community of bacteria and fungi that provide essential nutrients. They must reingest these fecal pellets to reabsorb nutrients from its food because their diet of plants is hard to digest efficiently, and they have to make two passes at it to get everything out of the meal.
Most of the bunnies you see in Michigan are the Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus). They have speckled brown-gray fur, big eyes, and a tail that is puffy white on the underside. Many people mistakenly believe that wild rabbits and domesticated pet rabbits are the same species, but the domesticated rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) belongs to another genus and is only distantly related.

Besides the plants essential to their diet, rabbits also need safe resting places like fall brush piles or dense shrubs in which to escape from predators. Hawks and owls are some avian predators, and foxes, raccoons, skunks, and opossums are some mammals that prey on rabbits.

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