This Is Why the Childhood of Rabbits Is so Terrible

you've probably heard that rabbits are one of the less healthy animals in the world they die from literally everything some rabbits have even died of loneliness but what do you think about this in the wild a mother rabbit sometimes buries her babies alive underground why does she do this will the bunny survive let's find out the animal world is full of bad parents some leave their children with other families others simply let their children die and many don't take care of their offspring once they came into the world but none of them bury their children alive how could anyone think of such a thing is this some incredibly cruel way to get rid of their offspring i didn't expect that from rabbits but the reality is a little different rabbits do bury their babies but they do it to protect them the mothers want to keep their offspring safe from predators so they pretend they're in the movie buried but does this really keep them safe how long can a human stay underground without access to oxygen on average about five and a half hours before there's no more of it rabbits will probably have even less time and then they will [Music] ok ok if all rabbits buried their babies there would basically be no rabbits left on the planet but this is only a temporary measure the mother covers her babies with ground but then she digs them up when she returns and no one suffers it's not because little rabbits can hold their breath for 24 hours it's just that she doesn't cover the shelter with soil very tightly there are little air pockets so the air goes freely into the hole and the babies can breathe well mystery solved but then i have a question does this help at all so the rabbit just covers her babies with a little bit of soil and suddenly all predators magically stop noticing them you have to admit that doesn't sound very realistic i thought so too until i learned that baby rabbits are virtually odorless yes adults are easy to smell and track but the babies hidden in a burrow will be safe unless predators accidentally stumble upon them or if the mother herself lead them to her babies this is why rabbits come to see their bunnies very rarely sometimes only once a day quickly feeding them and disappearing again they know that their scent and even their presence nearby can have nasty consequences moreover if one of the bunnies dies the rabbit may eat it and it's not because she suddenly started eating meat a dead rabbit will very quickly begin to stink and imagine what it would smell like but predators aren't squeamish you know so mother rabbits try to do everything possible to attract as little attention to the burrow as possible and most of the time it works foxes or lynxes really pass by and don't even notice that their nutritious lunch is right under their noses birds of prey like eagles may not notice anything either because rabbits are really good at camouflaging their holes strange or all the rabbits well they couldn't have gone underground right of course sometimes rabbits are unlucky enough to run into an overly clever adversary like a crow but of course anyone would lose in such a situation it's hard to compete with the intelligence of crows i'm not even sure that the mother would have been able to drive the hungry bird away from the burrow if she had been in the vicinity it's a crow it sure as hell wants to eat and it's going to eat but since even birds can easily get the bunnies out of the burrow what's the point of burying them at all besides if a wild dog or cat or even a raccoon happens to be nearby the camouflage won't help then why have these hiding places at all while mother rabbits protect their young not only from predators like many other babies rabbits are very weak when they're born any change in temperature no matter if it's up or down can be fatal to the animal well even stress can be dangerous the pregnant female plucks fur from all over her body and covers the nest with it to make it warm and comfortable she also brings grass and straw to insulate the nest finally the mother-to-be covers it all with a layer of leaves and grassy plant stems to hide her babies the burrows consist of several tunnels with many exits and entries for a quick escape remember that warthogs have only one way out through which lions easily get to them rabbits are well aware that this is not a good plan that's why they build an entire maze underground each borough has separate rooms for different purposes maybe this one's the nursery hmm and this must be the living room where they discuss the latest news to build such a dwelling you don't need to have a degree in architecture but you do need to be clever however rabbits are pretty smart when it comes to their burrows even the ones where mothers temporarily keep their babies yes it may seem absurd to hide their offspring right in the middle of someone's backyard but raptors avoid open spaces besides the smell of humans can scare them off well you know you don't have to guard your nest if you have biped scents nearby instead what rabbits don't consider is some people's eagerness to help especially when it's not necessary we found little baby bunnies imagine finding a hole with little rabbits in your lawn perhaps move it somewhere dig in another one closer to the hedge and move the babies in contents there nope you shouldn't do that rabbits know exactly where their nest is move it even a couple of inches and the rabbit will immediately abandon her offspring most likely she'll think that if the nest has been disturbed the babies are dead and it isn't safe to be around and don't think that if the mother hasn't been around for hours she has forgotten about the bunnies and won't be back as i said before the female understands that she attracts unwanted attention to the nest and tries to be around as little time as possible and rabbit milk is very nutritious so one meal a day is enough don't panic the rabbit will come back dig up the babies feed them and bury them back she knows what she's doing see how cute they are but what if there's no ground around to hide the offspring in rabbits can live everywhere but some places don't meet the requirements to dig a burrow in such cases they have to find another way to survive people once saw an eastern cottontail rabbit that was using a tree hollow as a burrow for its babies i have no idea how it got in there you have no idea how high i can fly and marsh rabbits are closely tied to water they swim away at the slightest danger and set up their rabbit nurseries in dense thickets or swampy places surrounded by water on all sides sort of like a little castle and moat with crocodiles around it only without the crocodiles i guess however despite all this protection and sometimes ingenious solutions a lot of rabbits don't even make it to their first birthday in the first three weeks about 40 percent of newborn rabbits die in the first year up to 90 percent die that's why they have to breed constantly otherwise they would just die out but what if nobody gets in the way imagine rabbits living in ideal conditions without predators cold or heavy rains and with a lot of food for everyone oddly enough i couldn't find an exact calculation for the entire earth what do scientists do anyway huh yes science but wildlife britain estimates that breeding population of wild rabbits in great britain at 40 million if each female wild rabbit in the country had seven litters say five babies in each one there would be one million nine hundred seventeen thousand eight hundred eight newborn rabbits every day and rabbits grow up very quickly which means that literally every day there would be more and more new parents and there would be more and more babies and more and more and more perhaps we should thank predators and other factors that contain their breeding victorian farmer heck bradley has experienced firsthand what happens when your territory is overrun by rabbits he had a land of 250 acres inhabited by 6 000 rabbits that ate everything they could reach leaving behind nothing but noxious weeds and losses he had to work very hard to get rid of all the rabbits even though it may seem cruel but that's what happens to all animals if there are too many everyone else suffers and vice versa in the 1950s in the iberian peninsula rabbits were purposely infected with a virus to reduce their number but then there was a rabid epidemic and as a result they became a threatened species the population decline was not only a disaster for the rabbits themselves but also for the animals that ate them as a result the iberian lynx and spanish imperial eagle were also added to the list of endangered species because they simply had nothing to eat humans as always went too far let's stop being like that please see you later you

Channel: WATOP

Views: 5,859,180

Keywords: WATOP, Wa Top

Id: In2f9-JQNqs

Length: 8min 45sec (525 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 12 2021