Conservation Guardians of Northwest Illinois

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That Pesky Wrabbit...

Spring 2004 Newsletter

The cottontail rabbit, Sylvilagus floridanus, is the gardener’s curse, but Mother Nature must hold it in high regard. Otherwise she wouldn’t produce so many of them.

Rabbits are nocturnal, non-territorial herbivores that inhabit woodlands, brush areas, and suburban and country yards. They eat buds, grasses, leaves, berries, and bark. Rabbits seem to especially like the young shoots of flower and vegetable gardens.

Rabbits have an unusual digestive system that requires that they eat their first excretion of soften green pellets, which are then stored for further absorption through a different digestive tract. The second excretion is of the familiar hard, brown pellets.

The male rabbit is called a buck, the female a doe, and the offspring kits or kittens. Rabbits are prolific. A doe can produce five litters averaging six kits from March to late September. Females from the first litter can produce their own litter as early as June and the multiplication continues.

However, only about 15 per cent of young rabbits survive their first year. Rabbits are an important food source for many predatory birds, mammals, and snakes and thus play an important role in the circle of life.