This is my post for #freewriters 2251 prompt proclaim your love hosted by @mariannewest
The more I read about raising a wild baby rabbit the more I am convinced that the best thing for him is to not release him back into the wild. They say a rabbit should not be released alone. They say other groups of rabbits will not accept him into their group or warren as they called it.
He is so scared of anything new, I can not think about how he would be in the wild, having never been outside. I decided he needed a litter pan to catch his pee. We went to the pet store and bought a bag of litter for rabbits. My husband took the top off of a tin that cookies came in and we filled it with the litter material and put it in his pen.
He would not come out of his house, he would stick his head out and look strangely at his litterbox. After a couple of hours, I picked him up and set him on top of the litter, he ran back to his house like I ran up on him and said BOO!! I did this a few times and he ran from it each time.
I thought it might be the red pan so I covered the front of it with paper, he still would not come out of his house. so I covered the entire thing with paper and after about 30 minutes he came out of his house and jumped on top of it. I did what @flaxz told me to do which was place some of his poop on top of it so he knew to go there and it worked. I have tried taking the paper off and he runs and hides. I am hoping he will get used to it. I have now started putting slits in the paper so he can see the white litter underneath it. I will keep trying with the paper off and hopefully, he will get used to it.
Since I have no choice but to keep him, I will now proclaim my love for him and start calling him Rudy, I did not want to give him a name but if I am going to keep him, he has to have a name.
I found him on Dec 2nd, this is Jan. 14, and he has grown a lot since then.
.photos are mine