Can you domesticate a cottontail rabbit

The duo mangled an account told by one Saint Gregory of Tours in the sixth century. Zeuner and Nachsteim got much of this wrong, and their miscitations led to the modern Pope Gregory myth. There was only ever the account of one man, rather than an official papal edict. That account clearly disapproved of eating rabbits during Lent, rather than condoning it. It said nothing about how popular rabbits were as food. It was the origin of the specious, by means of natural selection.

Archaeological evidence tells us that people in Spain and France were eating rabbits as early as the Epipaleolithic period, between 20, and 10, years ago. During the Middle Ages, they became a high-status food and people started carrying them across Europe. Theoretically, it should be possible to compare the genomes of wild and domestic rabbits living today, measure how different those genomes are, and work out how long they would have needed to acquire those differences.

Using this approach, Larson estimated that the common ancestor of domestic rabbits split away from its wild kin between 12, years and 17, years ago. Those dates seem far too old, and there are two big problems with them. First, to make these calculations, you need to know how quickly rabbit DNA changes over time—and scientists have estimated four such rates that differ substantially from each other. Larson thinks that probably is the case. Rabbits are among the most recently tamed animals, and yet neither history nor archaeology nor genetics can accurately pinpoint when they were domesticated.

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Stacy-MO New Member. I rescued a newborn cottontail bunny from my yard when my dog found and killed 5 of the 7. I rescued two, one died. The bunnies were hairless, I'm guessing I got them at 1 day of age. I have given this bunny formula, probiotics and centropes, the whole 9 yards. He is now taking formula twice a day and eating greens. Our intent was to release but he is very tame I'm afraid he would be killed immediately.

He is also half the size he should be. We are thinking the only chance of survival is to keep him as a pet but of course I keep reading that this is not a good idea. Can this be done? He I think it's a he crawls in my hand every time I hold it out, licks me like crazy, we are obviously in love with this little guy. Any advice would be appreciated.

I've heard its not a good idea - but I think in rare cases it can work. I watched some videos on youtube of different people with pet cottontails. In my opinion, you have to just see how it goes, he may seem tame now and then not so much as he matures. Or you could have a rare case when he could end up as a pet. I think only time will tell. My boyfriend has a cottontail as a pet rabbit and he seems just like any other pet rabbit. I think a lot of it has to do with handling them at a young age.

His rabbit is quicker, more agile, and has more "rabbit street smarts" than other rabbits, but loves being kept as a pet. The cottontail is way friendlier than his other domestic rabbit. If you wait too long to release the rabbit his chances of survival will decrease enormously.

He will be to used to life as a pet and will not be able to fend for himself in the wild. It kind of sounds like he may be a domestic rabbit. Rabbits are born naked and start to get fur a few days after birth. Hares are born fully furred. There are domestic rabbits who have the 'wild' colouring, so it can be a bit confusing if you don't know too much about the differences.

Do you have pictures of him? It would be much easier to try to determine if he is actually a hare or is a rabbit.

EileenH Well-Known Member. I'm a wildlife rehabber, and know enough by now that I can't talk people out of doing what they want to do. I will just never understand why people want to keep a wildrabbit as a pet, when it deserves to be wild, when there are soooooooooooooooo many domestic rabbits sitting in shelters that would just love to have a home, and probably will never get one.

EileenH wrote: I'm a wildlife rehabber, and know enough by now that I can't talk people out of doing what they want to do. LindseyG Well-Known Member. JadeIcing Well-Known Member. Keep in mind that if you keep it and it was to get sick most gets can't treat it.

LakeCondo Well-Known Member. But still, even without vet treatment, the odds are that it would live longer than in the wild. Elliot wrote: EileenH wrote: I'm a wildlife rehabber, and know enough by now that I can't talk people out of doing what they want to do.

I'm not going to get into an argument here. But this baby did not need a home, it needed to get to a rehabilitator that would have gotten him in with others of its kind so it could grow up normally and be released to the wild.