Whoops...

This morning, I woke up at my sister's house and she was all agitated. She said her bunny had been up all night, making noise and banging around in his cage. She was pissed off, but worried, because a lot of his fur had fallen out while he was so agitated.

We got to talking, and all of a sudden, Valentino let out this god-awful screech, and Judy ran over to make sure he was ok.

All of a sudden she starts screaming, "His intestines are falling out! We have to find a vet! OH MY GOD!"

And then, "Holy crap, we've got babies."

I walked over and saw a bunch of little squirming bodies, and I too said, "Holy crap."

I called Joe over, and he looked in and said, "Holy crap"...

Once we got our heads together, I called the General, who said, "Holy crap"...

Yes, we all had the exact same reaction.

Valentina (as she is now known), proudly cleaned her babies off and left the cage, which is what mama rabbits are apparently supposed to do. I hate to say this, but baby bunnies are BUTT UGLY little things. They're so ugly, they're precious.

We had little choice but to go to work, and this afternoon I went back to look after them while I rested my leg from a rather taxing weekend (more on that later)... The babies were transferred to a warm, safe nest made out of towels, and unfortunately 2 of them were dead. But we still have 5, kicking and screaming, 2 of whom we've named Rocky and Rambo for their willingness to kick the tail (or face) of anyone who gets too close. There's also a silvery skinned one we've named Switzerland (or Suisse for short) for her refusal to get involved in any sort of conflict with her siblings, and 2 white ones who are as of yet unnamed. The 2 babies who died will be buried in our backyard, under some new snowball bushes we just got. We had named one of them Lazarus since it seemed like he was dead and then he made a miraculous recovery throughout the afternoon... But he didn't quite look normal, so I'm not surprised he died. The other we named Job.

The above picture is Valley sitting on the babies within 5 minutes of their birth...