Raising a leveret

[Hazel Hare]

Hello,

I am seeking advice about a leveret I am hand rearing. On a recent country walk we found a nest of dead leverets...or so we thought, one of them was still alive. By chance I was walking with a zoologist friend of mine, who examined the dead ones first and said they weren't diseased, just very thin. Rightly or wrongly, and after half an hour of deliberating, I decided to rescue the last surviving leveret. There were other people on the same public footpath with a dog, and I couldn't bear the thought of it getting eaten.
The first thing I did was to go on the internet for an hour, to decide whether to hand it into a wildlife rehabilitation centre or rear it myself, and there is so much information and support online for doing it yourself that I decided to give it a go!
That was 2 weeks ago, and 'Hazel' seems to be thriving..
The trouble is, the whole family has fallen in love with him!!
He seems to be very comfortable with us too... even sleeping on us. I'm fully aware that, especially being a jackrabbit, he could change and become unhandlable at about 6 weeks, in which case we will have a lovely day out and release him..But, if he becomes tame, I couldn't bear the thought of releasing him, (in fact, I've read on one site that it is a crime to release a tame animal to fend for itself in the wild.)
So, I would love some advice on keeping him as a pet, I know some people have done it, but there seems to be very conflicting advice on the internet. I have a very large garden which he can have the run of.
I know some hares die for no reason at 3 - 4 weeks, and we haven't got through that yet, but if we do, I'd love any advice about keeping a pet hare..
Many thanks
Hazel's Mummy x

[valleyforge]

Hi there HH and welcome to the WaB forum.

From a fostering point of view, you are clearly doing a better than acceptable job if you have managed to get the leveret to suckle and to continue to thrive.

Normally only very young leverets (up to 1 week old) stand any chance of being hand reared successfully, so well done for coping with that difficult initial task.

Conversely though, from the rehabilitation point of view, from what you have said you may already have severely compromised the hare's chances of long term survival and development as a wild animal.

It is always best to raise infant lagomorphs in groups, with others of its kind, so that might have been the clear benefit of handing it over to a wildlife rescue unit.

Whenever a solitary orphan (of any species) has to be raised, it is essential that human contact be minimized ... that is effectively restricted to just the care giver. If your whole family as you say has already had access, then that's not something that can readily be undone ... an overt fear of mankind is absolutely necessary in the natural world, especially for a prey animal such as a hare, where the flight instinct has to remain very tightly honed.

This hare may not become fully tame either, so may be unsuited to keep as a pet due to its unreadiness to settle. However, your alternative 'lovely day out' to release him could well be construed in law as abandonment of an animal unfit to survive in a wild state.

So there is a real quandary here that only you can resolve. My best advice would be to either rehome him as soon as possible with a wildlife rehabilitator who is already raising other 'orphan' leverets, or to reconcile yourself that you now have a responsibility of life-time care for the animal (hares can live up to 12 years if kept in a proper captive environment).

Perhaps on a more immediately helpful note ... because most infant mortality in fostered lagamorphs is due to enteritis (or inhalation pneumonia), regular accurate weight recording is important to objectively monitor progress, and to give early warning of problems. Due to a lack of 'milk oil' in fostered animals they lack an important antimicrobial factor, so you must ensure that only cooled boiled water and sterile feeding syringes/bottles/nipples are used.

Also before introducing the leveret to the garden it would be wise perhaps to have him vaccinated against both myxomatosis (6 weeks) and Viral Haemmorrhagic Disease [VHD] at 10 weeks of age.

[Gill Catton]

The term 'jack-rabbit' makes me wonder if this is a British happening?

[connerlake]

Just wondering how it is as of now?

[Hazel Hare]

Hello..
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, unfortunately my internet went down over the weekend and so I couldn't reply until now.

Sadly Hazel died yesterday. We feel devastated, because it was very sudden and unexpected. He was doing so well.
With the advice of my zoologist friend, I had only ever used sterilised syringes and containers from the start. I weighed him every morning and recorded weight, food quantities and made observational notes. He was within the guideline weight and was also consuming the recommended amounts of food.

On Sunday morning, Hazel seemed bloated. He had the same rounded belly that he had when he finished eating, only this was first thing in the morning, before his first feed of the day.
It did ring distant alarm bells, but he was still bright and skippy, so I deliberately gave him a smaller amount of milk than usual, about half, as it felt wrong to add to the fullness of his tummy. He must have felt the same way because he was not interested in the whole feed, and he stopped sucking the syringe himself after half the feed. I checked on him over the next couple hours and thought I detected a slight reduction in his bloatedness. We left him in peace and went out for a couple hours. When we returned for his feed, I was horrified to see he was lying down on his side and clearly not well.
I held him and heated up a little bit of his milk. (I had an immediate panic that because I had reduced his food that maybe he was wilting from
hunger?) I gave him one ml of milk, and was assessing taking him to the vet (typically it was a sunday) when he opened his mouth wide, gave a shudder and died. In my hands, just like that, in minutes, so quickly.
What ever the problem, it seemed that his feed definitely accelerated his death.

I am beating myself because I didn't run to the vet in the morning. I had read that bloating could be problematic, but his tummy wasn't 'taut' as described, and as he had eaten well the day before, I had half a mind that he was full.
I can't believe my internet connection wasn't working, and that it was a sunday..it hindered my ability to check out the situation, obviously had I known the grave danger he was in I would have called the vet at 8.30am and driven wherever to save him.

One thing, with hindsight, I wish I had had advice on, was the fact that he was a voracious feeder, guzzling greedily, whole body shaking. I could hear his tummy rumbling after a feed. I looked this up today and found a suggestion that if they feed like this, it might be a good idea to encourage lapping instead.

I feel terrible, have tears running down my cheeks as i type, so please don't be hard on me...as i am sure there is an element of blame that could be laid at my door, or there was something else i could have done, but i'm not sure
what. I should have handed it to a wildlife rehabilitator... but with the help of my zoologist friend, and reading the experiences of the handful of people that have done it I felt confident I could look after him. I would never have taken the task on if I felt I didn't have the time or compassion to cope with him.
In fact I have been torturing myself this afternoon, now my internet is back on, reading up on how other people have managed it, and one lady did everything 'wrong'.. she slept with it, gave it hourly feeds (with baby formula for the first week) took it for walks with a harness and yet she has a tame adult hare that survived. It doesn't seem fair.

After your post I realised I had absolutely compromised its fear of mankind. It was very friendly, and after a feed would settle and snooze in our laps. We were very prepared to keep it as a pet, twelve years is an easy commitment..I have juvenile tortoises, with a 120 year commitment!

I apologise if I used the term jack rabbit incorrectly. I simply used it quite flippently to describe a male hare, as it sounds more interesting, but if it a different species or an americanism I apologise.

Sorry about the epic post, I am finding it theraputic writing everything down. It was very well cared for, and content with no stress for the few weeks we had the privilege to care for it.
I console myself with the fact that I saved it from starvation or being eaten.

And while it lasted it was wonderful.

Many thanks

Hazel's Mum x

[Elevate29]

You honestly shouldn't feel so bad about this... I work at a wildlife hospital and baby rabbits are notoriously difficult to raise. Although we have successes there are inevitable moments when for some reason we lose them without warning. Very often we use a surrogate domestic rabbit to try and raise them as handrearing is so problematic.

Its always difficult when faced with something like this and I've seen many animals that we've spent time (often weeks) nurturing back to health only for them to suddenly go downhill for no apparent reason. Its worth remembering that you at least gave it a chance that it would have otherwise never had. At the end of the day its all we can do.

For what its worth I think you should be very proud that you gave it a chance and didn't just walk on by.

Elevate

[Marcia]

Hazel Mum, no-one here would ever be hard on you after all you've been through... I'm so sorry for your loss . You did your best, you kept him safe, warm and loved. I'm sure he'll be forever grateful for that. It's possible that he had the same underlying illness that took away the life of his siblings too, so unfortunately there was not much anyone could do to save him. Please don't feel guilty. <hugs>

[Nightranger]

It was a good effort and you did all the right things by doing some Internet research ahed of time. I have worked in a wild bird hospital so I know how things can go wrong and please don't think I am cold-hearted when I say that I learned not to get attached. I know this is easier said than done for most people (including my wife at the time) but the best thingis to know that you did nothing wrong. Feeding young animals is notoriously difficult without the experience but even if you have, it is not always easy to stop disease or provide the precise nutrition that is required. In this case, the fact that the other leverets may have died from malnutrition after being abandoned may be more than significant. Mammalian digestion systems start to digest themselves after a period of extreme starvation and the effects can be chronic even if the individual rallies initially. Poor Hazel was almost certainly in that kind of plight and without going into details the swollen belly tends to support the fact that his digestion system had failed in some way.

[valleyforge]

Really sorry to hear that it didn't work out.

I certainly don't think you should be too hard on yourself, nor am I being critical of your actions, but I think it is worth stressing to everyone on this forum that some mammals, leverets included, are so notoriously difficult to hand-rear that you are most often doing neither yourself or the animal any favours in attempting it.

Such cases are really best left to wildlife rehabilitators with the necessary skills, experience, and most importantly the appropriate veterinary backup, to react accordingly if and when things start to go wrong.

In this case of course, there is no telling if the outcome could have ever been any different ... in dealing with individual animals there are far too many variables to be able to generalize.

You should take solice though from the fact that you did care enough to at least provide a 'second chance' at life, and as everyone involved in wildlife rehabilitation knows only too well, not every casualty or orphan will survive, no matter the time, effort, compassion or heartache expended on its care.