Cottontail Rabbit

The most distinctive features of the cottontail are it's long hind legs and short white tail. An adult cottontail is about 15 to 18 inches long and weighs between two and three pounds. It varies in color from gray to brown and has a rust colored patch on the back of its neck.

A cottontail is attracted to field and cover edges and early successional, or weedy, habitats. The cottontail can be found almost anywhere two types of cover meet; however, it prefers a mixture of grass, forbs such as wildflowers or weeds, and dense thorny shrubs. It most prefers ground cover that is a mixture of open areas and dense vegetation. In Texas, fence rows, stream sides, and roadsides are among the locations where this type of habitat may be found.

The Conservation Reserve Program has allowed for the development of excellent habitat in which weeds grow before planted grasses become established. However, after two years these fields become pure stands of grass which will not support many rabbits.

A cottontail must rely on shrubs or woody cover for escape cover, and the denser and thornier that cover is, the better the rabbit likes it. Succulent forbs are also necessary for nutrition. Habitat that is capable of supporting cottontails is decreasing throughout the rabbit's range, as a result of aging and deteriorating shelter belts, the removal of hedge rows, the farming of roadsides, and the overgrazing of pastures, stream banks and lake shores.

A rabbit uses above-ground structures called "fomms" and underground holes such as those of armadillo for escape and shelter. Fomms are pockets the rabbit creates
by trampling down small areas of grass and small shrubs. It uses fomms at night and during daytime rest periods throughout the year, even during the reproductive period. After her litter is born, the female cottontail stays in a fomm near the nest, only visiting her nest at dawn and dusk. The cottontail uses underground holes for emergency escape throughout the year and during winter for shelter.  A rabbit nest is generally a shallow depression that the female digs and lines with grass and fur. Because the female does not stay at the nest after the litter is born, she covers the young with grass and fur to help protect them from predators while she is away.

You may see a cottontail at any time of the day or night but the rabbit is most active at dusk and dawn. Its activity during midday is greatly decreased unless the sky is heavily overcast.

Different behavior patterns are used by a threatened rabbit. If the danger is far away, it may freeze and remain motionless, using its background as camouflage. When the threat is near, the rabbit moves quickly to nearby thick cover such as a thicket or brush pile. When cornered, it may thump its pursuer with a hind foot to stun it and then make a break for freedom. A rabbit will generally  make a shrill,
high-pitched squeal when it is captured or injured.

A cottontail may easily go into shock when captured. A person who finds it necessary to handle a cottontail should cover the captured or injured rabbit's eyes and handle it very slowly and carefully.

A cottontail produces two types of droppings -- hard and brown or soft and green. The softer pellets are eaten again to further break down food. This is called coprophagy.  Being basically a vegetarian, the cottontail eats primarily grasses and legumes, such as clover and lespedezas, during the growing season. A young rabbit consumes a considerable amount of forbs such as dandelions, ragweed and prickly lettuce. It eats numerous crops such as soybeans, wheat, oats and corn, and during the non growing season, young shoots and buds. When more preferred foods
are scarce its diet may also include twigs and bark, and when other foods are not available, it may resort to eating non plant foods such as snails, small insects or carrion.

Young rabbits are an easy to catch and plentiful food for many predator species from foxes, bobcats and  coyotes to birds of prey, making them a very important part of the food chain. As vegetative habitat dries in the fall, escape cover is reduced and the rabbits become more and more exposed to predators. Many of the young produced each spring and summer are not alive by winter and even fewer are available for breeding the next spring. This is the typical reproductive strategy of such a highly used prey species -- produce large numbers of young quickly to ensure that some will survive to reproduce the next year.

Predation is the primary direct cause of mortality for the cottontail. Poor habitat conditions, disease and severe weather can all increase its chances of being taken by a predator.  Numerous parasites and diseases also directly affect rabbits. The bacterial disease tularemia can cause a rabbit to be more susceptible to predation by making it less able to detect potentially dangerous movement or to evade capture.

Tularemia is a bacterial disease of rabbits that is transmittable to man, usually through openings in the skin. Hunters who notice small white or yellow spots on the surface of the rabbit's liver when they are field dressing it should discard the entire rabbit immediately. During the early stages of the disease the liver can appear normal, though the infected rabbit may behave oddly, move slowly or be easily captured. It is a good idea to wear rubber gloves when dressing a rabbit and it is important to always cook rabbit meat thoroughly. Tularemia is transmitted between rabbits by fleas and ticks. Rabbits die from the disease, so it is not a problem once there has been a good hard frost and the temperature remains cool. A hard frost kills ticks and fleas which carry the disease, and a rabbit infected prior to the freeze will normally die within a few days of contracting the disease.