Spring has finally sprung in Illinois, and the sound of running lawnmowers can be heard everywhere you go. Before you fire up the mower again in the next few weeks, can you promise to do one important thing for me? Check your yard for rabbit nests!

Check Your Yard for Rabbit Nests and Save Yourself From Heartbreak

Yesterday afternoon I experienced something tragic. This story does not involve a lawnmower, but I will save you from the goriest details and just show you this...

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That is my dog Brooks with a prize he caught yesterday that he was very proud of. Needless to say, I was less than impressed.

Unfortunately, this picture was not the start of my tragic story, it was only the continuation of what I experienced two hours prior.

The Sad Tale of Peter Rabbit's Baby

Upon getting home from work yesterday, I let our puppy Gentry outside. He came in about 15 minutes later and disappeared somewhere in the house. When I called for him a few minutes later, he came and spit out a pile of bloody guts at my feet. I nearly puked cleaning up the remains of what I assumed was a mouse, but it wasn't until Brooks brought me his prize several hours later that I realized we had a baby bunny situation on our hands.

I will spare you all the details of what happened after I took that picture of Brooks, but I will tell you this, he did not kill the baby bunny, and I quickly had to locate the nest he stole the bunny from.

What Does a Rabbit Nest Look Like?

Finding rabbit nests in your yard during the spring is a common occurrence, but it has never happened to me before. Here's what you need to be looking for so you don't have a dead baby bunny situation on your hands and have to cry your eyes out...

Here's what you should do if you discover a nest in your yard according to reconnectwithnature.org;

If you have a rabbit nest in your yard, do not disturb it. People often think the babies have been abandoned, but the mother rabbit usually only visits the babies to nurse them twice a day — once in the morning and once in the evening.

I now feel even worse for the Mama rabbit who returned to our yard last night to discover two of her babies missing. Reconnect With Nature's article also says to keep dogs and other animals out of the nest, place an upside-down laundry basket over the hole and place a heavy brick on top of it so other animals can't move it, but mama rabbit can still reach her babies.

Please learn from my mistakes, and check your yard for rabbit nests right away...or you'll be sorry...and feel sick to your stomach.

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