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Cottontail Rabbits
Colorado is home to three species of cottontail rabbits: the mountain, the desert, and the eastern cottontails.
About This Species
Almost everyone recognizes rabbits with their distinctive hopping gait and long ears. Colorado is home to three different species of cottontail rabbits; the mountain cottontail, the desert cottontail, and the eastern cottontail. The species of cottontails differ mostly by color and are difficult or impossible to distinguish in the field, except by habitat and geographic location.
Disease
Rabbit Papillomas
Rabbit papillomas are growths on the skin caused by the cottontail rabbit papillomavirus. The growths have no significant effects on wild rabbits unless they interfere with eating/drinking. Most infected cottontails can survive the viral infection, after which the growths will go away. For this reason, CPW does not recommend euthanizing rabbits with papillomas unless they are interfering with the rabbit’s ability to eat and drink.
What to Look For
Cause and Transmission
Like other papillomaviruses, this virus is specific to rabbits and does not cause disease in other species. There is a risk of transmission to domestic rabbits, especially if rabbits are housed outdoors where they may contact wild rabbits or biting insects. In domestic rabbits, the disease is more severe than in wild rabbits and should be treated by a veterinarian.
More Information:
Physical Characteristics
Cottontails are about 16 inches long and weigh about two pounds. Cottontails are smaller and have shorter ears than shoeshoe hares and jackrabbits. Also unlike hares, cottontails do not change color in the winter.
Range
Mountain cottontails live in the mountains and in the northwest, desert cottontails live in the southwest and on the eastern plains, eastern cottontails live in woodlands along watercourses in the east.
Habitat
Cottontails mostly live in brushy country. Therefore they may be favored by habitat disturbance, such as forest clearance, burning, and ornamental plantings. They spend the day in a shallow depression in the shelter of a thicket. Cottontails are a familiar sight across Colorado, including in urban and suburban areas.
Diet
They eat vegetation, both herbaceous and woody, feeding early morning and late afternoon throughout the year.
Reproduction
Reproduction takes place throughout the warmer months, with females giving birth to two to six litters of four to seven blind, pink young after a gestation period of about four weeks. Such high birth rates obviously must be balanced by high death rates or ecosystems would be overwhelmed by cottontails.
Threats to Species
The primary predators of adult cottontails are coyotes, foxes, hawks, and owls. Weasels and rattlesnakes prey on the young, and disease and parasites take a toll on all age groups. Maximum life span in the wild is no more than about a year. Human hunters kill 50,000 or more cottontails some years.