During most of the year, the cottontail's home is a resting place or form concealed in a dense clump of grass, under a brush pile or in a thicket. For her young, the female digs a nest cavity in the ground which she lines and covers with grass and fur plucked from her belly. The nest is commonly placed in a well-drained spot. Cottontails often move along regular paths, wearing trails or runways in the vegetation, snow or under brush piles. They are active mostly at night and early in the morning, spending the rest of the day in their forms.
Rabbits feed almost entirely on plants, their choice depending upon seasonal availability.
The three most preferred foods during all seasons are bluegrass, wheat and white clover. Other choice foods that are heavily used when available are red clover, Korean lespedeza, small and common crabgrass, timothy and common chess. Some sedges, forbs and cultivated plants also are relished. When heavy snow covers their usual foods, they eat buds, twigs, bark and sprouts of shrubs, vines and trees. Rabbits can subsist on a diet of these woody plants but do not maintain a healthy condition.