Alice, I don’t know the answer to your OP, but, think that CaerieD’s post was apt.
I worked at a wildlife shelter for a couple of years, and, was an adept baby cottontail rehabber. What that meant was that I had space for the babies at home, a quiet space, and had the knack for tube feeding the tiny wee buns; they are rather hard to tube feed in a noisy, active place. Once they were up and ready: eyes open, ears up, white forehead blaze gone, about the size of your palm, they needed to go out into their own life in the world.
Wild rabbits are “wired” differently than domestic rabbits. They are meant to be moving and feeding on fresh herbaceous plants, and, as a prey species, constantly on the alert via eyes and ears for predators. This important sensitivity is really detrimental in captivity. I learned the hard way by trying to over-nurture some early on, keeping them too long. there is a point that I call the “bunny veil”, where they stop being cute babies, and want to get out into their twitchy wild bunnyhood. Once they get to adolescence, they will not want to have anything to do with a human caretaker, and will crash about in a cage and damage themselves. They want to be out and move, and life in a rather loud human abode is painful to them at a real neurological level. I learned by having two cottontails break their backs by trying to be their wild selves.
I hope that doesn’t happen to your baby bun, and I sympathize with your student “Mom”. Bun Buns lend themselves to nurturing because of cuteness. Perhaps she can do better, but my experience says it’s not likely. As said in the posts here, to hold a wild creature as a pet is not legal. Besides the legality, you are denying that creature their birthright as a free being. With Bunnies, it was hard for me, raising them and knowing that, after all the effort, they might be prey in the wide world. But, that’s the natural order of cottontails.
Hope this helps you and your vet student to decide what to do with your bun. You’ll see the signs of wildness when you see them. In the meantime, try to gather fresh greens: clover, Daucus carota, wild strawberry , violet; all nutritious beyond dryed chows. Please look specifically at sites that deal with wild rabbits, not the domestic ones.
