getting rid of rabbits . . .

[gardenmom5]

anyone have a tried and true method?  I've had plants that have completely disappeared.  Some - I was looking at in February and thinking about watching them bloom.  a couple days ago, I went and looked for them as I wanted to move them - they're gone.  completely gone.  Not the only flowers that have disappeared - and I've not only seen rabbit pellets - I've been seeing multiple rabbits.

so - how to get rid of them?  fencing is not practical - and I'd have to rip out a lot of plants (salal is native and provides great cover) to have no where for rabbits to hide in my large yard.

[Laura Corin]

If fencing won't work, I would ask around to see what rabbits won't eat and replant.  For me, spiny, woody and pungent plants work.  Alliums, lavender, roses, daffodils, grape hyacinths, various tough shrubs.

[Hilltopmom]

Trap them and eat them?

 

[mom@shiloh]

I sprinkle moth balls around the plants that the rabbits are likely to eat and they leave them alone.

 

[itsheresomewhere]

Human hair.  It tends to repel them from the garden.  

[Spy Car]

1 hour ago, Hilltopmom said:

Trap them and eat them?

 

My thinking exactly.

Bill

[Slache]

Don't eat the bunnies!

[PrincessMommy]

trap them and release elsewhere?   I did that with a pesky groundhog.  I also have a rabbit problem and i think they're eating my hostas.

This stuff works wonderfully but you do have to reapply after rain:

https://www.amazon.com/BONIDE-PRODUCTS-BND238-Animal-Repellent/dp/B001E4R2SO/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=animal+repellent+spray&qid=1586477195&sr=8-5

It smells terrible.

Edited April 10, 2020 by PrincessMommy

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Hilltopmom said:

Trap them and eat them?

 

 

That was my thought too.    Rabbit stew.  

[Pen]

55 minutes ago, itsheresomewhere said:

Human hair.  It tends to repel them from the garden.  

 

Really?  Does it work for anything else and how much is needed and what do u do with it?

[itsheresomewhere]

5 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Really?  Does it work for anything else and how much is needed and what do u do with it?

Sprinkle it around the plants.  It repels the rabbits pretty well.  You have to replace it after a hard rain or after 4-6 weeks.   It does not repel a groundhog. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by itsheresomewhere

[Slache]

10 minutes ago, Pen said:

Really?  Does it work for anything else and how much is needed and what do u do with it?

We used it to keep deer out of our roses. I just cleaned my hairbrush out and wrapped it around my roses. 100% success. No experience with bunnies.

#savethebunnies

[Pen]

5 minutes ago, Slache said:

We used it to keep deer out of our roses. I just cleaned my hairbrush out and wrapped it around my roses. 100% success. No experience with bunnies.

#savethebunnies

 

I hope that’s good news.  

Bunnies like roses?

Bunnies here prefer vegetables. I think. 

 

[PrincessMommy]

1 minute ago, Pen said:

 

I hope that’s good news.  

Bunnies like roses?

Bunnies here prefer vegetables. I think. 

 

LOL - I think she was talking about hair working to repel the deer who ate her roses, but not sure if hair will repel bunnies.  🙂  

 

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, Hilltopmom said:

Trap them and eat them?

 

I ordered two traps.  I have a very large yard, and I've seen them on opposite sides of my house.   we'll see how trapping works.  we'll probably kill them and leave them for a coyote to eat.   maybe the coyotes will come back and catch them themselves.   we used to have coyotes (even saw a fox once.  and our neighbor had a bear), but I haven't seen many for years.

10 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I hope that’s good news.  

Bunnies like roses?

Bunnies here prefer vegetables. I think. 

 

anything nice and tender.  like new growth from flowers too.

[Slache]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

I hope that’s good news.  

Bunnies like roses?

Bunnies here prefer vegetables. I think. 

 

No, I was only sharing my hair info. I don't know anything about bunnies except what I learned from Bambi.

#savethebunnies

[cjzimmer1]

I'm no bunny lover here.  My property is less than 1/5 of the acre, remove the space occupied by the house, driveway and I really don't have that much lawn and yet it's not uncommon to find 10-15 rabbits sunning themselves in my yard on a daily basis.  My sister lives in the country on 10 acres she doesn't have near the rabbit problems I have.  The bunny lovers will be horrified but we will kill every single one that gives us an opportunity.  We usually exterminate a couple of nests each spring but it honestly seems to have no bearing on the number of bunnies that feel the need to call my yard home.

[MercyA]

2 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

I'm no bunny lover here.  My property is less than 1/5 of the acre, remove the space occupied by the house, driveway and I really don't have that much lawn and yet it's not uncommon to find 10-15 rabbits sunning themselves in my yard on a daily basis.  My sister lives in the country on 10 acres she doesn't have near the rabbit problems I have.  The bunny lovers will be horrified but we will kill every single one that gives us an opportunity.  We usually exterminate a couple of nests each spring but it honestly seems to have no bearing on the number of bunnies that feel the need to call my yard home.

Ah, I'd love to have that many bunnies to watch from the windows. We only have two or three right now and they are so sweet.

Honestly, it was probably the bunnies' yard before it was yours. 🙂

"Exterminating nests" is an interesting euphemism. 

Just curious--in what way are they harming you? 

I'm really not trying to be a jerk. I just really don't get this.

Edited April 10, 2020 by MercyA

[MercyA]

I love you, @Slache. ❤️

I don't know anything about hair. My mom has reported that human pee does not seem to work. 😁They put up netting around especially precious plants but resort to kindness if necessary. 🙂 

[cjzimmer1]

12 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Ah, I'd love to have that many bunnies to watch from the windows. We only have two or three right now and they are so sweet.

Honestly, it was probably the bunnies' yard before it was yours. 🙂

"Exterminating nests" is an interesting euphemism. 

Just curious--in what way are they harming you? 

They ate off my cherry tree (when it was still young) ate my blueberry plants, decimate my flowers every year, chewed through the plastic fencing on my garden and then stripped the garden (now it has wire fence), hop into my pots that are anywhere between 18-24 off the ground and eat whatever is young and tender there (my daughter was chasing them out of the pots today again) and on and on.  Pretty much, they eat any and everything when it comes to food I'm trying to grow for my family plus put a serious dent in anything pretty I try to grow.  If they would stick to the grass, weeds and dandelions we could co exist but they have little desire to eat those things.

As far as whose yard, I suppose they probably where here first but they didn't become a problem until I started a garden (we had been hear at least 5 years by that point) and then they just multipled in my yard.  Even my sister has noticed there are far more rabbits in my yard than anywhere else in the subdivision.  There are hundreds of yards, they really don't ALL need to live in my yard. I suspect some of it is many of the neighbors have dogs (we don't - allergies) and they probably keep them out of those yards.

Edited April 10, 2020 by cjzimmer1

[MercyA]

1 minute ago, cjzimmer1 said:

They ate off my cherry tree (when it was still young) ate my blueberry plants, decimate my flowers every year, chewed through the plastic fencing on my garden and then stripped the garden (now it has wire fence), hop into my pots that are anywhere between 18-24 off the ground and eat whatever is young and tender there (my daughter was chasing them out of the pots today again) and on and on.  Pretty much, they eat any and everything when it comes to food I'm trying to grow for my family plus put a serious dent in anything pretty I try to grow.  If they would stick to the grass, weeds and dandelions we could co exist but they have little desire to eat those things.

I have to be honest and say that I value a conscious being over any flowers but I get your concern over the food plants. I guess I'd put anything edible behind the wire fence or netting.

Killing rabbits over ornamental plants doesn't seem kind or necessary to me.

Dandelions are delicious! If only they could understand English maybe you could all come to an agreement. 🙂 

Thanks for the reply!

[cjzimmer1]

1 minute ago, MercyA said:

I have to be honest and say that I value a conscious being over any flowers but I get your concern over the food plants. I guess I'd put anything edible behind the wire fence or netting.

Killing rabbits over ornamental plants doesn't seem kind or necessary to me.

Dandelions are delicious! If only they could understand English maybe you could all come to an agreement. 🙂 

Thanks for the reply!

To be fair the area of flowers is about 8 feet long by 2 feet deep.  The areas of vegetable is about 10x that space.  Pretty much the entire area surrounding my house grows veggies so unless I'm fencing in my house, it's pretty hard to keep them out (they hop over 2 feet fences).  I also have a rock wall that runs through my yard,  The entire length of the top of it is filled with pots of veggies and then I have an actual garden (that is fenced) so killing them isn't really about the flowers but it's one of many things they damage/destroy each year.  I get my plants for free or I probably would have given up long ago.

[Corraleno]

55 minutes ago, cjzimmer1 said:

As far as whose yard, I suppose they probably where here first but they didn't become a problem until I started a garden (we had been hear at least 5 years by that point) and then they just multipled in my yard.  Even my sister has noticed there are far more rabbits in my yard than anywhere else in the subdivision.  There are hundreds of yards, they really don't ALL need to live in my yard. I suspect some of it is many of the neighbors have dogs (we don't - allergies) and they probably keep them out of those yards.

Are you allergic to nonshedding dogs? Even a little Maltese or Bichon or something would probably keep them out of your yard and save all your plants without having to resort to killing them.

I can't even imagine killing baby bunnies on purpose, no matter what they were eating. 😥

[gardenmom5]

43 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Are you allergic to nonshedding dogs? Even a little Maltese or Bichon or something would probably keep them out of your yard and save all your plants without having to resort to killing them.

 

the size and shape of a yard will dictate what size dog will work.  the rabbits will only avoid where the dog has left their scent.  I didn't have rabbits until they built some houses uphill from me.  then they moved here.  I've been here over 35 years, and have had rabbits for <5 years.

 

a number of years ago, our area had a terrible rabbit problem on a freeway offramp.  they lived on the slope that backed to a restaurant parking lot.  and they'd spill into that parking lot.  those rabbits were a hazard.  not just for the cars that were driving and the risk of rabbits darting in front of a car triggering a driver to swerve, but the sanitary issues of rabbit droppings all over near a restaurant, as well as the contamination of the storm drains.  while one or two might be "cute" - when you have a massive population it stops being "cute".  the city/state/whomever had jurisdiction ended up with quite the project to trap ever last rabbit - because if you have two rabbits . . . you will have may rabbits.

Edited April 10, 2020 by gardenmom5

[Pen]

I have some stuff of various sorts to deter birds, deer and other eaters away from my blueberries —  reflective tape that blows in wind, hot pepper and garlic spray    I wonder if any of that works for rabbits.  We have cats. I don’t like the cats in the vegetable garden, but I suspect they (and even more so hawks) are rabbit deterrents.

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Pen

[MercyA]

@cjzimmer1, wow, that is a lot of veggies!

It's too bad most dog groomers are shut down right now--dog hair clippings would probably work great! Maybe you could borrow a dog to walk through the garden? I'd definitely try rabbit repellants. 

[PrincessMommy]

1 minute ago, MercyA said:

@cjzimmer1, wow, that is a lot of veggies!

It's too bad most dog groomers are shut down right now--dog hair clippings would probably work great! Maybe you could borrow a dog to walk through the garden? I'd definitely try rabbit repellants. 

I have a dog, his smells do not seem to deter any critters in our yard: deer, ground hogs, rabbits....

[MercyA]

1 minute ago, PrincessMommy said:

I have a dog, his smells do not seem to deter any critters in our yard: deer, ground hogs, rabbits....

That is interesting. Another poster said barking scared away rabbits. Maybe it is the actual threat rather than the scent? Does your dog chase the rabbits?

[MercyA]

7 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Are you allergic to nonshedding dogs? Even a little Maltese or Bichon or something would probably keep them out of your yard and save all your plants without having to resort to killing them.

And little dogs are easily popped in a sink once or twice a week for a bath. My husband and I are both slightly allergic to dogs and we have no problems when we give frequent baths.

[Joker]

I must have really weird bunnies. Our backyard is full of them but the yard is also full of flowers every year. They truly don't seem to destroy any of them. They definitely nibble here and there though. We have veggies too and they take some but not all.

Our problem is our dog thinks the baby bunnies are hers to play with so we have to pen off a section of the yard for a few months every year to keep her from harming them. 

[klmama]

When I planted lettuce, the bunnies appeared in droves.  We fenced the raised garden beds, and that helped.  Occasionally, deer still eat over the top of the fence.  My neighbor has a huge garden and put an 8 foot fence around it to keep out deer and rabbits.  It doesn't stop the raccoons, through.  She also has pots on her patio for tomatoes, and she wraps them in wire with extra small holes. 

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

I have some stuff of various sorts to deter birds, deer and other eaters away from my blueberries —  reflective tape that blows in wind, hot pepper and garlic spray    I wonder if any of that works for rabbits.  We have cats. I don’t like the cats in the vegetable garden, but I suspect they (and even more so hawks) are rabbit deterrents.

 

I'd love to try strips of mylar in the fruit trees.  netting them has now become too difficult.   one year, a crow got stuck in the net.  dh went out to see what all the cawing as about.  he said it just laid in his hand while he freed it (and the other's shut up while he worked.).  as soon as it was free - they all took off.

we've tried spraying dave's insanity, but the rain just washes it away.  it could be used when it dries out.

1 hour ago, MercyA said:

@cjzimmer1, wow, that is a lot of veggies!

It's too bad most dog groomers are shut down right now--dog hair clippings would probably work great! Maybe you could borrow a dog to walk through the garden? I'd definitely try rabbit repellants. 

dh mowed dudeling's hair yesterday - so I'm going to try throwing some of that around too. even though he has my dense hair - it's not nearly enough

 

dear are rare enough (*maybe* once or twice a year.  *maybe*), they're a novelty.  though the day we got home from church to find FOUR bucks in my strawberry beds, we did wonder where all the neighborhood dogs were.  

Edited April 10, 2020 by gardenmom5

[Pen]

Maybe one could  plant a patch of delicious tender lettuces to keep rabbits away from other plants.   Sort of like a trap crop for undesirable bugs. 

(I was once with an organic farmer who had mulberries as a trap crop to keep eaters away from commercial crop fruit trees.  The mulberries were actually more tasty imo too, but the cherries made money.) 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Pen

[ScoutTN]

My dog is not too smart or obedient, but he does chase any critter in my yard and kill it if he catches it. Rabbits and moles. He will dig them up.  

He's not fast enough to catch squirrels, but he tries. 

Our neighbors' cats reduce the baby bunny population around here significantly. 

Bunnies are cute, but pesky. 

[MercyA]

50 minutes ago, Pen said:

Maybe one could  plant a patch of delicious tender lettuces to keep rabbits away from other plants.   Sort of like a trap crop for undesirable bugs. 

(I was once with an organic farmer who had mulberries as a trap crop to keep eaters away from commercial crop fruit trees.  The mulberries were actually more tasty imo too, but the cherries made money.) 

I did some googling and some people do plant a patch of clover on purpose, near where the bunnies tend to live or hide. 

[kbutton]

On 4/9/2020 at 12:49 PM, gardenmom5 said:

anyone have a tried and true method? 

 

19 hours ago, Hilltopmom said:

Trap them and eat them?

That is the only tried and true method I know of. If you have a large lot and it's safe where you are, a pellet gun would probably be easier than a trap. I can only assume they are delicious. We've had more trouble with squirrels than bunnies, but we have to keep an eye on the bunnies too. Squirrels are delicious, but a lot more work to skin (says DH).

14 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

 My property is less than 1/5 of the acre, remove the space occupied by the house, driveway and I really don't have that much lawn and yet it's not uncommon to find 10-15 rabbits sunning themselves in my yard on a daily basis.  My sister lives in the country on 10 acres she doesn't have near the rabbit problems I have.  

They are super fickle. They'll leave perfectly good food in one place to decimate something else ten feet away. They will ravage your yard one year and ignore it others.

Several years, we were the, um, "loveshack" for bunnies yard--to the point of feeling like looking out the window at all was voyeuristic. It was...excessive. Another year we were the yard where the males would fight. That was at least entertaining.

12 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

As far as whose yard, I suppose they probably where here first but they didn't become a problem until I started a garden (we had been hear at least 5 years by that point) and then they just multipled in my yard.  Even my sister has noticed there are far more rabbits in my yard than anywhere else in the subdivision.  There are hundreds of yards, they really don't ALL need to live in my yard. I suspect some of it is many of the neighbors have dogs (we don't - allergies) and they probably keep them out of those yards.

Fickle. Fickle. Fickle. 

Basically, if they want to be deterred, they can be, sometimes surprisingly quickly. If they don't, they just don't. And they can ruin hundreds of dollars of food and landscaping every year if they feel like it.

[HS Mom in NC]

We have 1.3 acres and .25 of it is a fenced orchard/veggie garden, but we've put it Dutch white clover over all of the the lawn to feed the wild rabbits and as a nitrogen fixer.  It's coming in fairly well considering the grass was already established. We planted last fall and again this spring. The idea is that the clover is everywhere, including right up next to the woods and there's tons of it, so the bunnies don't have as much of an incentive to try to get into the garden.  We'll see how it works. This is all new to us, but we got the idea from the permaculture Reddit. Fingers crossed.

[PrincessMommy]

5 hours ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

We have 1.3 acres and .25 of it is a fenced orchard/veggie garden, but we've put it Dutch white clover over all of the the lawn to feed the wild rabbits and as a nitrogen fixer.  It's coming in fairly well considering the grass was already established. We planted last fall and again this spring. The idea is that the clover is everywhere, including right up next to the woods and there's tons of it, so the bunnies don't have as much of an incentive to try to get into the garden.  We'll see how it works. This is all new to us, but we got the idea from the permaculture Reddit. Fingers crossed.

I love this idea.  Is it in part to avoid mowing.  I'm looking into options to help cut down  my lawn size and do less mowing.  I would love to make a meadow but I don't want it to look like an abandoned house.  So I'm looking at Stepables  (clover is one).    I like the idea of using the clover to keep the bunnies away from gardens. 

[HS Mom in NC]

2 hours ago, PrincessMommy said:

I love this idea.  Is it in part to avoid mowing.  I'm looking into options to help cut down  my lawn size and do less mowing.  I would love to make a meadow but I don't want it to look like an abandoned house.  So I'm looking at Stepables  (clover is one).    I like the idea of using the clover to keep the bunnies away from gardens. 

Our lawnbot is to avoid mowing.  We call it Chauncey.  It runs 24/7 and recharges in its station for a couple of hours a few times a day. We can control it from an app on our phones, via computer, or on the keypad on the hatch on the top of it.

Some people do use clover to avoid mowing, but be aware that when you do that you get blossoms. Bees absolutely love those blossoms and are all over them. Our lawnbot cuts at a uniform level and that keeps the blossoms cut off.

[PrincessMommy]

28 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Our lawnbot is to avoid mowing.  We call it Chauncey.  It runs 24/7 and recharges in its station for a couple of hours a few times a day. We can control it from an app on our phones, via computer, or on the keypad on the hatch on the top of it.

Some people do use clover to avoid mowing, but be aware that when you do that you get blossoms. Bees absolutely love those blossoms and are all over them. Our lawnbot cuts at a uniform level and that keeps the blossoms cut off.

wait...what?  Lawnbot?  What is this magical sounding device??!!!

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, parent said:

We don't have rabbit issues but use rat traps and pellet guns for squirrels.  I would go with a pellet gun.  And do not eat them.  Rabbits have worms.

can you kill them with a pellet gun?  or just scare them?  I've no interest I eating them - but I wouldn't mind luring back some coyotes.  we'd dump the mice we caught in the garage - something was eating them . . . . . 

 

[Ausmumof3]

My hubby has a solution but it’s not vegan friendly.  We do use for dog food so it’s not wasted.   It’s a legal requirement to control them on your property here because otherwise they breed out of control and outcompete all native species and destroy agriculture.  I figure his method is kinder than the scientifically approved one of releasing diseases that make them go blind and starve to death or get hit by a car.

my sis cat is a surprisingly good rabbit hunter.

[HS Mom in NC]

11 hours ago, PrincessMommy said:

wait...what?  Lawnbot?  What is this magical sounding device??!!!

 

[PrincessMommy]

2 hours ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

 

Be still my beating heart!   Oh my. I will definitely have to keep this idea in my back pocket.  It's out of our budget right now, and we still have an 18 yr old living at home.  But, when our ride-on mower dies, I may have to seriously consider one of these.  

[HS Mom in NC]

1 hour ago, PrincessMommy said:

Be still my beating heart!   Oh my. I will definitely have to keep this idea in my back pocket.  It's out of our budget right now, and we still have an 18 yr old living at home.  But, when our ride-on mower dies, I may have to seriously consider one of these.  

Ours is an overall win for us. We've had it for a year and a half.

We're still at the stage of landscaping where we're putting in new fencing, planting beds, and moving lawn lines,  so having the mower is higher maintenance for us.  It has a underground boundary wire that keeps it on the property and an underground guide wire that it follows back to the charging station.   As we change the landscaping we sometimes have to move the underground wires, which we can do ourselves more laboriously, or we can pay the dealer that sold it to us to use their little trenching machine to do it for us for a couple hundred dollars.  (The purchase and installation fees include putting the wires in, living with them for 4-6ish weeks, and adjusting if needed one time.  After that it's an additional fee.)  So all that to say it will be easier and cheaper for you in the future if you settle on your landscaping boundaries before you buy one.  The other option is to plan to save enough for an extra adjustment or two.

The property on the east of us is communally owned by the neighborhood for access into our communally owned 11 acre wetland.  The next property east of that is Kenny's the neighbor with whom we share lawn cutting duty with on that communally owned property.  I always wonder what that Kenny thinks as he rides his riding mower on the half he's responsible for at the same time Chauncey mows the half we're responsible for.

Buzzards stalked Chauncey once.  A whole flock of them (at least 45) landed on our house, then they walked behind it for about 10 minutes before flying to large tree across the street and watched it for another half hour.  I think they thought it was a wounded turtle.  I think it would be cool to pay an artist to paint it like a turtle.

The neighborhood dogs on walks hate it at first.  We have a ditch that runs along side the street in front of our house and a neighborhood full of dog walkers.  When Chauncey comes up the side of the ditch and straight for the street any dogs being walked freak out the first time or two.  Then they ignore it. It also borders our next door neighbor's chain link fence.  When the new neighbors moved in their dogs spent a couple of days on guard and barking at it a lot.  Then after a few days they don't care anymore.

[KungFuPanda]

My DH has been talking about setting snares to catch squirrels. I can’t even tell if he’s joking. He’s a city boy, so I hope so. There was a time in my childhood when squirrel gravy and dumplings was a favorite of mine, but I’m not sure u can go back. It’s been too long. I’m certainly not cleaning the thing. I’m not even sure these are the same squirrels. They look awfully small. 
 

It’s getting a little nutty at my house. 🤣