Any solutions for rabbits eating garden plants
My area has wild rabbits and they are eating my baby garden plants. It's not the first year I've had this problem. I caught one in the act and it froze and gave me it's best "aren't I cute look". That no longer works on me. I don't want to kill them but would love suggestions on how to repel/deter them.
Comments
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Yes, I also need suggestion on how to deter the wild rabbits in my area. We have fencing around the garden for the deer, but even if we put additional fencing with smaller openings, I have tried that before, and they still find their way in.
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We also have issues with rabbits so I end up covering everything with chicken wire, you might be able to deter them with hot chili pepper around the plants and/or on the plants. Our population has been reduce and I am assuming it is due to the coyotes and owls we have in the area and that may help is to create a habitat for owls.
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In my area, rabbits seem to go through cycles. We are in a rabbit deficient cycle right now. But when they are in at the opposite end of the cycle, we have to use chicken wire to protect newly set out plants and young starts. We have raised beds and surround each bed (as required) with small gauge (1") chicken wire. Its expensive but we have bought some every year to spread out the expense. Some can be rotated depending on what you have going so not all beds have to be protected at the same time. We don't see as many bunnies during the heat of summer as we do in the spring and fall. In the fall, I protect the root crops with chicken wire. One year they got nearly all my beets. They were still growing and looked fine but when harvested, the beets all had chunks taken out of them. Some of the damage may have been done by gophers, too. Difficult to tell the culprit unless you can catch one with a purple face. 😂
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There is something like liquid fence. I think the parie homestead is where I saw a recipe.
I have never tried it myself.
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Thanks for the suggestions.
@Jens , yes I found the liquid fence recipe on the prairie homestead. Apparently it stinks really bad so I may keep it as plan B and try hot peppers first.
I don't own any chicken wire so hopefully one of the above will take care of the problem before all my garden is destroyed.
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Update (with fingers crossed) my rabbit problem seems to have eased up. I used onions and hot peppers. Warning, this may be TMI... the thought popped in my head that human urine may keep them away. So I've been peeing in a cup and pouring it around my baby plants that were getting eaten and so far, no more fatalities.
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My father's solution involved a .22 rifle...
However, the best solution is to improve your fencing. Find out how they are getting in. Look for tracks, signs of digging under the fence, gaps, and so forth, then plug the gaps and make sure they can't dig under the fence.
I knew I would be facing woodchucks, so when my fence was installed it was buried a few inches into the ground and turned under to make digging harder. When I found a burrow under it, I put a brick in the middle of the burrow and then filled and packed the dirt around the brick to make it very difficult to dig there again.
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We used electric fencing about 6-8 inches from the ground. It was a weed burner so that plants touching would be burned back instead of grounding it and draining energy.
I like the idea of using urine because it fertilizes the plants at the same time (as long as it's not too much).
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@Tave "We used electric fencing about 6-8 inches from the ground."
Wouldn't rabbits be able to run freely under under a 6-inch-high wire?
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How big are the rabbits? You could put it at 4". It would take a really smart animal to duck enough not to touch it. All they need to do is touch it once to know not to do it again.
We had one a little higher for the goats. One would take a running start and do a homerun slide under it. My dad threw her on the fence, so she got a good feel for it and never did it again.
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I'm going to have to remember this thread. The property and house where we're moving to has a bunch of them around. So I have a feeling I'm going to be dealing with them once I get my garden beds set up.😕
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We have tried the human urine thing repeatedly. Didn't help. We also bought cougar scent from a local hunting store thinking it might keep the deer away. Didn't work.
Don't have a problem with rabbits this year but lots of gophers. A bobcat has been patrolling the hay fields just up the road from us and seems to be making a pretty good dent in the population. But that's not good for domestic livestock, either.
@JennyT Upstate South Carolina Its much easier to plan for problems before they occur. When you are fencing your new garden area, it is always a good idea to have some of the fencing buried. Not just rabbits that will go under fencing.
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My parents tried every imaginable trick to keep deer away. Hanging aluminum pans that banged around in the wind and made noise, glass coke bottles half-buried to let the wind blow across them and supposedly make a scary noise, and so on. Pretty much every bit of lore that was suggested by someone was tried.
In the end, the only thing that worked for them was a stout deer fence.
I don't think there is any cheap shortcut to keep deer out of a garden. Deer populations have been rising in many areas because they like the mix of woods and open areas that is often found in suburbia.
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We've been working on putting individual fences around each of the raised garden beds to keep the rabbits out of my greens, peas and beans. They don't seem interested in the potatoes or some of the other stuff.
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I personally use the pee method to repel deer and cayenne pepper powder to keep mammals off my plants (deer, rabbits, squirrels, etc.). The reason why there are so many of these primary consumers is that we push predators away (and kill them) that would usually maintain their population levels. An example would be the Kaibab deer (link below). This is also why the killing of wolves in Idaho is really bad: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/idaho-bill-90-percent-of-wolves-to-be-killed
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@marjstratton Potato greens are bitter and poisonous due to solanine content, so most animals won't eat them. Potatoes are one thing you can usually get away with growing outside a fence, unprotected.
Edible greens like lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and similar plants are at the other extreme. They can be mowed down in a single day by a hungry animal and will not recover.
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Yes, I know the little rabbit mowers all to well!
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We use man pee and I put out people and dog hair around the garden every year. It seems to slow down the deer and the rabbits. We live out in the country and have an abundance of both. I ask the local beauty shop to save me hair and use it in the compost as well as critter repellent.
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Deer used to eat my potato greens as well as everything else in the garden that was surrounded by an electric fence. I sunk a lot of money into that garden so we had no choice but to eat the deer instead. At least it was organic and well fed!
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Deer can be persistent buggers, and unfortunately many parts of the US have deer populations that are above the comfortable carrying capacity of the ecosystem. It's not surprising that they will eat stuff that is toxic in an attempt to get enough food.
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