Repelling rabbits. Need quick solution.

The neighbor's rabbits are coming through the fence to graze in our yard.

We are in the beginning stages of putting in a permaculture food forest and have many plants that cost us much money and time in their immature stages of growth - some in the ground = some in pots.

The neighbors are probably not going to do anything about it. We have asked them to keep the rabbits caged, and they say they will, and then the rabbits show up again.

Complaining to the city might well start some sort of protracted conflict, which we do not want.

We have chicken wire to put along the 100 foot fence. That will take time. There are lots of other things to do right now.

What we need is ways to deter the rabbits that we can quickly implement.

I do not want to gross anyone out, but now is the time to be very practical, and I have heard of people successfully repelling rabbits with urine. If folks have successfully done this, please let me know specifics of how you did it. How much, where, how often, etc.

Anything else which folks have successfully used - I would like to know.

Speculation and brainstorming are welcome, as they catalyze ideas, and please say that is what it is. No time for blind alleys and wild goose chases.

Thank you.

You are all wonderful people and I appreciate you very much.

Pamela Melcher

What about this stuff?

http://www.extremelygreen.com/product.cfm?name=hinder%20deer%20%26%20rabbit%20repellent

Also if you have lots of used cat litter that can be used however there could be toxoplasma gondii problems with that.

Max,

Thanks for replying.

Sounds promising.

Have you used it successfully or known anyone who has?

Thanks again.

Pamela Melcher

When nature gives you rabbits......................make stew...

They are the neighbor's rabbits - we want to get along. Killing them is out of the question. Thanks for replying.

Put in the chicken wire and get it done with -- even if it's on short metal stakes or stapled to a wooden fence. Just get it tight to the ground and you only need about 18" high to keep most rabbits out..

There's lots of talk of 'bone sauce' on permies at the moment...
A swipe of that along the neighbour's side of the fence should do the job!

Thanks for replying.

Good news? It will mostly work if I do not dig it 6" into the ground? The belief that I have to dig a trench 6" deep in the ground for the fence is very daunting - and would take a long time, as the soil is VERY, VERY rocky. I have to use a pickax to dig in the soil to plant anything.

If I do not need to dig 6" into the ground, I can put it up quite fast.

Oooh upside, the RABBIT would have a very hard time digging a hole in that soil!!! I think I have answered my own question.

I have enough 2 foot wide chicken wire. There is a 6 foot board fence that I can staple it to.

I could hill soil up from our side onto the fence. I have lots of clay to use for I do not know what yet. That might make the wood fence rot faster. The fence is old.

Better, I can hill rocks up against the chicken wire. I have LOTS of rocks!!!

The rabbits are tame rabbits coming in from the neighbor's yard. This is a fairly densely settled suburb, and there are no wild rabbits coming in. I have seen the same little rabbit - with very characteristic markings.

The fence is the very common design that is 6" wide boards nailed so that they slightly offset each other on opposite sides of a 2x2, so there are spaces between the boards.

The neighbors have piled some things about 2 feet high against the fence and I hope the rabbit does not jump up on them and jump through the fence. Then it will not be able to get back home. I hope it is smart enough to know that. We'll see. If it does that, I will put up 2 more feet of chicken wire, totalling 4 feet of chicken wire. That would be easy to do, easier than going along the ground, but expensive.

Thanks again for replying.

Abundance for All.

Pamela Melcher

get a "root injector" for injecting water and nutrients down into tree roots. can also use it to dig holes for bareroots, just use a fork to open up sides of holes, they will be slicked , not good for root extension, but easy ! and can get around rocks easily

turn it on, and work your way down the fence line, cutting in a 3" deep channel on fence line.
staple fence on, you will have a 2" deep trench left, but no extra dirt.
throw all rocks toward fence.

In the meantime, just roll it out on the ground along the fenceline. most wild animals won't walk on wire on purpose, but rabbits will. dang.
would try it anyway.

gotta be a red meat eater to get urine to work.

Morgan, big thanks for telling me that it would be a waste of energy to try to repel rabbits with my vegan - I'll just come right out and say it, since it is some of the best fertiizer in the world - urine. Saves me a lot of time and mess.

Will see how just taking it down to the ground and pinning the chicken wire down and mounding rocks against it and the fence will work, given that the soil is sooo rocky. I do not think the rabbits can dig holes in it, or would want to.

Glad to know there could be plan b,c,d...

Concerning blood meal, there is mad cow disease in the US, more than they are reporting, and it is not destroyed by composting. Nasty. So those handling blood meal should know that they might get mad cow disease from it. Ditto with handling bones I bet the bone sauce has no mad cow disease in it!!!

Looking for 2 cast iron kettles and a grill......

Some credible people hypothesize that some of the Alzheimer's patients actually have mad cow disease.

Another reason to go vegan.

I will let you all know how this goes with the rabbits. What works, what does not, and hopefully, why.

These forums are amazing.

Thanks to you all

Pamela Melcher

Beagle puppy.

I use a motion activated sprinkler to scare away little animals who threaten my garden. The sudden sound of the sprinkler and the spray of water run just about everything away. Plus the garden gets a little extra water.

'works for me

Tom

How did you set up your motion detector/sprinkler system? I tried to do one once with an irrigation valve (12v IIRC - maybe 24v); that was the easy part. The part I never did get working was the motion detector so I just used a doorbell. It was a low priority cat repeller.

Rufus

I just bought one off the shelf at Walmart. I think it was called a "Scarecrow"

Works fine

I've used a white plastic shopping bag attached to a 18 inch wooden stake for scaring off deer and rabbits. Tie the bag so it waves or fills up with air in the wind. The sudden noises and flashing white will scare critters away in the short term. Both deer and rabbits used their white tails to warn others of danger. The bag uses this instinct to your advantage. The key is to move it around so they don't get used to it being in one area. This might buy enough time to get a fence or for the plants to outgrow the threat. I've also heard of people tying a kite to a tall post so it looks like a swooping bird of prey. This can be very effective if you can find a long piece of bamboo that'll bend and whip around a bit in the breeze.

Thanks, Graig. I need some extra time - so many things that need to be done all at once that I have not yet gotten to building the fence.

Pamela

So you prefer to wait until everything is eaten and then put up the fence? It will not take you long
to attach that chicken wire to the existing fence. You can perfect it later.

I speak from experience as recently as last year when I expanded my kitchen garden. It took them
a few days to find the gaps in the fence that I was going to fix but didn't. Rabbits don't fool around.

Alex - thanks...I thought it had to be super rabbitproof from the start. I know where they are mostly coming through, and can easily make that into something that will really stop them, and quickly get something fairly good along the 100 feet, and then go back to fix any areas that they might get through.

Thanks for telling me your experience.

When they last got in 2 years ago, we were able to persuade the neighbor to keep them in their cage and we never saw the full extent of what they are capable of.

Glad to hear the voice of experience.
Best.
Pamela

Alex, You helped me see where I need to set my priorities. Thanks.

You could also go to the neighbor and nicely mention that you're going to eat the food from your garden even if you have to eat the rabbits to accomplish that end.

"Either I'm eating the carrots, or I'm eating the rabbit that eats the carrots." OR Send him a bill for the cost of feeding his animals.

Pamela Melcher wrote:Alex, You helped me see where I need to set my priorities. Thanks.

O.K., now I will give you a GOLD STAR if you come back on here and tell us you have made an attempt
to remedy the situation using materials you have on hand and with no additional expense.

Years ago a golfer named Roberto DeVincenzo played a final round at the Masters that led the field but
he signed an incorrect scorecard and cost himself the tournament. His comment is what you say when you
know you have fixable rabbit problems and don't fix it, he said: "I AM A STUPID!" I made that comment verbatim last year.

I'm kind of kind of embarrassed to show you guys this photo, but please be gentle with me - it's one of my other half's experiments, not mine!

He ploughed up a bit of the land that has been abandoned for thirty years to see if he could grow some more 'farm scale' crops down there. This was supposed to be some kind of bean (I know, I know - no mulch, monocrop, I'm cringing as I type this). He planted a strip 6ft wide and about 50 yards long. Two days ago, the rabbits started working along from one end.



I decided to try watering them with diluted pee, so I took a 10 litre watering can and a 5 litre piss-pot down there yesterday. I put a third of the pee into the watering can, then topped it up with water worked my way along the strip trying to ensure each plant had a dose of stinky pee-water. I repeated this until I'd run out of pee, then left my water-bucket along the path to mark where I'd got to.



This morning I returned with more pee to finish the job. I walked along the path and noticed that the plants I'd treated hadn't been touched overnight. But as soon as I reached the bucket, marking where I'd treated to, there was an enormous patch of nibbled off plants!

I've treated the rest of them now, so hopefully we'll find out if the effect is lasting.

I'm also starting to treat around the edges of a big square patch of a different type of bean. I don't really want to walk amongst the plants, but maybe if I go right round the edge the rabbits won't want to cross it.

row cover also works...white, lightweight, cheeseclothy stuff if you can find some...works great...good luck

In an area that size I would think the rabbits will leave you something. It may turn out that they will have done a nice
job of thinning for you. You are basically just messing up the experiment. I think a philosophical attitude is in order on
something like this. I am in a different situation where I need everything to be a huge success to even get enough to eat.
Something caused a few of my bean vines to wither up and it is taking 2 or 3 days to get enough beans make a meal out of.
I had to replant and hope for a better late crop.

Update.

The pee worked very well - there was no more damage, though the place did smell pretty awful.

That is, *until* my other half decided that he simply *had* to water them and took the pump down there and drenched everything. I was out of action when he did that so I couldn't top up the piddle treatment. Within three days, the rabbits had cleared every single one of those beans.

We did discover that the variety of bean is important - we had other types (I'll have to double check which are which) that have been completely untouched, even without the piddle treatment.

I've persuaded him to agree to a modified version of the experiment next year. When we put the pee on the mulch around the cabbages , it seemed to keep working even though we watered things occasionally. So next year he's going to plant the beans in rows, I'm going to mulch over the top of them, treat the whole area of mulch, then as the beans come up I can continue to apply pee to the mulch between the rows of beans. Hopefully, that way some of the smell will stick even when he does water everything.

perhaps you think this is totally crazy but you can try it. I have heard of a woman who got all the moles in her garden to leave by lying down next to a hole which she opened up a bit and she spoke to the moles and asked them nicely to leave. this is a true story. If you dont think you can talk to the rabbits yourself, maybe ask an animal whisperer to come and help out. Crazy?

I refuse to declare anything to be crazy! Just because you don't know how something might work doesn't mean it doesn't work. And the only way to find out if something doesn't work is to try it!

For my own land though, I've no intention of asking the rabbits, or hares, to leave. So much of Portugal has been smothered with pine and eucalyptus that patches of land like the ten acres we 'rescued' below our little farm are vital havens for small grazing animals. The Iberian lynx, which is rather dependent on a healthy rabbit population, is already believed to be extinct in the wild here. I want to find ways of living in harmony with the dwindling survivors. That means keeping them out of our main growing area as much as possible, but experimenting with crops and techniques so that we can share the rest of the land. I might end up getting an air rifle to 'harvest' a few, but I'm not even certain about that.

I'd happily persuade the wild boar to leave though - they are quite happy in the grass-free forest and they seem to like digging up the corn!

At least my three experimental fruit trees with the bone sauce have survived down there. So far!

Folks, I finally got the rabbit fence done, and have seen no rabbits or evidence of rabbits since its completion.

There were many delays, but I persevered, and it is done.

Thank you all for your support and suggestions

I think it makes a lot of sense to talk with the rabbits and ask them to leave. Animals are very smart and listen and communicate with us.

Happiness, Health, Peace an Abundance for All!

Many Thanks and Many Blessings,
Pamela Melcher

Congratulations!