They have recently munched the tops off my onions, scoffed my sunflowers and eaten neighbouring spring onions and nasturtiums >:( Do they eat more established plants or just new growth ?? Not encountered them before so don't want my carefully nurtured plants becoming part of the bunnies salad bar....
any advice much appreciated
I reckon rabbits will eat anything that is easily got at. I know of a pet rabbit that chewed the tyres on a childs bike. When the rabbit was cooked it tasted rubbery. ;D ;D (an old Benny Hill joke)
If they can't eat it, they'll have a go at er, how do I put this politely, reproducing with it. No joke, my Aunt's cat was catching some rays & her pet rabbit climbed on board & started trying to make whoopee! Poor cat.
Poor cat! Sounds like I'll have to put a rabbit proof fence around the plot (well OH will ;D ;D ;)
We had a job to design some gardens in 18 acres of countryside and woodland. Naturally this area was infested with rabbits. We tried out some trial planting in different areas to see if the rabbits would eat them. Some they ate, some they left. We planted out with the plants the rabbits did not like and the next year they decided to change their diet and ate the'rabbit proof ones. There is only one half certain way. That is rabbit fencing. Even then you have to make sure they are all outside of it. They will jump a metre high fence for tempting food, I have seen them do it.
Hi Greenscamp,
If you only have a couple of rabbits have you tried to trap them? Traps here: http://www.ratbait.co.uk/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=223
I hate rabbits, a couple of years ago they ate every plant on my plot over night, every allotment on our site is now fenced in with seems to be working for now.
present home, Rabbits all around in open countryside, no sightings or 'evidence' in the garden, there are several Farm Cats who roam freely through the Village and they are very, very welcome in my garden (a bit of pooh here and there but easily found where they have made a bump burying it).
Last house, in Aberdeenshire Rabbits were a nightmare, again in open countryside. Local Estate would regularly have night shoots and Gamekeepers set traps, but population never seemed to decrease.
Plants they did not touch:
Cornflower, Holly, Adult Calendula (but they love seedlings), Monkshood, Adult Hosta, Primula/Polyanthus, Sweet William, Foxglove, Onion and Egyptian Onion, Roses, Brambles, Dogwood.
We never found a Rabbit proof veggie :(
A super book is 'Gardening with the Enemy' (sorry don't remember the Author) try your Libarary web site. A useful and very funny book, but not all the eat and don't eat lists worked for us in Scotland.
Best advice we can offer, get a Farm Cat or a Jack Russell
thanks all for the advice :) the lottie site does have fencing all round but there are obviously ways for the rabbits to get in. I think there are too many to trap adamand, people on site have suggested snaring and/or shooting or ferreting but as you point out mikey - they breed like rabbits :-\ Feral cats have been spotted about but the rabbits seem to be winning, also not really compatible with snaring.I reckon the best approach for the short term is to protect my plot with high enough barriers and then when autumn comes and the foliage dies back around the perimeter to make the outer fence as rabbit proof as poss. Know how Elmer Thud felt now ::) also shall not be planting out Calendula seedlings just yet.....
Encourage foxes?
Fencing round allotment sites keeps foxes out to some extent, but probably won't keep rabbits out.
Foxes cause considerably less crop damage than rabbits (which is why I can't understand why some people consider them to be vermin)
Just lock up your PET rabbits and chickens safely. And don't put fish blood and bone down as a general fertilizer. They love it!
There are badgers that manage to find away in, so maybe foxes too ?? badgers are quite keen on raspberries I here ::)
Rabbits seem to change their diet year by year. Some years they will eat our pinks down to the ground, this year they haven't touched them but have eaten the hostas. The foxes here will sit and watch the healthy rabbits, just looking for the sick ones that cannot run too fast. Rabbits ate all the new growth on our blackberries last year and the roses are bare up to about 18 inches. Young starter rabbits can get through quite small mess wire netting then nave a job to get out as they grow very much in a day or so if not spotted.
Just to let you Know i am still here and as i say will discreetly control your rabbits ;)