I live in eastern Connecticut in a semi-rural area. My neighborhood was built 5-6 years ago, and is surrounded by woods. (We also have patches of woods between the house lots.) About 3 years ago, we noticed we had moles and voles. (Yes, I know the difference. The voles are also known as field mice.) I’ve been working on eradicating them, or at least keeping their numbers down, because the moles dig tunnels in my lawn, and the voles eat grooves in the grass and get into the garage and basement.
Anyway, the latest bit of wildlife that has shown up are little rabbits. Over the last couple of months, I’ve noticed one or two in the backyard. Lately I keep finding one in the front garden. And when we take our dog for a walk, we always see two or three around the neighborhood.
I don’t actually have any problem with rabbits, I think. (Coincidentally, I’m actually re-reading my old copy of Watership Down right now. :)) We don’t have a vegetable garden, and they’re very cute. Just out of curiosity, are rabbits generally a problem in and around a residential neighborhood? If we were to start a vegetable garden, will the rabbits eat everything?
We have a gang of rabbits that live in our neighbourhood and I think most people like them quite a bit.
There are some very effective ways to keep them from eating your garden if you decide to have one (Zest soap and cayanne pepper sprinkled on your plants, for instance).
I suppose as long as numbers don’t get out of control and they don’t start attracting predators, they should be ok. Well, unless you’re bunny phobic.
I love rabbits. I own pet rabbits. I’m a vegetarian partially for ethical reasons, and a semi-hippieish “humans are encroaching on the habitat of wild animals” type.
That being said, in previous years when I’ve grown gardens, I’ve (verbally) threatened the lives of the wild rabbits outside and even chucked rocks at them. Don’t worry, I have awful aim, and they were so unafraid of us that they barely had the decency to scoot a couple yards off if I’d charge at them and otherwise make threatening motions/sounds. The most I could ever manage was to drive them into the next lot where they’d look warily at me, and return after I went inside.
The little jerks ate leaves off our seedlings, including the tomato seedlings, killing or severely hindering the growth of many. I recommend small fencing/barriers at least for when the plants are small, and frequent application of anything you can find to drive them off - coyote urine preparations, pepper-containing granules, etc.
Apparently I love wildlife except when it eats my food.
We live in a rural area. The past few years I’ve noticed a huge increase in rabbit populations. This year for the first time we are seeing foxes and coyotes around.
Besides, our rabbits are wild and are only about a third of the size of the rabbit in the video. They’re smaller than the squirrels around here (though I hear that squirrels are high in cholesterol).
