Sounds interesting. Now where do I find a goose decoy?

Rabbits around here are not even afraid of me. If I stomp my feet and tell them to go away, they just stare at me.

For any tender new growth, I would recommend a little fence.

Sammy

I ended up putting up a fence around an entire part of one of my gardens because the rabbits and groundhogs were just destroying my plants. 3 feet high and about 125 feet in length. No more damage since I did this.

Get a cat.

Lead poison will take care of them. Actually I use a
live trap. Catch them and transport them across the
river. You can get geese decoys at Gander Mountain,
Cabelas, and most hunting outfitters. I may try this.

John

I don't know what lead poison is, but there must be a better solution that won't also kill any carrion eater that consumes the dead rabbit.

Fencing helps. Our jacks will dig under a fence, so we must ride the fenceline to fill their rabbit holes about once a month. The alternative is to bury the wire 18 inches.

A lead bullet from a gun.

Goose decoys can be found at sporting goods stores, or at www.cabelas.com or www.llbean.com, and perhaps even at Bass Pro Shops. If none of these places appeal to you, go to Google, and I am sure there will be plenty of sites to find them. Now, about the rabbits, once upon a time, I lived in a home with a large, chain-link fenced in back yard. Our Schnauzer controlled that area. He never bothered the roses in the large garden areas, but he kept the squirrels, rabbits, and other critters out. I'm sure that if I had lived in the country and had a rabbit problem, a 12 guage shotgun or a .22 would have handled the problem nicely as well. Locally, now, if there is some sort of problem like that I can apply to the city for a varience to shoot them if necessary. Fortunately, with the number of dogs around here, we never see rabbits unless we go outside the city limits. Also, the coyotes outside the city limits handle them pretty well too.

Aahhh, thank you, jlalfred. Sorry to be so dense. My pointers are jack eradication machines. Friends and family are not pleased.

DW used a rubber snake to keep birds from nesting in a door decoration once. It worked, so we used it in flowerbeds where rabbits munch the verbenas and snapdragons. It worked for a while if we moved it around, then the rabbits figured it out. Now we apply blood meal. It works, too, as long as we use every time it rains or we us a sprinkler.

I think goose decoys are worth a try. One of DW's cousins used real stuffed coyotes to keep rabbits away, but they lived out in the country.

DW's late grandfather used to put pop bottle lids (before aluminum cans!) on his watermelons to keep the coyotes at bay, and my father used a flashing yellow light in his watermelon patch. Both methods worked.

I've been thinking about a motion dectector that triggers a low-noise speaker, too.

Gary

Gary - how would the watermelon/bottle lids work? Sounds strange but intersting! :)

If anyone tries the geese - let us know!

Carol

Thus far, I have been able to warn off the rabbit varmints by alternating blood meal, bone meal, and milorganite sprinkled heavily around the outside edges of my garden. I have many big, fat rabbits, so I think it helps. Of course, a deer has been visiting my gardens this week and chomped all blooms from Welcome Home last night. I sprinkled this evening and hope that fella moves along. We'll see.

Someone please explain--how does bloodmeal deter rabbits?

Kate

Someone please explain--how does bloodmeal deter rabbits?

The smell of blood implies there is an active predator around...a recent kill...something a bunny wants to avoid.

I put up a short fence of hardware cloth to keep the rabbits from eating the roses to the ground. Lately a pair of Coopers Hawks has been hanging around. :^)

Be careful with the bloodmeal as it will attract dogs. I tried using it around my raspberries and my dog went and dug up one of the raspberry bushes looking for a dead rabbit.

Hey, I saw they decoy idea too...anyone tried it? I fully intended to spray my bushes with "Skoot" this fall but winter arrived with a bang, one day it was fall the next it was freezing cold and snowing. the rabbits have taken full advantage yet again!

I have real snakes and I still have rabbits getting into my rose bed area. The only thing that I have found that works is a fence that is at least 2 feet tall and has openings that are no bigger than 1" and a concrete footing so they can't dig under the fence. The problem is the openings for the gates. We finally got one gate rabbitproofed but now we have to do two more.
Oh and I do have 9 dogs but when I put one of them in to get the rabbits, they do more harm by running over my plants and breaking them.

My cats will eat everything except the squirrels they cannot catch. Which is all the squirrels of course. Just far too fast and limber those little critters. So three cats = no rabbits in our yard. I use the sling shot on the squirrels a lot and often. I've found this is the only way to get my point across. There are still the raccoons however..,

Kate

I have been using stuff called critter ridder, it is mostley peppers of different kinds (cayan...) the smell makes the rabbits eyes water. I have to reaply after rains. I have also heard of placing a string around your garden about 2 inches above the ground that has been soaked in Aloe vera gel, for some reason they do not like it.
Liane

My belief is that shooting doesn't do any good; there are always so many more bunnies where those came from. As for cats - the bunnies think that my big Maine Coon is awfully cute! He returns the complement.

Ingrid

In my rural garden which was surrounded by acres of woods & pasture, I collected bags of hair from the local beauty salon. I used it together with Milorganite and it did seem to help. Like others, I have had problems with bloodmeal attracting dogs. At the arboretum here we have NO problem with rabbits at all; I believe that's because we had a large litter of foxes born under the barn and we have foxes on patrol. They ate all the bunnies & then started in on the barn cats...

agility mom, you got my attention! How did you rabbit proof your gate? We have a wrought iron fence around our front garden, and after much rabbit-induced frustration we installed hardware fabric over it, and dug it down at least a foot, to prevent digging. It was a huge job, and it did take something away from the fence, but was worth it (we thought) as the problem went away - for a while! Last winter I did notice some rabbit tracks in the snow, and some damage to some of my roses, but blamed the kids for leaving the gate open. We could not dig the wire down under the gate of course, but brought the sharp, pointy edge of it down to about 1.5" above the walk. Because of a slight incline, we could not bring it down further, but assumed no critter could squeeze under that. Well, we were wrong! A week ago I looked out and saw a big fat rabbit munching away at my Belinda's Dream. The gate was closed, so I thought he had gotten in earlier, when it may have been left open. I decided to go out there to give him a good fright, thinking he would be trapped. Not so!!! He went under the gate without as much as a pause! HOW DO THEY DO IT????? Do they collapse their bone structure? Even their scull? Anyway, unless you have some magic way to fix the gate, I am giving up on my front yard garden. I'm enclosing a pic so you can see what I am talking about. Thanks.

{{gwi:314110}}

Elisabeth

No help with the rabbits, I'm afraid, but what a gorgeous house!
The only thing that works for me with rabbits is hardware cloth in a circle around each rose, which isn't the prettiest thing.

Thank you opheliathornvt. I have thought about doing the hardware cloth around the bushes, but I have about 80-85 roses out there, and it probably wouldn't look right. I'm pushing this to the top, hoping agility_mom (or anyone else who have solved a similar problem) will see my question.

Elisabeth

I have one of those Have-a-Heart traps that is worthless.

I have had LITTLE help here in suggestions for baiting the trap.

OK! Just how does one catch a female rabbit to put into the trap to entice a male rabbit to join it?

Nice house, BTW

Foghorn

Elizabeth Rose, what a gorgeous victorian! Lucky you!

Rabbits do seem to be magicians, don't they? Hate them. A good hunting cat or a tenacious terrier can help, but don't give up on the roses.