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Rabbit Control for Gardeners

One of the most familiar animals in North Dakota is the Eastern cottontail rabbit.

The cottontail rabbit can cause serious damage to home vegetable gardens and ornamental plantings.

Cottontails eat many garden vegetables, especially lettuce, carrots, beans and peas. Where abundant they can eliminate landscape plantings and nursery and orchard stock.

Cottontails generally do the most damage in winter and early spring.

There are three ways in which rabbits and their larger cousins, hares, may be controlled: exclusion, repulsion, and removal.

Exclusion includes fencing and protection. For individual plants a fence is the best all-around protection for prevention of rabbit damage. A fence of two-foot wide chicken wire with the bottom tight to the ground and well staked will stop most rabbits. Be sure the mesh is one inch or less or young rabbits will be able to penetrate it.

The cost of such a fence for a 25 foot x 50 foot garden should be less than $25. You can roll it up and reuse it for several years. You can protect individual saplings or plants by encircling them with a cylinder of one quarter inch hardware cloth braced several inches from the stem. Take snow into account and make the cylinder so it will extend well above maximum snow depth. Some commercial wraps are available that you apply directly to the trunk.

Many people have tried repellents. Blood meal, bone meal, fish meal and mothballs spread between vegetable rows can provide some relief, but you must reapply after a rain. Chemical repellents usually contain the fungicide Thiram and give good results. You can mix Thiram-based repellents as a paint or spray. Apply them on a warm day in late fall to protect trees and shrubs during the dormant season.

Removal includes live trapping and relocation or shooting. In urban and suburban areas live trapping is as successful as, and less dangerous than firearms use. You can buy commercial live traps at garden center and hardware stores for $15-25. If you wish to make your own, county extension agents can supply plans for a very effective homemade wooden box trap.

For live-trapping, use shelled corn, sliced apples, or parsnips as bait. If the traps are of wire mesh construction, a small blanket or burlap bag may be draped over the rear half of the trap. This will make the trap more acceptable to the rabbit and will help reduce the number of animals that die from exposure.

If you have further questions, please contact your county office of the NDSU Extension Service.

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For More Information Contact your North Dakota County Extension Office of the NDSU Extension Service for additional information or see our main NDSU Web Page for publications and articles on Agriculture, Horticulture, Youth and Family, Business and Community and Food and Nutrition at  http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/