I solved two problems at once: A friend had given me an entire bowlful of garlic seeds, the pinkish bulblets harvested from mature Red garlic gone to seed. There must've been 300 of them. I planted them 2" apart, clear around my entire garden perimeter. In one season, they grew up quite close together, forming a garlic "Fence". No rabbit would dare taste a mouthful of that twice, and I've never had a problem since. Plus, I now have a lifetime's supply of garlic!

Pam's suggestion seems brilliant--and attractive! I always use dried sheep's blood--the plants love the extra nitrogen. You do have to reapply after watering or rain--but it works, and after awhile the rabbits quit coming arorund. I quit applying atr that point, and start RE-applying whne I see new instances of damage.

I don't actively kill critters (Though I COMPLETELY understand the impulse), but I don't try and preserve them, either. My neighbor,however, does! She has a wildlife rehabilitators liscense and takes in all kids of critters--including baby squirrels that have somehow fallen from their nests. The tree-rat population in our neighborhood is VERY high. We love her anyway--even those of us that view hurricanes as Mother Nature's version of Squirrel Population Control.

I just wish she'd quit feeding the deer...

melanie

We each have to figure out what works best. I have a simple rule. If it invades my garden, it is open season. I can't afford to put the amount of time and effort into gardening that is required to produce a crop both for food and for seed just to lose that crop to wildlife. This includes rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, deer, etc. Being kindhearted to animals also means taking appropriate action to prevent overpopulation. As mentioned above, if they overpopulate, they starve. This has happened in the past with squirrels, rabbits, rats, and many other wild creatures.

Fusion

Rabbits were eating all the new tender young leaves on my dwarf nandina bushes and biting to the ground other plants that they would not eat such as St. John's Wort. I got a ceramic owl that is a decent size; he has shiny eyes and I placed him in my flower bed that was most attractive to Brer Rabbit. The owl is the natural enemy of the rabbit; so Brer Rabbit apparently became afraid of my ceramic owl and has not visited the favored flower bed at all this Spring.

I have had very good results with sprinkling garlic powder all around my garden. I do think I am going to keep planting garlic as well. I like the idea of a garlic fence! :-)

A combo of two things seems to work for me and I have plenty of rabbits around. First, I brush off my cat around the perimeter of the garden (easy & lots of hair shedded this time of year). Second, I collect my urine and pour it around the perimeter of the garden after each rain (best done with gallon jugs, funnel, good aim, and in a garage ;o). Of course these actions are best initiated BEFORE the wabbits find the food first. vgkg

True tale:
I have a friend with a parrot. Once, when she happened to be in a "nesting" mood, he brought home one of those fake owls to scare the birds from his front porch. When he got his package in his house, he noticed the owl was on top and it might frighten his parrot. Instead, the parrot walked up to the owl and said, "Hello, big boy."

In the past, I have used a rubber snake to keep birds from nesting in swags or wreaths. It might work on small rabbits, too. I have also planted garlic to chase away aphids. A cottontail is eating one of my new Brigadoon roses (leaving three other roses out front alone). It is the tenderest of the four, though, and almost did not make the transplanting in early March. The rubber snake was put out this afternoon, but garlic/habinero/marigold concoction will be my next effort if the snake does not work.

Hi,

Plant some cucumber's around your garden, they won't disturb your garden very much. On TV they said that rabbit's HATE cucumbers. Or you can leaves some whole cucumbers around your garden, I don't think they will bother your garden anymore! Garlic and buying a cheap fence will work.

Organic_Man

i have 2 dogs,skipper & sweetie boy & girl respectively skipper shreds squirrels and rabbits and sweetie kills crows
and hunt them with a pellet gun so they have never been a problem...rabbit meat is drier tasting than chicken

flamo

I bought a product called Bobex that works fairly well, but the same as others have posted, it has to be reapplied after rain. It contains cayenne pepper. I like GaryStPaul's recipe. I'll try it, too.
I noticed no one has mentioned kitty litter (used!). I read it on a Jerry Baker advertisement. Since I have a cat, I decided to try it. No lose or expense. It works great. Like the big cat urine, it does smell bad at first but it disapates(?) before very long. It worked so well along my back fence that I couldn't chase a rabbit OUT of my yard where I had put the kitty litter. He just ran along the fence until he found a place to get out where I hadn't put the litter. So, if you have a cat, it's worth a try.
Pam

have you considered chicken wire and wooden stakes to support it?at home depot they offer various hieghts/widths of wire very reasonably priced i might add to keep critters out of your garden.at our local home depot the tallest hieght was 5 ft and widths up to well over 100 ft - i think thats pretty good.

I agree with the person who posted the comment re. natural preditors. Last year we had a neighborhood fox and the rabbit population was minimal. This year we haven't seen our fox and we have rabbits running everywhere. I don't think our neighbors would like us killing rabbits, so we go without plants. I have spent a lot of money on sprays and what not with little success. So far chicken wire is the only cure all. I'm an animal lover but we have screwed up the natural balance. Like some idiot probably shot the fox. Good luck all!

Someone mentioned cat hair but I wanted to also suggest dog hair if you have dogs. I have a fence around my garden, but bunnies can squeeze through very small openings. I have dogs, but they sleep indoors at night, which was bunny hunting time. I tossed some of the hair from brushing my dogs around the openings and the carnage stopped. You could probably get a bag of hair from a local groomer if you don't have a pet.

I read the information about the rabbits and keeping them out of my plants but need to know if anyone has found something to keep the squirrels out.My 2 dogs chase them when they are outside...but they are not out for 24 hours and I'm sure the squirrels know when they are out there--I had a few gourds drying on the picnic table only to find that they had chewed the tops off--I need help soon..Gourds are starting to get big--Thanks

If nobody's mentioned it, strong-smelling herbs like dill and basil can deter small fuzzy critters at best... And at worst, it's something else for them to chomp on. Rabbits won't go near my herb garden, while I watched a deer chomp a basil plant all the way to the ground. It was well worth it to enjoy seeing deer in the yard, and it grew right back in a few weeks.

But yeah, cats and foxes are the best deterents, and there's the .30-06 final solution (which I reserve for the racoons in the attic, which are more a health hazard and a source of property damage than a nusiance. Rabbits and squirrels are beneficial by comparison).

Any suggestion on raccoons? I've just suddenly learned that my problem could also be squirrels. Whaterver they are, every morning they attack the lawn leaving tuffs. They gotta go! I lost my big dog recently and can't get another one for a while. Mother suggested moth balls???
Thanks for any help

Fence!!!
I have planted garlic aroung my last vegetable bed. A few days ago it was eaten together with radish, tomatoes, alpine strawberries. I gave up completely.
Now instead of spending for chemicals and etc, I will try to save some for fence.

I can attest to the effectiveness of blood and bone meal. I really doubted til I tried it and it repelled the bunnies form my garden. Have used dog/cat doo around my ornamentals too.

I actually have lots of rabbits since I live against a National Forest. I planted a rabbit garden patch, against the fence line that they come through to my yard. After all its not their fault we have encroached on their means of survival. So I planted, lettuce, carrots, radishes things that they like to eat. It has proven to work very well and my daughter likes to go to the rabbit patch after meals and leave the leftover salads or vegi's we did not eat (minus dressing). We also added 4 of the self feeding water bottles with the metal lick thing, so that the rabbits have water all the time, available, at local pet stores. To most people rabbits are pests, but with patience and understanding on my part, they have left my beautiful garden alone content with the one I made for them.

We bought an expensive repellant that seems to work - looked on the label and it was 1% garlic and 99% inert ingredients. We went to the dollar store and bought a giant jar (21 oz) of dehydrated (very strong smelling) garlic and so far so good! Unless the resident rabbit is just giving birth this week! You do get a wiff of the garlic smell once in awhile, but if it works - no problem!

Try placing mason jars over sticks in the corners of your garden.I had never heard of it either but my husband asked someone recently why they had these jars in their garden and the man said he does everything organic and that he had a massive rabbit problem and since he has done the jars on a stick (at rabbit eye level) he hasn't had any problems at all.Has something to do with reflections.And he mentioned something about the moon & Stars reflection also.We are gonna try it.Will let ya know what happens.

I had a lot of my bedding plants bitten off the night after I planted them last year, probably by deer or rabbits - we have plenty of both! I used several approaches to protecting remaining plants and future plantings until they got larger. I made small tents out of scraps of either aluminum or fiberglass screening material to protect many of the plants (aluminum works better but use what you have on hand). Use about a 2 ft x 1 ft piece, fold it back on itself loosely and staple two sides together with an ordinary desk stapler. Then thread a piece of stiff wire through opposite sides making wire long enough to stick in ground about 6 inches and to bend over a couple of inches at the top so it won't pull through the screen. I also wrapped tomato cages with screening or pieces of deer netting (see below) up about 18 inches. Finally for covering larger ground areas (like beans, lettuce, beets, etc), I used a product called deer netting (3/4 inch mesh) which sells in 7 foot x 100 ft rolls. I made simple reusable wooden supports to hold the netting about 15 inches off the ground and fastened the netting to the ground with garden staples. This deer netting approach is described in more detail in an article at the link below. All of these measures were removed when the plants got too large for them, but by then the plants could survive occasional light nibblings. I have also used with some success strips of dryer fabric softener sheets , soap chunks and various homemade repelllent sprays (recipes found online) to protect cucumber plants for much longer since our deer like to nibble the tips off and can significantly damage fairly large plants. I suspect also that the "initial protection only" described above was usually enough because by the time the plants were larger there was much more naturally growing food available for the wild animals.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Protect Garden Bedding Plants from Deer and Rabbits

I'd say just make good use of the resources available to you. After the first hard frost start planting bullet plants in the rabbit population and make yourself a nice rabbit stew. Rabbits are Delicious.

plant (make) a living fence of garlic cloves all around your garden and in all 4 directions for and from each plant you want to protect . 3 inches apart from each clove plus every plant should stop squirrels and other animals. leave them in permanently . if this fails get a "Havahart" trap .

My feeling is anything that can be eaten should be. If you got a garden with corn, eat corn. If you got a garden with beans, eat beans. If you got a garden with rabbits, eat rabbits. It works.

I have a problem with rabbits eating the newly sprouted green beans. Oddly enough, after the plants get bigger, they leave them alone, but I have to re-seed several times to get enough big ones. The woman at the garden center told me to sprinkle baby powder around the garden, she said it works for her. She said to buy a large container of generic baby powder, so I can redo it after a rain. I haven't tried it yet this year, but I will.Last year I tried soap, but something actually ate the soap.
My neighbor keeps a transistor radio playing in his garden to keep the deer out, maybe that will work for rabbits, too. I wonder what kind of music they hate................

I just had a vision of looking out my kitchen window and seeing a line of rabbits in the garde doing the bunny hop to the music. Rofl

I have a question/statement to the people that are making assumptions on population estimates. Are you basing your statements of animals becoming overpopulated in your area based on scientific population estimate surveys done by local wildlife officals or based solely on your seeing animals in and around on your property that particular season? If it is the latter, that doesn't give you an accurate estimate of whether a population is actually overpopulated or not. As for relocation, there are several studies indicating that relocation can be detrimental and inhumane in most cases for the animal. They are being introduced to an unfamilar territory which is often occupied by other species, they have to compete for food (which may be forgein to them), find new lodging and are unaware of where/what predators are in the area. These animals if not killed during defending territory/predators often starve to death. Relocation often benefits the persons conscience rather than for the animal itself. Your best option is to deter the animal from your property in the first place, by not making it attractive to them. Like mentioned earlier, dogs are a great deterant. If that is not a possibility or you are unwilling to do so, then the only humane options are to either learn to live with the animal claiming habitat on your property or kill it humanely (poison, drowning and beating are NOT humane). Even though poison is legal for purchase, unfortunatley it does not mean it is humane and often causes a prolonged painful death for the animal and often many others indirectly. I have seen many birds of prey succumb to poison that a rodent had ingested after eating the rodent. I have also seen this happen to people pets. So incase anyone is wondering what makes my opinion valid....I am a wildlife biologist for the Canadian government. I also have a nuisance animal control business and have worked in wildife medicine/pathology for 20 years. I have had a rabbit living in my 30' x 40' yard for 2 years now. I myself, just plant extra, so I still have plenty of food for myself. Because I choose to grow my food without the use of pesticides, I expect to lose part of my crop to animals/insects/weather every year. The area I live in has been developed and therefore has become this rabbits habitat. It was my actions of growing the food in my garden that attracted it here. Since I'm not willing to stop growing my own food, I accept this animal lives on my property. Maybe one day it will move on if it finds more suitable habitat, but for now it lives here and I don't let it bother me.

So, are dogs and cats a humane way to 'deter' rabbits? Have you ever been hunted by something multiple times bigger than you? It's frightening! :)

Like fusion, I don't plant and work a vegetable garden for the rabbits, squirrels and deer to eat. They are not endangered and are like a plague around here. I have a fence around the garden to try and keep them out. Works so far for the deer, but rabbits and squirrels I shoot if I catch them in it. No more problems with those. If its late fall and winter I cook'em and eat'em with the vegetables I froze or canned from the garden.

My neighborhood is overrun by bunnies. I lost $130 in beautiful flowering plants until I read this blog. I know, I know, the bunnies have lost their natural habitat. I am all for the little guys but I'd like to have a nice garden too! Anyhow, I read one woman's blog which said that she saved her urine and deposited it around the perimeter of her veggies. Well, it was a shock but you know what? It really does work! Now me and the bunnies can peacefully coexist.

There's some natural garlic mosquito sprays out there that work on the bugs, I wonder if they'd repel rabbits too? I had a litter in my back yard this spring and they way I got rid of them after the fact was to handle them a lot. Mom eventually moved them to someone else's yard. From what I understand animals killing their young because they smell like man is a myth, but apparently it does make them paranoid. I'll use some of these suggestions to keep the rodents from birthing in my yard next year.

FYI I found that garlic spray I mentioned above. Search "garlic" at benmeadows.com or google "garlic mosquito spray", it's the same stuff that ben sells.

I recommend getting some DeFence. It works, its cheap and its organic. We got ours from Havahart.com because we got 10% off just by signing up for the newsletter.

Here's the repellent Im talking about:
http://www.havahart.com/store/animal-repellents/5600

You guys should google PLANTSKYYD and look for a local nursery that sells it. It is 100% organic and effective against voles, rabbitls, possum, badger, squirrel, moose, dear, and other rodents. I recommend the pellets because you can put them down in Spring, the middle of Summer, and then put around your bushes, shrubs, and conifers in the Fall. The effects are phenominal. I buy the shaker bottles for my front yard perrenials, and my vegetable garden, Mr roses almost never bllomed more than once before those little long earred twerps ate them to the ground. This is my 2nd year without single vole, rabbit, squirrel, opossum, or chipmonk. My plants are looking great for the 2nd Spring in a row. I tried everything short of land mines with rabbits. Now I have the weapon of rabbit protection. As a matter of fact, since using the product I no longer have the voles or ground squirrels that my two lazy butt dogs enjoyed watching eat my plants. Send me an email at laughhammer@sbcglobal.net if you try it and let me know.

Having rabbits or anything else eat up all your hard work in the garden is no light matter. The critters got along fine without me supplying them food before I got there, and they don't need my help now. Just because I am a human does not mean I have no right to my own food. Yes I could share some, but they take it all! All 200 bean seedlings gone, mowed to the ground. So they can make more rabbits.

Now, I have taken a formerly neatly mowed 10 acre pasture and let 9 acres of it revert to nature just for the wildlife. I'm not greedy. But by golly, I will keep at least one acre out of ten for my own chosen uses.

I will not spend a lot of money and dump objectionable stuff all around a 1/4 acre garden every time it rains. I will trap, which only costs once for the trap.

We are in good conscience killing all other sorts of creatures in our gardens when they threaten our harvest. Slugs, squash bugs, tomato horn worms, beetles, cutworms,thrips, aphids, etc. Why should rabbits be any different?

People should get a grip! Killing a few rabbits near a garden is no big deal. I personally would eat them.

My father and I have always used Blood meal to get rid of rabbits, which works. And I do agree with Ohio. If I was going to trap them, they would end up in my skillet.

Plant a rock garden instead of a flower garden. Rabbits don't seem to eat them.

Thank you to the person you suggested grating soap on the affected areas. I have tried it and so far so good. I will let you know if it continues to work or not.

This is my first home and first time planting flowers. I have driven into my driveway and watched the bunny not even 10 ft away chewing on my roses. I would try the blender concoction that Gary St Paul gave, but they are eating my marigolds as well. At least the squirrels eat the bird seed out of the feeders so they are leaving the roses alone. I am going to try one or more of the other suggestions posted here. My husband mentioned the owl and snake theory to me just the other day. Thanks!

There are many ways to keep rabbits away like the others suggested. If your completely against the idea of hunting (or pest control) the best way is rabbit repellents. You can buy them for fairly good prices and its easy to find ones that wont hurt your plants. The other way to repel rabbit is by making your own repellents/smell barriers.

To make small barriers grow lavender around the edges of the garden, or place garlic bulbs around your plants. If you want to make repellents just use strong smells that rabbits dont like mixed in with a bottom of water. Things like garilic and chili are best. For more information please check out my webpage

Its all about homemade repellants.

Hope it helps and good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Homemade rabbit repellents

I'm at my wit's end!!!
We have gophers/chipmonks,
squirrels, and rabbits up the kazoo. Was using gopher/mole repellent granules containing mainly camphor oil in it at about $10.00 for a 12 oz. bag of it to prevent the gophers from eating my newly planted bulbs, but needed to keep the area wet to keep it activated it very frequently, already needing to purchase (3) bags of it this season. Then about a month ago went to Home Depot and purchased a couple of 'sonic, solar powered, ground stakes', that send out sound waves throughout the ground, which seem to be helping with the gophers/chipmonks. They no longer dig in the garden looking for fresh bulbs, but still remain.

But it seems that either the squirrels and rabbits around here very recently started eating my day lilies out of the blue. Never really had a problem with them before other than them liking to tease our 2 little Doxies, seemingly unafraid of the dogs' yipping or anything. The squirrels actually run up and down our tall pine tree when they see the dogs out in their kennel in jest.

It seems that the gophers, squirrels, and rabbits are completely unintimitated by anyone or anything, being very bold.

Have tried dog poop and will start some of the ideas given by you members but refuse to start planting things I don't desire in my flower garden. It's enough work and cost to maintain what I have and want.

I also found last yr., when using 'Miracle-Gro Moisture Retention Potting Soil', it encouraged the squirrels to go right into my flower boxes and planters containing annuals to bury nuts and whatever, uprooting everything. This yr., stopped using it and that's stopped.

I HATE THEM ALL AND WE'RE ANIMAL ENTHUSIASTS!!

Where do you get blood meal? I have a huge rabbit problem.

Hello, everyone! I am a new member, and glad to be here. This is a long post, but it's worth reading, because it is a simple, inexpensive and permanent solution to the problem of rabbits eating your flowers and vegetables.

I do cannot understand why so many people pass up this infallible solution for keeping rabbits and other small critters (and maybe deer, as well) from eating their flowers and vegetables. IT WORKS, PERIOD.

Put in a blender the following, none of which need to be peeled or otherwise fooled with, except for the onion, which should be cut in quarters, to facilitate blending:

2 dozen habanero peppers
1 whole head garlic
1 medium red onion
1 tablespoon peppermint oil
Add enough water so that it comes to about 4 inches above ingredients.(This really means to add enough water that ingredients will get as liquefied as possible.)

Blend on highest speed until it appears to you that all ingredients are thoroughly liquefied.

Add enough additional water to come up to the 1 quart mark on blender. Blend again at high speed for 30 seconds or so.

Strain the mixture through a nylon stocking, or better yet, a nut milk bag, if you have one. It might even be worth your while to buy a nut bag expressly for the purpose of making this recipe. (Just do a search under "Not bag" or "nut milk bag.) But a nylon stocking will work.

Strain mixture over a bowl through stocking (or nut bag)
till no more liquid runs through. Then squeeze as much more liquid as possible out of what is still in the stocking.

WASH YOUR HANDS AND UNDER YOUR NAILS VERY WELL WITH LOTS OF SOAP AND WARM WATER AFTER HANDLING THE MIXTURE.

Using a funnel, pour the strained liquid into a 1 quart spray/stream bottle.

Now you are ready to spray or squirt the mixture on your plants. Rabbits will NOT eat plants on which you spray this stuff. You don't need to over spray, but don't be stingy, either. Make sure whatever you spray gets a decent dousing. It won't take long before the critters keep away just because of the smell

HOWEVER, you MUST be vigilant about using this stuff. After it rains, especially after a hard rain, spray your plants again. Whether it rains or not, spray every 3 weeks. If the smell wears off sufficiently, the rabbits will be back. Also, there will be young, "unschooled" rabbits coming along throughout the season,

That's it. No rabbit fences, no dogs, cats, traps, etc.

The main reason this mixture works is because rabbits will not take more than a nibble of a leaf with this stuff on it before they try something else.

By the way, rabbits have a "favorites" list." So if you spray this mixture on whatever is their favorite item in your garden, they will begin eating whatever is second, then third, fourth, etc. on their list. So that means you need to spray most things in your garden, except for plants you know they won't eat, like tomatoes, for instance.

I read the post about rabbits eating someone's tomatoes, and I would not believe it unless I actually saw it. The reason is that tomatoes, potatoes and other nightshade family plants have a horrible tasting poison in their leaves and stems. Rabbits simply cannot to tolerate it. Try a little nibble on a leaf yourself, and you'll see...

Well, that's it: Capsaicin is the end of the line for rabbit problems, as well as other small critter problems. I think this stuff also works for deer, but am not sure. It may be that a mixture for deer needs to also have "putrefied egg solids" in it. THAT is something I would buy, not make!

Sorry---in the last paragraph of my previous message, II did not mention that "capcaicin," pronounced "cap-SAY-ih-sin," is the ingredient in habanero and other hot peppers that makes them hot.

Go to a barber shop and take their hair clippings home. Sprinkle around your favorites! No more rabbits and you didn't have to shoot that gun!

I have too many plants to spray all of them with a deterrent. What has worked so far has been a motion sensor sprinkler system but that can only protect so many parts of the garden. I have 4. They are also not without their drawbacks. Leaking water is a problem and issues with shadows setting it off.

I will try blood and bone.

In response to the poster who said that they found it hard to believe that rabbits would eat tomato. I don't grow tomato but i do grow rhubarb. And you know what, they love the leaves. I often wonder if it kills them but i have had to fence my rhubarb from them.

I have read diligently through these answers to rabbit problems and to be frank had a good laugh at some, its a case of try this that and the other in virtually all the answers. To rid oneself of a rabbit problem one must deploy guile, you must look at the habitat where they are living 'your garden' for rabbits will live where there is a ready supply of water, get rid of it, rabbits will live where they can get shelter, brambles briar for instance, get rid of it, make the garden as clinical as one can, good garden husbandry- cover foodstuff stop their noses twitching, wire up fruit trees and so on. If any rabbit does not move on after these measures are taken then you must look to keep them out, so dig under the ground about a foot or so and peg thick wire mesh along the perimeter, those looking to remain humane will not dig in glass along the length under the mesh, but many would and personally I would, then if they still persist you must look to get the female of the species, the doe by shooting all that remain on the property, stop them breeding, One does not hunt rabbit during the day, you look to hunt them when they are quite dozy early morning, this is when you will find the colony looking for food and you will get them all at one sitting if you have fifty friends with guns ready ,and dont be surprised when they see their like die in front of them if they flee anyway, however they will simply go to the next nearest garden where they have shelter, water and a ready supply of food.. Incidentally getting rid of rats is very similar to that I have explained here, except they scout so you must get rid of the scout bet you all wouldn't hesitate to shoot a rat or to empower someone/something else to get rid, a dog for instance, yorkie terriers, yes I said Yorkies are great at getting rats but not so good at getting rabbits, historically Yorkies were bred to kill rats, these strange little dogs who are subjected to all sorts of nuances from their owners were the first line of offence in the industrial mills in middle England.. ..