I agree it likely is rabbits. I grow cucumbers on my 8'-tall garden fence (because who can resist having a trellis that is 8' tall completely encircling the garden?) and the rabbits nibble at the low-hanging cucumbers, and once it is really hot and dry, the deer eat the leaves that are just about at eye-level for them.

I try to push cucumbers back to the inside of the fence before the rabbits find them, but that only works if I find them growing outside the garden fence while they are still small enough for me to push them back through the 1" chicken wire that lines the bottom 2' of the woven-wire fence.

However, I've also had raccoons, possums and turtles nibble at cucumbers too, so even though it seems likely it is rabbits, it could be anything.

Y'all can try scattering bloodmeal on the ground around the cucumbers, as it sometimes repels rabbits and other animals. However, while it sometimes works, once the weather is really hot and really dry, it is not necessarily as effective. Repellents that work in mild weather sometimes lose their ability to repel the critters once the critters are desperately hungry and thirsty.

I also try to distract the rabbits by putting out pans of water for them about 50' from the garden, and I always scatter some hen scratch near the water to draw the animals away from the garden. I've only had three cucumbers nibbled this year so far, which is really good because I've canned 80 jars of pickles which means, clearly, the rabbits aren't making too much of a dent in them.

The only animal deterrent that has ever worked consistently for me is fencing. Of course, when I choose to grow plants inside the garden that then are allowed to climb the fence, I'm always going to have trouble with the wildlife eating anything growing on the fence that they can reach. They actually eat plants on the fence a lot less than I thought they would.

Dawn