Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

ruth todd wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.



Keep putting the wire mesh around your plants, but plant something
outside for the rabbits. Clover is a good choice, since the rabbits like
it. Works for me.

In article , "ruth todd"
wrote:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.

The wire mesh trick would require the mesh to be buried in the ground
eight inches to one foot, & a minimum of 3 feet high. Some recommendations
suggest it isn't necessary to bury the wire, that if the bottom edge is
bent outward at a right-angle to 8 inches or so, rabbits aren't smart
enough to back up & go under it from further back. Tossing a mere inch of
soil on the right-angled part of the fence leaves a rabbit no clue how to
get under it. The outside of a buried or bent chicken-wire barrier can
also have something planted in a row that rabbits find distasteful, & they
may never figure out there's something better on the other side if they
could get past, say, the yucky-tasting daffodils or monkshoods.

If you are not vegetarian (as I am) you could consider catching, killing,
dressing, & eating them -- if they're legally hunted where you're at. If
you otherwise eat meat, there's no reason to be chary of eating rabbits.
They can be breaded & fried & are not unlike fried chicken when so
prepared, or they can be basted & roasted in oven, or if you catch an old
buck he can be boiled & deboned for use in any mutton stew recipe. I ate
them often as a child because my Yakama Indian great-grampa raised
rabbits, & I also ate them wild-caught in the San Juans. I wouldn't eat
them now but that's only because I've been vegetarian for 30 years,
otherwise I'd consider rabbit a high-end meat choice.

But as you say you don't want to harm them I'd think your only completely
effective choices is to bury a mesh barrier. You could alternatively
obtain a rabbit-chasing dog & hope he doesn't dig up the garden himself.
There are also repellants, though the vast majority of commerically
prepared rabbit repellants would barely retard their behavior. Repellants
with cayenne pepper, eggs, & salt don't usually work, or work only
moderately. A Rutgers study showed that putrescent eggs work better on
deer than on rabbits; there are many egg-based products because Rutgers
said it kinda worked. In reality even the moderate effectivity is
shortlived; if rabbits already know there's good food to be had, they'll
forge past the commercial repellants, & get so used to the scent & flavor
as to no longer be bothered at all. Powdered blood or fertilizers made
from fish, poultry & especially mammal byproducts has the same level of
effectiveness. So a moderate repellant value can be had as a side-effect
of these fertilizer choices, th9ough it only lasts until the first good
rainfall. An old traditional repellant used by old-time farmers was to use
the rotten guts of whatever had been slaughtered on the farm as this
worked to convince plant-munchers that a predator was killing things in
the vicinity. Strewing tankage or rotten meat is obviously not wise
nowadays, but many fertilizer products are essentially the same thing. My
vegetarianism extends to not using such products (I don't even use
fish-fertilizer but would prefer kelp fertilizer), but if I had a plague
of rabbits I might consider a product that used meat byproducts or
tankage.

What works better is predator urine all around the paramater, either
coyote, fox, or wolf. Some powdered predator urine products are available
specifically for gardeners, but wolf, coyote, & fox urines are available
more cheaply (& stronger) from hunting & trapper supply houses. Other
repellants have to be reapplied even after a heavy morning dew, as often
as daily, but predator urine functions for 30 days barring heavy
rainfall. Predator scat also works, but is rather more gross to use & not
as easily obtained since trapper supply houses only sell the urine. Still,
if you've a dog, that's ALMOST predator enough, & you could discard the
dog's turds along the outer parameter of a garden. Grosser still, a very
old method of frightening off rabbits & gophers, that I've never seen
actually studied by any university horticultural extension but I rather
believe the elderly farmers who have sworn by it, is to use human urine &
stool! This presumedly functions the same way as predator urine if you get
it from someone whose diet is predominantly meat. If you can find a rabbit
warren & get predator-poo & pee, & possibly human meat-eater poo & pee,
putting that all around the warren entries may actually cause rabbits to
move away, as might you if something ten times your size kept dumping poo
in front of your place. Rabbits are very sensitive to poo because they
assess it, & if it is a ruminant's poo & has some undigested bits in it,
they eat the poo, no kiddin, they eat deer poops, & their own poops, yum
yum. But if it smells like the meaty poo of a predator, it scares them
off.

I'm mainly an advocate of letting animals eat from one's garden, but not
that many garden-munchers live in large groups of extended families as
rabbits often do, & tolerating a mass-attack from a rabbit clan is
different from letting a pair of squirrels or a bachelor woodchuck harvest
about in the gardens.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"ruth todd" wrote in
:

Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put
them in. I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still
managing to get to them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I
don't want to harm them.I live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.






I made a spray with hot peppers, garlic and dish soap.

Recipe:
1 garlic busted up
3 hot peppers busted up or equivalent flakes from spice rack
1 quart hot water
dish soap

mix first 3 items up. allow to sit in warm place for a week. strain.
spray at rate of 1 cup brew to 2 pints water to 6 drops soap.

I don't know if this will make your food taste Italian, Mexican or Soapy,
but I sprayed on some snow pea vines this spring and Peter Rabbit and/or
Sammy Squirrel don't seem to like my cuisine anymore.

-- Salty

Hi. When I plant my garden, I plant a clove of garlic between each of the
plants that are prone to rabbit damage. I wont promise you it will work,
but it has for me for the past 4 years.
Give it a try. All you can do is raise a lot of garlic in addition to your
other goodies.

Dwayne



"ruth todd" wrote in message
...
Please help. Rabbits are eating most of my plants as fast as I put them
in.
I've tried putting wire mesh round but they are still managing to get to
them.could anyone suggest any deterrents but I don't want to harm them.I
live in the U.K.

Thanks in anticipation.

Sorry for the repeats: system hiccuped before it crashed.