• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Rabbits!!

Help Support Ranchers.net:

B

Buckerette

Well-known member
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
200
Reaction score
0
Location
Colorado
The rabbits are eating us out of house and home. We feed big bales and they have eaten almost the entire bottom half. It's terrible. I'll try to get a picture to post, you won't believe it. When we feed grain, they jump in the tubs and eat it with the bulls.

We shoot them in the pasture, but the hay is too close to the corrals and house to shoot. Any advise on how to get rid of them? Everything I've found so far will give the hay a bad taste. I want the cows to still eat it.

Thanks in advance
 
Buckerette

I think this is a job that calls for Elmer fudd..... them waskily wabbits!!! :wink: :lol: Do you have a conservation officer/game warden there they may be able to help you out. We had a problem with deer a few years ago and they helped us save our feed. Do they have any kind of govt/or state programs where they pay for feed that is damaged by wildlife? Might be worth looking into. We do have a program like that here in Manitoba. If any feed is destroyed by wildlife you get paid the value of the feed. Sure helps out. Cant have those bulls of yours going hungry....Hope you and your hubby get your problem with Rabbits worked out. Could be lots of wabbit stew..... :shock:
 
them waskily wabbits!!! .... For the life of me I couldn't remember what Elmer Fud actually send. I'll be quoting that for weeks now...

I'll check into the conservation officer/game warden route. That would be sweet.

The dogs do go around the hay stacks, so I don't know about the Rozol. Ofcourse I could keep them locked up for awhile.

Thanks guys!!!!!
 
I know you feel the rabbits are too close.....but what about using 22 bird shot or 22 shorts..what about a fake owl or hawk or something? Are these jackrabbits or cottontails? Live trapps? how many are we talking about?
 
NR,


Must be something in the drinking water down there that has made these rabbits multiply like that. :???: We hardly have any rabbits left around here. But we have a wolf/coyote problem. Do you like the .410 for blasting at bugs Northern Rancher?
 
yeah there's not many rabbits here any more-they don't explode like they used to when I was a kid. A .410 is a neat little gun my buddies boy even whacked a good bear with a .410 slug.
 
Southdakotahunter said:
I know you feel the rabbits are too close.....but what about using 22 bird shot or 22 shorts..what about a fake owl or hawk or something? Are these jackrabbits or cottontails? Live trapps? how many are we talking about?
Click to expand...

I'm not good enough with a gun to be let loose to close to the house, maybe the honey will use bird shot on them. I know that's what he uses on the snakes.

Cottontails mainly, we have jack rabbits but they seem not to bother the hay too much. There are a lot of cottontails, not sure exactly how many, hundreds. It looks like a rabbit huch around the corrals and hay.
 
If you like rabbit for the dinner table I have made some live traps that work real well.

Cut a hole in the side of a plastic 5 gallon bucket, slip about 3 feet of 4" plastic pipe in the hole and burry the bucket so that the top of the bucket is flush with the top of the ground and the end of the pipe is also.

I put these in fence rows out of the way. When I want rabbit I take a broom stick with a 3"round piece of plywood on the end and insert it in the Pipe then remove the lid. Wear your heavy leather welding gloves and retrieve the rabbit ( a hammer to the head makes quick work of it).

I only take an occasional rabbit so that I have a ready supply but if you have about a month for them to get used to the new surroundings I'm sure you could get a lot quickly and if you were to feed some of them to the dogs they would strat being aggressive towards the rabbits.

This is a modification of a trap tought in FFA several years ago that recommended clay tile ( where would you get plastic in the late 1950s???)

Make sure you cut the lid at the correct points so that it will snap off and on before you bury it.
 
I have shot around 150, I lost count, this winter. Mostly I use a 22 LR with bird shot in it. When they get wild, from my mis-shots, I use regular ammunition. I always keep some hay around the house for quick feeding and those little rascals like it for sure.
 
Buckerette said:
Southdakotahunter said:
I know you feel the rabbits are too close.....but what about using 22 bird shot or 22 shorts..what about a fake owl or hawk or something? Are these jackrabbits or cottontails? Live trapps? how many are we talking about?
Click to expand...

I'm not good enough with a gun to be let loose to close to the house, maybe the honey will use bird shot on them. I know that's what he uses on the snakes.

Cottontails mainly, we have jack rabbits but they seem not to bother the hay too much. There are a lot of cottontails, not sure exactly how many, hundreds. It looks like a rabbit huch around the corrals and hay.
Click to expand...


We better get you an elmer fudd hat Buckerette... :wink: and let you loose with a shotgun... bet you would hit a few wabbits... so long as your in the proximity of the rabbit you will drop him!!
 
Manitoba_Rancher said:
NR,


Must be something in the drinking water down there that has made these rabbits multiply like that. :???: We hardly have any rabbits left around here. But we have a wolf/coyote problem. Do you like the .410 for blasting at bugs Northern Rancher?
Click to expand...
The reason you don't have a "Waskilly Wabbit" problem is because you do have a Coyote/Wolf problem!

DOC HARRIS
 
I don't have a problem with coyotes or wolves lol. My buddy snared a real pretty wolf the other day-just about completely blonde-I've never seen one quite like that before.
 
Northern Rancher said:
I don't have a problem with coyotes or wolves lol. My buddy snared a real pretty wolf the other day-just about completely blonde-I've never seen one quite like that before.
Click to expand...
I remember one like that before I met my wife!- - - - yeah- - - - -mmmmm- yeah- - -she was a REAL predator!

DOC HARRIS
 
Forgot to mention that we've tried roping them with twine and stabbing them with the pitchfork. That was interesting. Didn't get any, twine is hard to rope with almost got 'em with the pitchfork then thought of what that would actually look like and quit.

We invited a few friends over this weekend to shoot. No one will shoot with me, one friend, still claims I tried to shoot his foot. :? So, I'll set up the live traps. To be honest, not sure if I have it in me to hammer there heads in....may need help on that one....but I can sure set up the traps.

Any rabbit recipes are welcomed and anyone close enough for a rabbit dinner is welcomed....if you'll help me skin 'em.

---Elmer Fud
 
Be aware there is some type of virus/infection.....can't remember exactly...that is carried in rabbits blood. Dont let rabbit blood get into any open cuts on your hands.


I think it's called tularemia....maybe Google it and see what it's all about. Here it's called ' rabbit fever' and I had a neighbor get it once....he got pretty sick.

You can still eat them...just not rare but who'd what to do that anyway???

You just have to be careful about getting the blood into cuts on you.
 

Latest posts

Top