Hey folks. This is my first time trying blackberries and I overlooked one, large problem: rabbits. It looks like rabbits got to my row of blackberries last night. What can I expect this coming spring? The rabbit or rabbits cut them down to about 6-12 inches each. They were planted in the fall at roughly 2-3 feet tall. They’re Natchez, Osage, and Ouachita varieties if that matters. Appreciate any advice.
I think you have a good chance of them being ok! Just think of it as the rabbits doing a hard winter prune. 
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During the winter, most of what a plant does is grow roots so hopefully what happens is your blackberries break dormancy with stronger roots and ready to go!
One thing though: make sure to build a rabbit-proof fence ASAP.
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It will accelerate the growth of new canes next year, but deprive you of a crop (unless they are primocane bearers). No doubt in my mind that the growth of primocanes will only be enhanced by the elimination of floricanes.
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If they’ve never leafed out since you planted them, then they should be fine. You weren’t looking for fruit this year anyway, and now you know that you’ll need some chicken wire around the bottom.
Painless lesson.
BTW, I know there’s no need for the wires yet, so they haven’t been tensioned, but they are killing me 
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Thanks y’all. Looks like they got some bark off of my pear tree, two of my figs, and one of my grapes. Tossing up some chicken wire today around everything.
@murky - Yeah, that wire needs to be straightened up and tightened. In fact, it’s probably a bit too heavy duty(it’s just leftover from my grape trellis).
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How far apart are those? I put mine at 4 feet, at that distance I have a touch of room between them. I don’t have much room to work with. Six feet would be about right. After a couple years the rabbits should leave them alone. The canes become much larger and too woody for them.
That’s OK they will fill that whole space and bulge on the sides. Each plant once mature will produce 6-15 canes a season, 8-10 is more typical. Natchez doesn’t produce a lot, but man they are huge! I used to grow it. I never grew the other two.
Anyway you can remove the weaker, smaller canes. I keep about 6 canes, depends, some produce a lot of canes, some do not.
I also use grape wire, and you will need it.
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@drew51 Glad to hear that wire will eventually work! Do you think I should keep Natchez around or replace it? Sounds like you found a better variety to take its place. I only picked it due to its “Texas Superstar” status and thornless attribute.
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I would keep it. I went overboard on blackberries and finally came to my senses.
I removed a massive plant, so can you if decide it’s not what you want. Berries are massive on Natchez, wait till calyx is brown and crispy before harvest. Natchez falls off easy when ripe. As mentioned I never grew the other two, but many like osage, never hear a bad thing about it. All of those should grow in your zone too.
Yeah I choose to keep others but it is just my tastes. I like blackberries although I can get sick of them, one plant can produce at least 50 and up to a few hundred berries. having about 15 plants well I was being buried in blackberries.
I found myself giving the berries away, which is fine, but the excess was excessive and it costs money to grow anything! If I had a better income, well it would be different. I have to watch my pennies.
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I think it’ll heal over with no problem.
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Thanks @marknmt . I sure hope you’re right. It’s called a Meadows pear and I cannot get it locally. The rabbits cut down my goumi bush and two of my autumn olives to about the same height as the blackberries as well. I’m feeling the urge to sit on my patio with my pellet gun tonight.
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I might not have looked quite closely enough at your pictures, and I’m assuming that the rabbits didn’t girdle the tree.I would be a lot more iffy if they did.
It will heal. I’ve had Worse rabbit damage and my pear tree healed very well.
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@mrsg47 Great! Well, not for the damage on your trees, but the success. Did you do anything to help the healing or just let nature take its course?
Nature just took its course. It was in Feb. going on three years ago. The pear had five different grafts. The snow was 3-4 feet high, covered in ice , like today; the rabbits ate two grafts off of the tree, leaving me with three pear varieties, since they ate the bark above the primary graft, with two more grafts higher up the trunk,the tree survived. It was five years old when this happened.
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Looks fine to me, one thing to consider, I lost an apple tree that was damaged worse than that but it was after the damage and from spring winds. The rabbit weakened it then the winds broke it off.
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Sound’s like you’ve about had it with rabbits. Maybe you should grab the pellet gun and take a look at my solution. ha
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Yeah, that little tear won’t even slow the pear down. I’ve had rabbit years here where they started girdling trees when there was only a few inches of snow on the ground and as the snow level rose so did the rabbits. By spring thaw some trees lost all of their bark on the lower 4’ of trunk. I need to take a close look at what they might be up to this year as I only protected my apples and pears with plastic spirals. Some years they go after other species- especially nectarines and E. plums. .
’
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