I protect all my plants from rabbits, with exception of tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions. Never ever before rabbits eat onions. Not even in the year of the worst rabbit infestation in my previous place.
After some reading looks like onions are poison to rabbits. So my question to community is:
Do you think these onions still can recover if I protect them and will produce some bulbs, or they have no hope and I should leave them as is in order to poison more rabbits? And, if I protect onions. will the rabbits turn after my peppers?
Rabbits and deer are basically big rats. They will eat anything if they are hungry. I don’t feel bad about poisoning rabbits or deer if I happen to. They will not go extinct. I used to leave at 3 or 4 in the morning and sometimes it was impossible to not hit a rabbit. You would go 1 or 2 miles and see hundreds or thousands of rabbits. To those who only drive on my street during the day they don’t believe me. I used to tell my mother about it and she thought I was exaggerating or lying until she left at 4 in the morning to catch a flight. Oh she believed me real fast that there was an infestation in our neighborhood.
I gave 3 rabbits lead poisoning after they ate veggies from my garden. My cabbage row is half denuded and a row of watermelons was cut down to 3 plants. My dog is very happy, he loves fresh rabbit.
That is a lot of onion eaten! I need to put up my fence and trail cam but I’ve been lucky and only have big mammal pest issues towards end of summer. Do you think just one rabbit or more than one is eating them?
I’m fairly certain that rabbits came and ate my eggplant leaves and some fruit in September even with 4ft fences. So I’d imagine they would eat peppers and I think I’ve had a few plants go misssing for that exact reason. Are animals in your area desperate for food, or is it really dry or something? As you say onions seem to be rabbit poison so I wonder what could have driven it to eat onion and so much of it. Might just have been a foolish rabbit that now removed itself from the gene pool and that’s that but seems odd.
Sometimes, I think it is his anger , because he can’t get to the protected staff he likes. We have plenty of grass, clover, weeds around so this is definitely not hunger. I don’t want to think the rabbit gets suicidal…
Fun fact most marriages used to be polygamy marriages. It was not until Catholic or Christian put a stop to it. In fact it was not until the 1890s that it was not a issue in the USA. Also fun fact that in TN if you have 8 women in your house it is considered a brothel.
I lived in a 5 bedroom house once with 10 other women. we were all students or professionals but- a brothel would have been funny to know that at the time
I guess it is a state law in TN. Another funny law is in certain states like Missouri it is illegal to bear wrestle or do surgery on a bear for bear wrestling.
Have any of you had any trouble with voles? Truly, I believe God was having a bad day when he/she decided to make rodents. I’ve lost four tomato plants this year to the voles. They also took out three of my blueberry bushes and five hybrid tea roses. Every evening I put a Sonos speaker outside to call great horned owls. I haven’t heard back from them and I haven’t seen any of my favorite reptiles, the rat snakes. I shy away from rodenticides since they are just as dangerous to the beneficials like fox, rat snake, owls and red tails. I’m using oils and peppermint Castile soap along with kiln fired shale and that has slowed down my losses.
I was really liking growing in the inexpensive plastic bags. The grafts were doing great.
Then all of the sudden grafts were tipping over and the dirt was loose. For 2 weeks I could not figure it out. While watering today I came to a freshly defrocked bag. Normally I keep them rolled up tight. Imagine my surprise when a big fat female Oak Toad emerged!
I’m shocked she managed to hop her big fat butt up that high. But it looked like she hit 5 bags before she burrowed in that one. Set her lose in a cool thicket.
Sounds like an expensive way to poison them. There are normally hundreds of rabbits and most come out at night when most are sleeping. Easiest way is poison bait stations. That is unless you are going for rabbit stew.
@elivings1 … not hundreds of rabbits here… they normally show up in pairs… and while they are out at night… normally late evening they come out and hang around my garden.
Big patch of kale there…
I killed the pair about a week ago… and have seen no more since.
I myself do not have a regular 22 rifle… my son has a ruger 10/22. We have a couple 22 pistols.
I have a marlin 22mag that I bought with fur money in the early 80s… it still shoots great… but at longer distances (over 100 yards) cant hang with the awesome little 17 hmr.
Most regular 22 rifles are just not that accurate past 50 yards… so I never owned one. I did a lot of preditor hunting… not just squirrels or rabbits… but fox coons and yotes and bobcats.
The cost of 17hmr and 22wmr is similar.
The 17 is quite a bit faster and flatter
, more accurate… and it is not all that loud either.
It is by far my fav critter getter.
Trap them rabbits or get a pcp .22 pellet gun with scope.
Coons are a big issue here, along with squirrels, chipmunks, voles, mice, possum and deer. Paw traps are excellent for coons, but can’t use them here for a number of reasons. I use live cage traps and shoot with a .22 pistol.
These are paw traps. Coons usually get 1 paw in them not 2!
(Internet meme photo.)
But as you see, they make a mess of the ground. Everything is grass here. And nosey neighbors are an issue for me.
Coons have been flipping my flat bait stations all over the place. Gave up on most of them. I went to the tube type bait station and have had no problems. I can spike it in the ground and zip tie to a T-Post.
. This is what left of it:
