Rabbits eating plants

[karstopography]

Bumper crop of wild swamp rabbits around here this year. They are sort of decorative out in the yard. “Hey, look there’s a rabbit!” I know they munch on the veggies. I sick the dog on them. Exercise for the dog, plus a thrill for him and the rabbits are absolutely safe from capture.

I might have eaten rabbit three or four times in my life. If a restaurant happens to serve rabbit, then they likely prepare something even more delicious than rabbit so that’s why I rarely eat a rabbit. Maybe I shot a cottontail on a hunting trip once or twice way back when and we braised it or made a stew. Dad had always cautioned me not to shoot or eat a wild rabbit during the warm season. Something about dangerous parasites.

On the other hand, my best friend grew up on domesticated rabbit, he thought it was chicken they were served for years until he got a little older and wiser. He and his brother were fast as lightning and could jump a mile, must have been those rabbits they ate!

Rabbits are just cute rats.

Goat meat, cabrito is available around here. Not anything I seek out. Central Texas, the Edwards Plateau, parts of west Texas are all chock full of goats. Used to be mohair goats for fashion once upon a time, maybe that’s still a thing, but red headed boer goats are now widely seen. I think those type of goats are raised to be consumed by folks migrating north rather recently from south of the US border, now residing here in the US. Wherever a person lives, their tastes in food often follows them.

[worth1]

I used to go rabbit hunting with a Ruger 22 pistol in West Texas.
And my sister in laws 38 special at my brother's and her place in Central Texas.
Not hardly any misses either.
We used a beagle to run them in Missouri.
I've eaten a ton of wild rabbits but not full grown ones.
Cotton tails are fat superior to tame rabbit.
I could only dream of having swamp rabbits.

I still get a kick out of this story
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_C ... t_incident

[karstopography]

Colorado has yet another kind of rabbit, the mountain or Nuttall’s cottontail. They are tiny with short ears and are known to regularly climb trees.

https://www.estesparknews.com/estes_val ... 0b8aa.html

[karstopography]

https://dem.ri.gov/sites/g/files/xkgbur ... abbits.pdf

New England has two species of Cottontail rabbits, the eastern and the New England.

[worth1]

Contrary to popular belief the cottontails and the tame rabbit can't cross breed..
Or at least that's what I read.

[JRinPA]

Something tells me that won't stop them from trying.

[karstopography]

https://www.welcomewildlife.com/fast-fa ... Lagomorpha.
The rabbits, hares and relations in the US. Eight different cottontail rabbits.

I wonder if jackrabbits get into gardens? I never see any jackrabbits around here, but see plenty out west. Range map has jackrabbits around here, but I wonder how I missed seeing any?

[worth1]

They're plentiful around Lampasas.
I shot one on the ranch with a 45-70.
Nothing left of it.

[JRinPA]

The pics of your garden never look like jackalope country. Seems like they would want to be able to see long distances to use that speed, and don't need a lot of green leaf nor water?

[slugworth]

Where are all the bra burners today?
Still hanging around.

[Shule]

@Shule

Oh my eyes, I read this:

Our neighborhood was colonized with 40-75 lb, white, domesticated, free-range rabbits, once. Fortunately, it wasn't during tomato season...

I was gonna call shennanigans on that.

40-75 lb rabbits would be huge! But, the world's largest rabbit (Darius, who was stolen) is supposed to be 49 lbs. That has got to be one enormous rabbit; aren't rabbits big (voluminous) for their weight? I guess I'm thinking of Maine Coon cats.

The biggest breeds of rabbits I know about are the German Giant (not really an official breed, as I understand it) and the Flemish Giant. If you've never looked up pictures of them, it's kind of shocking. Same for Maine Coons, giant slugs, and other giant things.

[Shule]

Here, you can't even find rabbit in a grocery store anymore. Nor can you find the world's most consumed protein, goat. I guess that they don't fit into the big corporate's way of mass growing our food too well.

I've never seen rabbit in any grocery store before. I've never tried it, nor been offered it. My siblings when I was growing up told tales of having eaten rabbit, though.

[Shule]

Same applies here @MissS, which is sad really. Rabbit and goat both have a pest stigma attached to them here Down Under which probably has something to do with it, plus the good meat goat breeds have a nutrient requirement that does not suit some of our soils. For those who have not eaten Goat, think Lamb without the excess fat.

They don't sell goat in the grocery store here, either. However, around here, lots of people raise meat goats (so, if you really wanted goat, you could probably find it; just make sure they're not raising their goats for pets or just to clear weeds).

I had goat once. It tasted a lot like the kind of beef used for roast beef to me (except it was grilled outside at a barbeque). It was pretty good; I think I like it more than steak cooked the same way (easier to chew, with less fatty portions). I had licorice-flavored ice cream the same day; the host didn't like the ice cream at all, but I did.

We had ground lamb that a friend of the family gave us when I was growing up. It was a lot like hamburger (and packaged just like it, too), with a strong lamb smell. We accidentally put it on pizza once (we usually put hamburger on pizza) and we definitely noticed the mistake. I had lamb at an Indian restaurant many years later that was totally different.

[worth1]

Here, you can't even find rabbit in a grocery store anymore. Nor can you find the world's most consumed protein, goat. I guess that they don't fit into the big corporate's way of mass growing our food too well.

I've never seen rabbit in any grocery store before. I've never tried it, nor been offered it. My siblings when I was growing up told tales of having eaten rabbit, though.

My HEB carries rabbit but it's over the top expensive.
Something like 45 dollars for a cut up rabbit.

[worth1]

I've ran this into the ground but a Jack rabbit is not a rabbit.
It's a hare.
A hare deposits it's young in several nests so as not to put all of its egg in one basket.
The mother goes around and feeds them.
In no time at all they are out on their own.
Male rabbits are called bucks and female rabbits are called does.
The baby jackrabbit is born with fur and open eyes.

These world record rabbits and other animals are victims of people over feeding them.

You cannot live on lean wild rabbit meat alone for long periods of time.
You'll end up with rabbit starvation protein poisoning or some such thing.

[JRinPA]

Comm garden peas, all chopped off. What a lousy pea year here, so dry. They didn't even climb the trellis, now a rabbit chopped them off. Well, time for something else to go under that trellis.

[Gardadore]

This year besides all the fencing, etc. I am trying cayenne pepper as a deterrent for rabbits and rodents. A friend said it is a great deterrent and even discouraged a skunk from returning to under her daughter’s porch. You do have to replenish after a rain but she said they often don’t come back after a couple of whiffs! Using it to discourage a pesky vole that chewed through my cucumbers, 4 tomato
plants and all the edamame seedlings last year. I have been sprinkling the pepper religiously around all the beds and haven’t seen any signs of animal life yet. Bought two large containers of Badia cayenne on Amazon. Too expensive with small ones plus this was nice and strong! Curious whether others have had luck with cayenne pepper.

[karstopography]

There was a swamp rabbit in the garden this morning. It ran away when I came outside. I don’t know what it was eating. The bed it came from has four cucumber plants, two tomato plants, some pole beans that are done, two eggplants and a few pepper plants. If I can’t tell what the rabbit was eating, then the rabbit isn’t a problem, that’s my working philosophy.

The rabbits only tend to bother me if they eat the seedlings before the seedlings get a chance to do anything. If the rabbits nibble on some outer leaves of plants near or at maturity, I don’t really care. I now oversow okra with the knowledge and expectation that the rabbits will mow down a percentage of the sprouting seedlings. Same for any greens like lettuce, arugula or spinach. Seeds are generally inexpensive for those items and I save my own arugula and some of the okra seeds so those are free.

I’m tired of trying to fence out or manage barriers for stuff like rabbits and squirrels. They are too adept at defeating barriers at any rate. I don’t wish to harm the wildlife anymore if at all possible. They got here first. The new plan is to have produce to share with them. Now, if they come for my beefsteak tomatoes themselves, other than the cherry tomatoes, I will do something about it.

But, coexistence is the plan for the moment. If anyone gets too greedy, then there might be some issues.

[JRinPA]

Sprinkling dry cayenne pepper powder on the ground around the beds?

Cayenne pepper might keep away the rabbits...but I don't want to attract roofers.

I did spray garlic habanero as a deterrent a few years back. I thought it worked some, but surely not fully, when spraying corn ears to deter squirrels. Socks worked better, 100%, and this year I will color code for expected ripeness date. I didn't mix up any pepper spray at all, last year.

Same year I think a squirrel was coming down the fence top in the back yard to perch and observe, right next to the corn. Then quickly diving in when assured safe from dogs. So I was going to spray the fence top. I used water first, can't recall if it was to test the pattern or how quickly it dried, but my neighbors developed and absolute coughing fit from it. That super spicy water vapor, you know. That was an integrity test failure on their part. I think I did eventually spray it when they weren't home, but the squirrel didn't seem to mind it at all.