Rabbits beware
14 05 2008I’m just heading out to stalk a few rabbits with the air rifle and, more importantly, to see how much the rabbits are using the trap tunnels.
We’re suffering the expected spring plague of rabbits at the moment, so I’ve laid a strip of rabbit netting along the top of the pig field, between it and the rabbit warren around the water tank.
The rabbits come down from the warren, cross the pig field, and then fan out to find my field-grown vegetables.
The netting blocks their way, so the rabbits turn and move along the netting looking for a way through.
And they do find a way, a couple of nice cosy tunnels with light showing from the promised land beyond.
Except that they’re my trap tunnels and have been left in place for a couple of months now, waiting for the spring bunny plague.
The Other Half spotted a rabbit using one of the tunnels the other day, which means I can start placing the Fenn Mk6 traps in them soon.
All I need to do first is check the layout of the rabbit paths, work out my own path that doesn’t disturb theirs and get the little blighters used to me walking across the top of the field in the late evening and early morning.
In a day or two’s time, I’ll set traps in each tunnel around 7.30pm and again at 4.30am, then clear them two hours later. That should minimise the risk to other animals while still giving me a good chance of getting a few rabbits.
I have another tunnel that I’ll probably place in one of the two wooded shelter belts, but I need to lie up and observe the rabbits for a while to pick the best place.
We should be having rabbit casserole for dinner in a night or two…
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And yes, these traps are legal in Scotland. If you’re planning on using them yourself, make sure you know to how to use them safely, know the law and follow the BASC Code of Practice.
NOt sure I’d be too happy about using these traps. Granted, I have no experience so probably shouldn’t comment, but I can’t help feeling that there is a chance that they could only half do the job. Would I be right or wrong?
The same statement applies to any means of rabbit control (or indeed any pest control). If not used correctly, then traps may not kill rabbits efficiently and cleanly. If not used correctly, a rifle, shotgun or air rifle may not do the job efficiently and cleanly. Ditto ferrets and nets. Snares. Gassing.
I use our traps correctly and try to ensure they will kill a rabbit instantly.
Rabbits breed prolifically, strip the ground bare, kill trees and shrubs, and do a huge amount of damage to crops. While we do have natural predators here, there are far more rabbits then they can deal with.
I use wire netting and electric netting to protect key crops and areas, but at the end of the day rabbit numbers have to be controlled or they’ll trash the place in no time. The traps are an efficient, effective and economical way of doing this. And, if used correctly, quick and clean.
In fact, they’re actually more effective than all the other means as they work even when you’re not present to do rabbit control. I could spend several hours a day with an air rifle culling rabbits, or spend 20 minutes a day checking, clearing and setting traps—and almost certainly get more rabbits than I would with the rifle. I can also work close to the boundary fences that run alongside the roads, clearing rabbit holes that I would otherwise have to leave as I won’t shoot that close to the public highway.
I’m well aware that trapping is not something you’re supposed to discuss in polite company, and I’m well aware that a lot of people think it’s a mean and nasty way of killing a cute, fluffy bunny rabbit. But, if you want native trees and shrubs to flourish; if you want to prevent erosion; if you don’t want livestock breaking legs in rabbit holes; and if you don’t want to lose a third to a half of your vegetable crops, then traps are a necessary tool.
Traps never look nice because they are designed to kill; hopefully cleanly and efficiently. It’s miles better than the innocuous looking wire snares that were common in my childhood countryside and much better than poison.
It’s also a quicker death than the natural cull that’s performed by myxomatosis and without culling there would be severe crop/food shortages.
According to Wikipedia, Burmese pythons will eat a rabbit a week, maybe we could introduce those to control the population naturally :-D, yes only joking.
Somewhere I think I read that rabbits are in fact an introduction to the UK, brought over by the Normans or did they just set up large warrens as a food source?
The Natural History Museum says the European rabbit was introduced to the UK by the Normans in the 12th century and kept in warrens for meat and fur.
The only problem with that statement is that BBC News has reported that archaeologists found the butchered remains of a rabbit at a Roman settlement dating to the first century.
The same story says “it is thought rabbits were introduced to Britain following the Roman invasion in AD43″.
The Roman rabbit apparently went to the Natural History Museum. As to which statement is true, who knows?
I have to say, mixy is probably the most disgusting way of culling rabbits. Instant death I think is the ‘best’ possible outcome, hence my first comment. Any animal that can life as natural a life as possible before it’s untimely demise is good. They’ve all got to die of something, better quick and painless than prolonged and lingering.
I also read about the Romans bringing rabbits in - it’s in one of my rabbit books that came with my rehomed bunnies (french lop ears not for the pot
).