Rabbits in a garden can be a minor catastrophe. I don’t mind a little bit of veg disappearing, and my wife can spare some of her flowers; the lawn they are welcome to keep short; but it doesn’t work like this!
Bunnies have a habit of breeding - the smaller they are, the easier to control!
Young rabbits are much less cautious than their parents. This is nature’s way of feeding predators; breed lots, breed idiots and breed more!
I love having rabbits in the garden, it gives my pointers something to practice on right outside the back door. The problem is, if you don’t have a cat or a whippet, or regular fox visitors then the occasional visitor can all too quickly become a plague.
If absolute control of the population is your aim, then midwinter is the time to kill rabbits; the number of litters below ground will be at a minimum and they can be ferreted and shot; the less alert and the plain unlucky rabbits will have been taken by foxes, badgers, buzzards and stoats and weasels. With the numbers at a natural low, your attempts will be much more effective.
If, like me, you consider the rabbit is good eating and don’t mind swapping a bit of veg in return for a few young rabbits, then late Summer and Autumn are good times. You can select the three quarters grown ones for eating, knowing that they will not have litters to leave underground to die.
If you find you have two or three does breeding close to your garden it becomes a more challenging situation; I find it quite difficult to shoot very young rabbits, but it is fairer on the rabbits than being orphaned at a very young age. In this case, I generally aim to identify the doe when she has young rabbits outside and eating, and then cull her.
Baby rabbits are just to cute to shoot; but the rabbit holes on these slopes create a hazard when the cattle run
Baby rabbits are just to cute to shoot; but the rabbit holes on these slopes create a hazard when the cattle run.
The air rifle in each case must be accurate at the range you are using it. If you imagine the rabbit above with a one pence coin between his eye and the base of his ear; and a two pence coin just below the line of the top leg, and about a third of the way up the body, then you have the killing points to aim for. Don’t take the shot unless you can hit within these areas. A full power (12 ft Ibs) air rifle with a decent telescopic sight will be sufficient at this range, whatever that may be.
If you can sit patiently towards dusk, rabbits will often present an opportunity for an air rifleman
The head shot will be instant, dropping the rabbit on the spot, often without a twitch. The heart and lung shot can take 10 seconds before the rabbit stops; but it is a larger target. I have had rabbits run thirty or forty yards before dropping stone dead from a lung shot, completely bled out. This is obviously a consideration if you have close neighbours; I well remember shooting pigeons on the allotment at the back of my Dad’s house and having to ask the neighbour if I could have my pigeon back! In these more politically correct day and age, you will not be popular (unless they don’t like rabbits either; or they like eating them!).
