How to get rid of rabbits and stop them from munching your garden. You can find the same old home remedies such as hanging Irish Spring, spicy foods, and plants that rabbits hate. Commercial rabbit deterrents comprise repellent techniques and fencing.
Generally speaking, one of the worst places you can find rabbits is under your deck. If you’ve seen at least one rabbit, there will be others, and before you know it, you can be overrun as wild rabbits breed fast and can give birth to around 50 kits each year.
While children love a bunny, gardeners and homeowners can be frustrated by their presence. As Elmer Fudd would say, how to get rid of rabbits under my deck? Or more famous, he’d say, “rascally rabbits.”
In our guide, you can learn more about keeping rabbits from under your deck and how to protect plants and prevent rabbits from entering your yard.
By the end, you’ll have a list of humane methods of dealing with your rabbit problem and a couple of ways you could need to do exactly what they say and get rid of rabbits living permanently. (Read Do Rabbits Eat Pepper Plants)
Is It Bad To Have Rabbits Under Deck?
One idea is that rabbits are adorable, fluffy, tiny critters that everyone adores? That isn’t entirely accurate. You don’t want to find rabbit tracks around your home or rabbits living under your deck.
Rabbits are adorable, but they can cause a slew of issues. During the warmer months of the year, two adult rabbits can have three distinct litters, each of which can have anything from two to ten bunnies.
While it appears to be nothing major, it can quickly escalate into a significant issue. Rabbits quickly devastate a garden and cause havoc in your yard.
Worse yet, if wild rabbits are nesting under your deck, there’s a strong possibility they’ll die there, and before long, you can have the smell of rotting rabbit wafting into your home.
Besides this, with a rabbit population, it can be an ideal excuse for other wild animals to gain access into your yard or make use of a defunct rabbit hole.
What Smells Do Rabbits Hate?
Using rabbit repellent is another vital step to consider in your war against rabbits. Rabbit repellent sprayed under your deck is a quick and easy approach to keep rabbits away while you work on more permanent solutions.
To obtain access under a deck, porch, or other concrete area, rabbits will dig little holes around 2 inches in diameter.
Spraying your property with a smell that rabbits despise is the simplest method to make them dislike it. The following are some of the most prevalent rabbit repellents:
- Vinegar
- Ammonia
- Garlic Oil
- Hot Pepper Oil
- Coffee Grounds
How Do I Get Rid Of Rabbits Permanently?
Here are a few ways you can use to get rid of rabbits from under your deck. While effective, you may need a little excavation, and they can be time-consuming, yet you won’t have cute bunnies in your yard to worry about.
Altering Rabbit Habitat
Reduce the areas where rabbits can find shelter. As rabbits hide in vegetation, keeping your grass cut short, removing unwanted vegetation like tall grass by your fence, and regularly cleaning away plant debris is a fantastic strategy to repel rabbits.
Also, trim branches on plants and shrubs so rabbits can’t hide around the bottoms of your plants. Last, you can fill existing burrows on your property. (Read Flowers That Rabbits Won’t Eat)
You may be tempted to toss in a couple of moth balls as a rabbit deterrent, yet these are toxic to children and the pet dog. Also, some states prohibit their use for pest control.
Ensure no rabbits are hiding under sheds, staircases, or areas where rabbits like to hide. If they are under your deck, then they could be in other areas. Chicken wire or wood can help to cover such holes.
Make sure your fence is in good shape and has no holes. Rabbits quickly find weak areas to dig in the ground.
Use rabbit-repelling plants as there are some that they won’t eat as food. Few plants are off-limits to rabbits as food, although there are some you can use.
- Annuals: goatweed, impatiens, and verbena
- Perennials: echinacea and honeysuckle
- Ground cover: Periwinkle and bougainvillea
- Shrubs: Rhododendrons and camellias
Plant rabbit-repelling trees. Rabbits dislike Alder and birch, so you can get young trees and plant them around by your fence.
Motion sensor Sprinklers
Sprinklers with motion sensors should be installed. Rabbits are conditioned to stay out of the area by automatic, motion-activated sprinklers that spray them with water whenever they move within the range of the sensor.
Some of these sprinklers not only discharge a blast of water to scare rabbits away, but they also emit an annoying noise. Because it employs only water and sound instead of chemicals, this solution is also environmentally friendly and humane.
Rabbit Repellents
Use commercial repellents. The problem is that no repellant works on every rabbit, so you may have to try several before finding one that works. Some repellents may need to be applied more than once per season.
Blood or bone meal fertilizer: Blood or bone meal fertilizer repels rabbits because they are natural herbivores.
Chemical repellents, such as ammonium soaps, can help prevent rabbits, but they can also harm garden plants, so read the package carefully.
Home deterrents: Cayenne pepper, human or dog hair, or excrement mixed with fertilizer can discourage bunnies. Spray vegetables with a mixture of vinegar, water, and spicy sauce.
Dried sulfur and onions can help deter rabbits.
Using Chicken Wire
- Dig a small trench around 4 inches deep with your hand trowel starting at the outside wall of your house where the netting will go.
- Now cut two 2x4s into 34-inch lengths. This is to lay a foundation for the steel netting.
- Remember that you don’t need to cover the entire deck with wood, just enough to grip the chicken one-inch mesh to the deck.
- Drill 3/4-inch holes every 12 inches in the center of your 2x4s.
- Next, lay the previously cut and drilled 2x4s. Put them on the ground around the deck’s perimeter, inside the trench you excavated.
- Work tightly around the deck’s footings and landscape stakes.
- You can fix the wood by pounding nails or steel bars into the ground, whichever you like.
- Begin where the deck meets the house’s exterior wall. Start unrolling your galvanized hex netting two feet at a time. Ensure your galvanized wire is touching the 2x4s in the trench.
- Attach the chicken wire and galvanized nails to the 2x4s and outer floor joist with a hammer. If your deck is higher, nail your chicken wire to the posts.
- The idea is to make the chicken wire so high off the ground that they can’t jump over it.
- When you arrive at the stairs, walk underneath them. This will allow you to climb up the steps without letting the bunnies in.
- Finally, re-fill the trench with earth. Make sure your bottom edge extends below the 2x4s to deter rabbits from burrowing.
- After placing the chicken wire, replace the decorative lattice work on top to secure it.
This chicken wire should deter rabbits from nesting under your deck, pushing them to choose another location: no more bunnies and no more worry.
What Will Keep The Rabbits Away?
Reduce rabbit population by hunting—Hunt rabbits with a shotgun, a.22 rifle, a handgun, or a bow and arrow.
Follow local license and hunting season laws when hunting, and ensure your yard is large enough to avoid stray shots. You will need to check local laws about shooting and other related questions about shooting in your garden. Hiring a pro can help decrease your rabbit population.
Use the services of a pest control company. Find a local pest control service that can handle your rabbit problem. They can assist you in determining whether rabbits are to blame for any damage you may have discovered. (Read Plants That Repel Spiders)
They can also assist with implementing rabbit-repelling and property-protection tactics like fences, traps, and tree guards.
A pest control firm will usually plan follow-up or maintenance appointments and ensure that any removal or control procedures are legal in your area.
If you’ve had enough of rabbits and want to hire a pest control service, seek one that specializes in small animals like rabbits in your area—not all pest control companies have experience with rabbits.
Ask them over the phone if they’ve ever dealt with a rabbit infestation and what steps they took to deal with it.
How To Get Rid Of Rabbits Without Killing Them
It’s understandable if you don’t want to put an enclosure around your entire deck, but that still leaves you with the problem of how to get rid of the rabbits. Of course, you could capture them, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
The first is to find out what your local animal control laws are. You can’t just catch and release rabbits on the spur of the moment; there will be release laws in your area that must be followed.
The trapping is the easiest part once you’ve cleared this with your local government.
Live traps are helpful because they allow you to capture the rabbit while also removing it from your property rather than repelling rabbits and not succeeding.
If you have a significant rabbit infestation, keep in mind that getting rid of all the rabbits may take a long time.
Live traps are straightforward to come by, both locally and online. You can tempt the rabbits into the trap by baiting it with carrots, Brussels sprouts, apples, or lettuce.
Please make sure you monitor traps regularly; you don’t want the rabbits to spend too much time in them. (Read Do Deer Eat Tomatoes)
If you’re going to release the traps, make sure you wear protective gloves. Before releasing them, make sure you are at least a mile away from your house; this will ensure that they do not return.
If you use this form of rabbit repellent, you may need a trapping permit for using a live trap. Check with your local municipality if you can use them in your garden to trap rabbits.
