Teenage bunny in live trap awaiting his road trip to a new destination
far far away from our vegetable garden!
Earlier this year, I noticed a rabbit, eating clover in our backyard. I knew immediately that she was a new mother who probably had babies hidden somewhere because of her patchy fur and haggard look. Apparently motherhood is never easy, even for rabbits. Early each day found that same bunny munching on the lawn and probably a lot other stuff from the garden that I never noticed.
Then, of course, came the cute little bunnies. I have only seen three at one time and I am not sure if they are always the same three or if I see different ones and the family is really a lot bigger. In any case as they grew, I began to notice more damage in the garden.
Most of the Italian beans were eaten off as soon as they sprouted and the ones that survived lost their leaves again and again. All of the beets were eaten as soon as they sprouted and now the rabbits are eating our cherry tomatoes. Most of the garden is fenced off to prevent this sort of damage, but the tomato section is still open and apparently I can only grow radishes and onions in that space without incident — probably the bunnies do not have a taste for spicy foods yet. In any case, enough is enough. I set up our live trap last night and baited it with few leaves of romaine lettuce. This morning I found one of our problem teenage bunnies incarcerated in the trap.
After a bit of discussion about the merits of whacking the bunny versus moving him to a new site, we decided to take our problem bunny on a road trip and let him go in one of our many area parks. Hopefully, he will have a long and happy life in his new neighborhood and be too far away to make it back to our garden.
Then, of course, I will need to reset the trap, catch the rest of those miserable bunnies and relocate them as well!