I have wild baby rabbits in my back yard! help!

[Jesse]

Sorry, I don’t have pet rabbits (not that I have anything against the idea–they are marvelous creatures… I do have a cat).

Okay, so I have weeds galore.  I know there is at least one or more adult rabbits around.  They love to come to my back yard and eat my weeds.  I love it and love them.  However, I can’t keep plucking weeds by hand.  The dandelions are beautiful but crazy.  So I try to mow once a week.  I leave the rabbits be but talk to them and love them.

I was going to have someone come and spray the front and back to kill the weeds and prevent any more weed growth.  I “staked” off the flower beds as well as areas where I thought bunnies might live.  I wasn’t sure.

Whoa, well, I’m sure now.

Mowing yesterday, I discovered a rabbit nest under my apple tree.  It scared the heck out of me.  They just sat still as they could.  I hope I didn’t traumatize them with myself or the loud mower.  I finished mowing but kept a wide berth and just left some grass around the tree.

I called the lawn guy and left a message saying DO NOT COME SPRAY.

This morning, I staked off the apple tree, thinking that was rabbit nest central.  I thought there were two babies.  I have seen mom around.  I noticed, however, that they had moved to the other side of the tree and were hiding in the grass instead of in the nest.  Again, did not want to traumatize them, and they just held still as possible.

Washing dishes, I was fortunate tonight.  I saw the mom bouncing around in the back yard, doing her thing.  I wondered when she’d feed her two little kits.  At some point, she must have given a signal, because not only did the two little kits pop out, but bunnies from all corners of the earth came running at the same time–four from the apple tree and at least four from the flower bed that I had staked off.

So there are 6-8 babies, not 2.  They look to be 2-3 weeks old.  Obviously they can move around on their own.

Long story short, I do not have a rabbit nest under my apple tree–I have an entire back yard of rabbits!  I am just thankful that I did not run any over with the mower, hope I did not impale any with lawn stakes, or frighten any, and I’m so glad the lawn guy didn’t come spray, because they would have just sat as still as they could and gotten sprayed!

So help me.  What can I do?  How do I mow with them back there?  Is there anything I can do for them?  Should I just stop mowing for a month?  It would be a disaster to my back yard, but I want them to be safe.

I hope that soon they will be at the same capacity as adults and will know to run away from me and run away from my lawn mower and any other danger.  I don’t mind if they have my back yard as their home base, all 9 of them.  I would like to be able to mow my yard, however, and I’d like to spray for weeds.  I don’t want to do those things, or any other things, if it will endanger them, though…

[Bam]

this is a bit of a tough one! I take it you are in the USA so the rabbit are cottontail rabbits? I don’t know enough about them to say when they are “fully fledged” and capable of taking care of themselves. In European rabbits that can be when the rabbit still is very young, 3-4 weeks which is the reason why rabbit colonies can survive outbreaks of RVHD1, a disease with 100% mortality – this disease doesn’t affect baby rabbits.

Spraying for weeds would never be safe I’m afraid, but if they have burrows, they should be able to hide from the lawn-mower. I have European rabbits where I live, and you never kill a bunny by mistake with a lawn-mower, the helpless babies are below earth, the more mature ones run and hide. It’s worse with the types of bunnies (hares) that place their young in shallow hollows on the ground, they have this instinct to stay very still, like young deer, and wait for their mommy – young deer and young hares often and tragically do get killed by agricultural machines for this reason.

You seem to be a very nice person I must say, many garden-owners tend to regard wild rabbits as a vile pest =)

If however you make your garden a rabbit-sanctuary, they will probably thrive and keep multiplying and your neighbours might not like that at all. That’s another thing to consider.

[LBJ10]

Cottontails don’t really have burrows. They will make nests in natural “caves” like under a shed or other structure. Otherwise, they will often dig out a shallow bowl underneath a bush or some plants and cover the nest with leaf litter. If the nest is disturbed, the babies will flee the nest. So I suppose I could see the potential for one running into the lawn mower if it isn’t quick enough. If you are mowing in one part of the yard though and they sense you are getting closer, it’s unlikely they will stick around and wait for the lawn mower to be right on top of them. Perhaps if you know where the nest is, you could leave a little buffer around it?

[Mikey]

So cute! When i was younger, we had a few rabbits nests in our yard. My mom would block them off and lawn mow around them. The weeds around the nest grew like crazy, but after a month, they all left. Youll want to block them all in the nest if possible. Check for more nests as well. My boyfriends families yard had a bunny nest they did not know about (they knew they had one nest and mowed around it, did not think they had another and did not check) and a few of the babies did get killed by the lawn mower (literally jumping into it as it went by). The babies who died were buried by the family’s tree. So yea, check for more nests just to be sure, block of all areas before you mow. As the others stated, spraying for weeds will never be safe

[Jesse]

You guys are so sweet! Thank you so much for the help and advice!

Here’s an update. I came back from a trip, dandelions out of control. The rabbits were self-sufficient, and all was basically back to “normal” in my yard. Unfortunately, at least two of them did not make it. I will not get into the details. It was not my fault thankfully (I doubt I would have dealt well if I’d accidentally harmed or killed one).

However, many of them did survive. They are all “adults” now, and I see them bopping around the neighborhood. Two were hopping in the air playing with each other across the street, and they are frequently in and out of my yard, helping me with the dandelions. I no longer need to fear when I mow. Their whole nesting period was really fast. I could probably even spray the yard now, although I most likely will just skip it. They are just frequent visitors now rather than living in my yard, but I am happy to have them as visitors.

[Bam]

I’m sorry about the two babies that didn’t make it, but other than that it sounds so great! Thank you for caring and letting them nest in your garden!

[Author]

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