Aggressive rabbits attacking chickens

[mowin]

That's the point - those who saw what was happening were gobsmacked! No-one's ever heard the like. That's why I offered to post in this very helpful forum which has a large membership, just in case anyone else had ever come across such a thing.

I only know about little brown wild rabbits, sorry. I've never heard of the sorts that you mention. I've googled in vain to try and find an image. We only have that sort so we just call them wild rabbits.
Beloved Bird's point about them being territorial would fit but tbh I'm also wondering if it could be a case of substance misuse.... it's not that far from a run-down area where dodgy dealings take place...suppose someone sought a secluded corner, out of town and discarded illicit stuff that eventually got absorbed into the grass?? Is that far-fetched? or might animals be affected like that?

What area do you live in? Would help us determine what types of bunnies you have. The most common is the cottontail. Named for, well it's cotton ball like tail.

 

[Jenni Hen]

@ Mowin This happened at my friend's farm, which is on the edge of the moors above the Colne valley, near the Lancashirre-Yorkshire border, in Northern England (see abpve).
The Durham problem is only about rabbits being sufficiently ingenious and persistent to make people give up their vegetable plots that they've tended for years. No reports of aggression.
I'm in Malton, near York, and (fingers crossed) don't (yet) have a bunny problem.

I've managed to find a picture of the sort of rabbit.

 

[Jenni Hen]

@ Beloved BIrds Objectively, yes, the behaviour is interesting but he didn't hang around to observe while his chickens were having their feathers bitten off! He found them herded up and terrified so he was worried lest any got suffocated by the others pressing on them.
I don't know much about roosters (most places here don't allow them) but I thought roosters were supposed to defend their hens, and that RIR are feisty; yet the two RIR roosters had fled - and that's what raised the alarm, when someone saw them in the wrong place. They must have flown right over the shed.

 

[mowin]

@ Mowin This happened at my friend's farm, which is on the edge of the moors above the Colne valley, near the Lancashirre-Yorkshire border, in Northern England (see abpve).
The Durham problem is only about rabbits being sufficiently ingenious and persistent to make people give up their vegetable plots that they've tended for years. No reports of aggression.
I'm in Malton, near York, and (fingers crossed) don't (yet) have a bunny problem.

I've managed to find a picture of the sort of rabbit.
View attachment 3259391

That's a cottontail rabbit. Same most of the US have. Any veggie garden has to be fenced in. The rabbits, deer, woodchucks will destroy it otherwise.
I guess I can see if the area is so over populated and food is scarce that some issues could arise.
Around here, the larger predators take care of the rabbits rather effectively.

 

[Jenni Hen]

We don't have much wildlife and what there is, is mostly under threat from human development. However, it's unusual for rabbits to be a nuisance even on unfenced veggie plots. We don't have woodchucks but there are deer in some wooded areas, but they wouldn't approach a building.
I'm thinking if maybe the rabbits had been under stress from the dry summer and maybe some other factor, discovered a new area and then found intruders (chickens) in it, they might get really stressed ouf if they couldn't make the intruders go away. Where we would see terrified chickens cornered and cowering, a stressed-out rabbit might see an intruder that refuses to budge however hard they try to make it go away.
Would that make sense?
(I'd like to add that I really appreciate that people have taken time to think about this and reply to my posts, thank you very much!)

 

[mowin]

We don't have much wildlife and what there is, is mostly under threat from human development. However, it's unusual for rabbits to be a nuisance even on unfenced veggie plots. We don't have woodchucks but there are deer in some wooded areas, but they wouldn't approach a building.
I'm thinking if maybe the rabbits had been under stress from the dry summer and maybe some other factor, discovered a new area and then found intruders (chickens) in it, they might get really stressed ouf if they couldn't make the intruders go away. Where we would see terrified chickens cornered and cowering, a stressed-out rabbit might see an intruder that refuses to budge however hard they try to make it go away.
Would that make sense?
(I'd like to add that I really appreciate that people have taken time to think about this and reply to my posts, thank you very much!)

Rabbits around here are very skittish, for good reason. Something is always trying to eat them. Hawks, fox, coyote, bobcats, ECT. Their practically scared of their own shadow.
The deer here have no problem eating shrubs next to a house. Its a huge issue in my area. They do thousands of dollars in damage to plants and shrubs in people's yards.
Thanks for posting about the rabbits. Not something you hear about every day.

 

[BelovedBirds]

We don't have much wildlife and what there is, is mostly under threat from human development. However, it's unusual for rabbits to be a nuisance even on unfenced veggie plots. We don't have woodchucks but there are deer in some wooded areas, but they wouldn't approach a building.
I'm thinking if maybe the rabbits had been under stress from the dry summer and maybe some other factor, discovered a new area and then found intruders (chickens) in it, they might get really stressed ouf if they couldn't make the intruders go away. Where we would see terrified chickens cornered and cowering, a stressed-out rabbit might see an intruder that refuses to budge however hard they try to make it go away.
Would that make sense?
(I'd like to add that I really appreciate that people have taken time to think about this and reply to my posts, thank you very much!)

I think that is a possibility. All we know is that the rabbits are not being predatory, they are definitely being defensive.

Now, I have a bunny, who is domestic yes, but has just been rescued from a bad scenario where she was left to go wild.
Now, some times when I step in her pen (big old pen) she charges my foot, and growls!
Rabbits can look very brave and very aggressive sometimes, but all that aggression comes from a place of either fear, or territorial behaviour. Both are natural defences.

Another thing to consider is how very protective mother rabbits are with their kits. I've seen them take on snakes, when threatened. So if a chicken perhaps got too close to a smaller, younger baby, they may have been attacked for that reason.

So all that said, this is all theories. Why the rabbits set about intruding on the chickens, and why they attacked them specifically, we may never know. But rabbits are fairly limited in what they can or cant get into.
Good strong wire fencing, and a mesh skirt (coming a foot or two out, just inches under the soil at 90 degrees) should do the trick.

 

[Jenni Hen]

That does make a lot of sense. I did suffer from a territorial pet rabbit once. It was my daughter's and it liked to run around holding a large piece of paper (why?!). One day I was there and was marking some exam papers for a qualification. Unfortunately, the bunny decided they were his and when I tried to retrieve a script he sank his teeth into my hand and someone else had to get him off! I managed not to bleed on the it, phew!!

However, I'd no idea that a rabbit would take on a snake. That's very courageous.

I would guess that the chances are, that the chickens intruded on the rabbits, rather than vv, because they normally live inside the shed in a sort of indoor pen, like a loose-box in a barn, and go out through the pop-hole if they want to, and only if the weather's nice. - or so I'm told! It's high on a hill so can be damp and windswept.

I tend to worry about what's in grass because we had a pony that had to be euthanised and the post-mortem tests revealed cadmium poisoning. We got him from someone who'd had him grazing on waste sites in an industrial area :-( .
Also, some veg-growers are experiencing problems due to herbicide residues in commercial bags of manure.

Your explanation about rabbit behaviours seems much the most likely and the mesh skirt sounds like a useful addition to the fence.
In Scotland there are deer fences in some places but mainly so they don't run onto the roads. In England smallholders will use mesh skirts to deter foxes from chicken runs but 'backyard' people don't usually do that. I've laid paving blocks instead and have secure coops and heavy gauge mesh, but many chickens are protected only by chicken wire.

I feel that I've learned a lot from this discussion - thank you very much indeed!

 

[centrarchid]

I've a friend who's kept poultry all his life. Yesterday he told me about something surprising and disturbing.

His friend told him that the two RIR roosters had flown out of their pen. My friend went to investigate; and saw aggressive rabbits in it. They had the hens herded up and were attacking them, biting them and pulling out feathers. It happened again and now his hens won't go out.

I'd have found this hard to believe except that my sister has recently had extreme problems with rabbits on the allotments; no-one can find a way of keeping them off the veg- they just chew through everything and eat all the veg. including pulling out the root crops to eat.

I wondered if anyone else has heard of rabbits attacking chickens? Or of unusually destructive rabbit behaviour?

This is in the North of England (Lancashire-Yorkshire border and County Durham)

Your European rabbits are different than what we have. I think what you have is more similar to domestic rabbits in that they make burrows and form more complex social groups. Mine get gruffy with me. I have had wild American Cottontail try to run my daughter away from her nest and seen on multiple occasions the mom attacks a snake near here nest. What you describe is something different and likely specific to your rabbit species.

 

[mowin]

Your European rabbits are different than what we have. I think what you have is more similar to domestic rabbits in that they make burrows and form more complex social groups. Mine get gruffy with me. I have had wild American Cottontail try to run my daughter away from her nest and seen on multiple occasions the mom attacks a snake near here nest. What you describe is something different and likely specific to your rabbit species.

She posted a pic of the type of rabbit, and it looks like a cottontail to me.