Rabbits as Sacrificial Loss Prevention

[itsasmallfarm]

your right beside me, (saskatchewan here), not sure of your laws in Alberta, but here in Sask coyotes are open season, we can trap them and hunt them any time of the year. i would first recommend live traps (you know the hava-hart style) and just shot and kill em there and then. and like you said the pelts are around 100$ (last time i checked the fur auctions they where going for like 135$ can for western pelts) making the what 100-200$ trap worth it. also yes hard ware cloth is expensive here in Canada. we covered are coop in hardware cloth, expensive yes, worth it yes.

now for the rabbits, i think your just going to be bringing in the predators, we a free and easy food source.

 

[aart]

I currently have exceptional Cotton-tailed Rabbit abundance. The rabbit population as a whole is elevated in my area although particularly high because of my already established predator management system. The system employs vegetative cover, electric fencing and free-ranging dogs. For last few months we have had very little predator activity directed at chickens. I do not know if high rabbit abundance is the cause. The area I monitor is about 6 acres and it appears to be be supporting about 200 rabbits, possibly more as the small ones are hard to spot in heavy vegetation.

A problem stemming from this is the rabbits are damaging trees.

Kinda like the which came first the chicken or the egg. Are there more rabbits because your defenses keep the larger preds away......or is the larger pred population down, so more rabbits??
I've seen no rabbits in my yard this year, many years there's a ton of them bopping around, and nesting in my garden....on the other hands I've heard more fox this year, and had one rush the run and hit the fence. Many variables but the pred/prey pop changes relatively.

 

[centrarchid]

In my setting I think dogs defending them is part of equation. My dogs eat some of the rabbits to be sure but they have other sources nutrition that are far more important. Additionally, a single predator species is unlikely to control the rabbits or other prey. It is a combination of habitat, predator abundance which includes species richness, forage, and disease. Habitat here is awesome for rabbits.

 

[jeria]

yeah I can buy hardware cloth, I use it for the floor of my breeder rabbit cages so that their poop falls through it to the ground.

it is about $12.50 canadian for a 2'x5' role or around $15.00 canadian for a 3'x5' role.

how much is hardware cloth where you live?

order 50 foot rolls on Amazon or EBay. much cheaper per foot. They also come in different heights and wire weight.

 

[Member 482121]

What are coyote pelts???
Sorry not dumb just from uk

They are the skins of coyotes, those miniature wolves that infest the U.S.

 

[GGBEAR]

Yes thank you I was told a few pages back

I was starting to wonder about land mines??

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I hope my creepy title caught your attention.

Back story:
Since I am not a millionaire i didn't feel like buying hundreds of feet of chain link wire to build my pheasant, chicken and turkey enclosures. I used poultry wire which is real good for keeping poultry in.... while predators kill them.

options:
a) replace all chicken wire with some kinda predator proof wire..... pfff not gonna happen.
b) set traps for the selfish predators around my poultry infrastructure..... mmm they neighbour just bought a $1600.00 puppy so maybe not.
c) hunt and kill local predators...... I have a job, aint nobody got time for that.
d) breed rabbits and release many many of them around my poultry infrastructure in hopes that a predator choses to eat them rather than tear through the wire and eat my birds..... bingo, option d) it is!

so far the rabbits I have released remain within about 50 yards of my chicken coop. it is rather funny to watch them when they are being chased by both dumb dogs and rambunctious teenagers. the rabbits act like there is an invisible wall in a 50 yard radius of the chicken coop. Mind you, I have only released unwanted male rabbits thus far.

in the long term i'll be breeding my rabbits to be as slow and dumb as possible,

so, will this work? will the predators spare my birds and eat the rabbits I so graciously offer them?

I too am of the opinion that salting your land with rabbets will pull in predators from far and near.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

haha, its all good. To define Coyote Pelts, hmmmm. well, a Coyote is the common name for Canis Latrans, a small canid species closely related to wolves. A pelt is the skin of a fur bearing animal. So, coyote pelts are the skins of coyotes.

I might add, only less the rest of the coyote.

 

[centrarchid]

Lets see how this plays itself out. My rabbit abundance is out the roof for nearly a year yet very little depredation issues for chickens.

Sometimes is pays to have an open mind. We are all aware of dogma and how it blocks progression of knowledge.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

That may well be Sir centrachid. However what happens when there is a down year in the rabbet cycle and all the predators that built up their populations in good times suddenly finds that there is not enough rabbets anymore to fill all the empty stomachs?