Bunny Problems
why did it have to be bunnies?
As some of you may know, the first pet Nate and I had as a couple was our rabbit Zoey, pictured below.
Zoey’s favorite pastime was hanging out under the coffee table passing judgement on all, as seen in the second photo. She had a permanent hutch and play area that was tucked behind a couch and then when we were home, we would let her out to run around the house. She categorically refused to take even one hop onto the wood floors which meant she kept herself contained to the carpeted living room. If she knew Nate and I were home but hadn’t let her out of her permanent area yet she would rattle her cage (she would grab one of the horizontal pieces with her mouth and shake that thing for all she was worth) until we would open it up – at which point she would continue to hangout right in the threshold of her permanent area making it clear that she was there by her choice, not ours. She was a bunny after my own heart.
I tell you this because we currently have a rabbit living in our hay shed. Which wouldn’t bother me except that it likes to hop up, and on, and over, all the bales and seems to be using all of them as one giant litter box. There is bunny poop, and I can only assume pee, on almost every bale that has an exposed top and I want it to stop.
Though I’m not one of those people who cannot handle the though of killing an animal I don’t like doing it. I felt really bad every time one of our water traps took out a thirteen-lined ground squirrel and I hated them. I’m not sure I can make myself kill a bunny. There’s also the issue of not knowing how to go about doing it. As outlined in this post I am unwilling to use poison and if we use a live trap what am I going to do once we catch it?
I know cats can be a deterrent (or end) to things like the ground squirrels and rabbits, but my concern with outdoor cats is they also kill a lot of birds, and birds eat the bugs which I hate even more than the rodents. If we had the time for a dog, I would be tempted to get one and train it to hunt nuisance animals but that isn’t a project I have the energy for right now.
Any other suggestions for discouraging the bunny from using all of the hay as a giant litter box?