Kitchen Garden Forum

When I went to pick some sprouts over the allotment there was piles and piles of rabbit droppings around them. I think they must have been having a party! Do you think this extra "manure" will be good for the soil? I think I am going to be busy when the weather improves - trying to rabbit proof my allotment!!!!!!

Morning Mrs L, indeed the rabbit droppings will be good for the allotment.
Just one thought though, if there is a very large amount, you might just want to spread them out a little with a rake.

An elderly friend visited his daughter in Java over Christmas.
When he left he had a magnificent row of sprouts, tall sturdy plants, packed with sprouts.
When he returned and visted his allotment he found a row of eight inch high splinter-ended stumps, which was all the Muntjac had left of his sprouts.

Da' Bunnies have been busily chewing off the bark in the roadside hawthorns round Hertfordshire, so if Mrs L still has sprouts she's lucky.

Our local bunnies love leeks - the tops have been disappearing rapidly off them over the last few weeks (off the leeks, that is; I can't get my hands on those damned rabbits )!!!

Nothing will be safe for the next few months. They eat anything that's not covered. I was really surprised when I first found out that they even eat garlic!

One year we lost all the tops of young onion and garlic plants to a rabbit (literally, it was just ONE rabbit which had snuck in under the wire netting!) - the plants never did recover. I think rabbits will eat practically anything green except, I think, willows!

Monika wrote:I think rabbits will eat practically anything green except, I think, willows!

Have I told you about my pet rabbit? He won't touch anything green, or carrots, or anything that could ever have grown apart from apples. He adores the most expensive Bunny Brunch from the supermarket - won't eat the cheaper stuff from the much friendlier pet shop - will eat a biscuit that looks like a carrot and is particularly partial to a Hob nob! Sounds like he is the ideal allotment pet At least his droppings go on the compost - although I am not sure what goodness he can be putting back.

If he's that picky then he has an indulgent owner.

Try not feeding him so much and just the cheaper green stuff, there will come a point where hunger overcomes pickiness.

My local wild rabbits eat hawthorn bark during the snow-freeze, but they won't touch it if better stuff is accessible.

He has a very indulgent owner - I rescued him and two lady rabbits from the death knell when their owner asked my husband to dispose of them for her as she had to many (he does her pest control). He couldn't quite bear to do it, and put them in a pen whilst he considered his options. I then saw them - banned him from doing anything to them and brought them all home! By this time they had done what rabbits do, and a month later we had the most lovely 3 baby rabbits, which we found homes for. Sadly the two ladies both caught Mixie after about 18 months and died, but Sooty (the rabbit) did not. My theory is that he had been blessed at the pet service and that protected him as they were in a double hutch! Anyway, I now just have Sooty, have no idea how old he is, but he gets blessed every year at the pet service, and if he wants a hob nob - who am I to object? I am very indulgent to old dogs too - fortunately all of ours are currently young