For gardeners, landscapers and lawn caretakers, rabbits are a perpetual nuisance. Rabbit populations can wreak havoc on trees, shrubs, flowers and crops throughout the year and, especially, in the spring. Communities and neighborhoods have long struggled with controlling rabbit populations to protect their valuable plant life, and many are turning to organic rabbit repellents as a solution.
Sometimes rabbits' destructive nature becomes personal for those affected. At the University of Victoria in Canada, rabbits stripped a 130-year-old tree of its bark, a wound from which it will not recover. A descendant of the original planter of the tree remarked, “[Rabbits']
If not controlled, rabbit populations can rapidly devastate the plant life in a large area, especially when no natural predators are present. Rabbits reproduce at an astonishing rate. In one year, a female rabbit can give birth to as many as 24 young. Many campuses and communities value rabbits for their aesthetic qualities but become overwhelmed when the rabbits' numbers grow out of control.
During the early summer months, rabbits increasingly cause problems. Newly planted gardens or farmland, if left unprotected, provide rabbits and their young with a convenient food source, requiring little effort to exploit.
This plague of rabbits has caused more residents, gardeners, farmers and neighborhoods to utilize spray-on rabbit repellent as an alternative to fencing or traps.
The most effective of these rabbit repellents is said to deter rabbits by irritating the animals' senses of smell. Repellents made with putrescent egg and garlic are reported to be most effective, since these scents mimic that of a decaying animal, which is a sign to the rabbits of nearby predators. This triggers the flight response, causing rabbits to flee from the treated area. For high presence areas, a rabbit repellent with capsaicin is needed to agitate the sense of taste, causing rabbits to immediately stop eating vegetation.
Many users of rabbit repellents tend to be concerned with the environment and prefer to purchase organic sprays, which are all natural. Consumers can check if a spray is organic by looking for the Organic Materials Review Institute-listed®
Gardeners recommend using a high-potency rabbit repellent that only needs application only a few times per season as new growth occurs. Avoid those that need reapplication after every rainfall, since they can be inconvenient and costly.
