Rabbits are cute and fuzzy animals. However, don’t let their pretty faces fool you. These animals can damage your yard and garden in a couple of hours. Finding rabbit feces in your yard can be annoying. Worse is when you don’t know what to do to keep them out of your yard. You may be wondering, ‘how to stop rabbits from pooping in my yard?’
While the animals may have parasites like tapeworms or roundworms, their waste doesn’t transmit any illness to humans. But, they can poop as much as 100 pellets in a single day, which makes your yard smelly and unpleasant.
You can identify rabbit poop by round pellets, usually light brown or black. These animals tend to leave their feces in clusters in the yards. So, with time, they can damage your flowerbeds.
Thankfully, several ways can help you clean rabbit poop and stop them from coming into your yard. Read on to learn about them.
How to Get Rid of Rabbit Poop?
If you find rabbit poop in your yard, pick it up using a shovel or pet scooper. Then, throw it in your trash containers.
Also, while the feces have not been said to transmit diseases or parasites, it’s still wise to avoid contact with them. Remember to keep children and pets from the rabbit poop as well.
Please do not throw rabbit feces in your green waste container. Bear in mind that any poop is biowaste.
Therefore, you should not mix it with natural materials like grass clippings or tree trimmings. Just scoop the poop using a shovel, place it in a bag and seal it then throw it in the non-green trash container.
Composting Rabbit Poop
Feces of any kind are nuisances and can mess with your yard’s aesthetics. They can also make your pet sick if they consume them. So, it would be wise to get rid of rabbit feces immediately after you spot them.
But while many people usually throw the droppings away, turning them into compost can be helpful for the trees you have planted. Here is the procedure for that:
Step 1: Add More Ingredients
Pick the droppings with a shovel and add them to your compost bin. Make sure the bin doesn’t have a bottom to allow earthworms up. Then, add wood shavings and straw to this pile in equal amounts.
You can also add vegetable peelings/kitchen scraps, grass clipping, and fallen leaves from your trees.
Step 2: Mixing and Moistening
Once you have added all the contents, it is time to mix. You will need a pitchfork to do this. As you mix, remember to add some water to moisten the pile. However, don’t add too much to avoid over-saturating it. Then, cover the bin using a dark tap and leave it that way for several weeks.
Step 3: Use it on Trees
Once the compost is ready, you can add it to your plants and trees to offer extra nutrition.
How to Stop Rabbit from Pooping in Your Yard?
There isn’t a single method of preventing these animals from popping into your yard. However, you can use a combination of techniques to be more effective.
We should also mention that you may not experience the same results when using this method, depending on where you live. Nevertheless, here are four ways to prevent rabbits from pooping in your yard.
#1. Use a Spray Repellent
You won’t have a rabbit poop problem if rabbits can’t access your yard. And one way to keep them out is by using a rabbit repellent or deterrent.
You can get bottled predator urine repellent and spray it on your fences and other surfaces. The smell will keep rabbits off, and they will avoid your yard.
You can use urine from natural predators or plant-safe chemical repellents to drive these animals from your yard. A chemical repellent is more effective than urine from a predator.
#2. Use Humane Traps
You can catch the rabbits humanely and throw them somewhere else to keep their poop from their yard. Human traps catch and lock the rabbits in place so they can’t escape.
Place them near rabbit trails, underneath buildings, or damaged plants. Once you catch the rabbit, release it in a state forest or wildlife park.
But we should mention that these traps don’t catch rabbits as quickly as the population they give birth to. Plus, the method is difficult since rabbits are witty animals.
#3. Plant Rabbit Deterring Plants
While rabbits love plants, they can’t withstand the smell of some plants, like lavender, leeks, basils, onions, marigolds, and mints. So, having these in your garden can keep them away.
#4. Install a Rabbit-Proof Fencing
Most people use chicken wire to prevent rabbits from entering their yards. It is a tough slim mesh that keeps animals away and is affordable. Tie it around several posts to block out rabbits. If they can’t access your yard, they won’t poop there.
Benefits of Rabbit Poop for Your Yard?
Sure, rabbit droppings smell unpleasant and make your yard look messy. However, you can use manure from these animals to fertilize flower beds and plants in your yard. It contains phosphorus and nitrogen in high amounts, needed for the plant to grow. Rabbit poop has four times more nutrients than cow or horse droppings.
Apart from a high nutrition level, rabbit poop is also best to use instead of cow poop as it doesn’t have to mature before using it. Cow and horse poop has a high amount of uric acid and ammonia, which harms plants when you use them as fertilizers.
But rabbit droppings have fewer amounts of uric and ammonia. So, it is a preferable option as it won’t burn your plants. Lastly, when you mix rabbit poop with gardening soil, it improves the drainage and leads to better retention.
Related Article: Do Rabbits Eat Daffodils?