Can you keep "wild" rabbits that care for themselves?

simmed

Rabbits eat grass/hay in the wild. So if you had a very large garden you could probably get let a rabbit "fend for itself", so to speak (and obviously buy some food for it if it runs out of things to eat). Is this right? If it had a hutch would it still dig out of the garden and escape? Or if the garden wasn't enclosed (more like "land"), would it run away?

I think it would be really cool to keep rabbits in a self-sufficient manner, that is, buy some seeds of plants that they can eat, plant the seeds, then sit back and let nature run its course.


Edit: The same goes for chickens/goats.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

They'd escape or be eaten by foxes. Or catch any of the varied nasty diseases that rabbits catch.

The reason that rabbits breed so prolifically is that they tend to die - starvation, predation, disease, cold - they are successful through their sheer numbers.


It really would be cruel to just leave a domestic animal to get on with it.

pug_in_a_bed

i think if you let nature run its course this way you would be over run with rabbits in a very short while!

There's a couple near me with a paddock and they have rabbits in and out; they're lovely to watch gambling round but they seem fine fending for themselves to be honest

Gloomendoom

Ha ha!

If you'd ever had wild rabbits in your garden you wouldn't be quite so keen. They make a right mess. Not to mention the occasional drama when your cat drags them backwards, kicking and screaming, through the catflap into your house and then lets them go for you to play with.

pug_in_a_bed

yes, had this with the jack russel unfortunately! A lovely present of a dead rabbit:o

simmed

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

They'd escape or be eaten by foxes. Or catch any of the varied nasty diseases that rabbits catch.

The reason that rabbits breed so prolifically is that they tend to die - starvation, predation, disease, cold - they are successful through their sheer numbers.


It really would be cruel to just leave a domestic animal to get on with it.

Nature is cruel sometimes :money:

simmed

pug_in_a_bed wrote: »

i think if you let nature run its course this way you would be over run with rabbits in a very short while!

There's a couple near me with a paddock and they have rabbits in and out; they're lovely to watch gambling round but they seem fine fending for themselves to be honest

That's fine by me, any excess of rabbit can go on the plate.

That's the type of thing I'm wondering about, is the paddock enclosed? Do the rabbits generally stay there? I'm guessing they're not tame..

simmed

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Ha ha!

If you'd ever had wild rabbits in your garden you wouldn't be quite so keen. They make a right mess. Not to mention the occasional drama when your cat drags them backwards, kicking and screaming, through the catflap into your house and then lets them go for you to play with.

There is no "mess" in nature obviously this type of project wouldn't be in a typical middle-class suburb garden with pretty flowers and manicured lawns, it would be in a more natural garden.

Raksha

I think the RSPCA might have something to say - freedom from fear is one of the five freedoms domestic animals are supposed to have (otherwise what point is there in domesticating them?)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

simmed wrote: »

Nature is cruel sometimes :money:

Nature is impartial, rather than cruel. People are cruel.

By all means, allow wild rabbits in your garden, but to put something that has been bred to be less jumpy, slower, fatter, shows up against a green backdrop like a beacon and is generally poorly adapted for the life of a wild rabbit isn't nature.

Gloomendoom

I suppose if you treated them like free range hens it might work. You'd need to round them up and put them back in the hutch every night to keep them safe.