Help with ideas to get wild bunnies to eat pellets

Kicks
Kicks Member Posts: 4,131
edited September 2017 in Furry friends

Has anyone tried to get wild bunnies to eat pellets (rabbit feed)? If you have had any luck with getting them to eat them - how did you accomplish it? Or getting them to eat alfalfa cubes?

I don't normally try to feed any wildlife but if I can get the wild bunnies who visit our yard to eat feed, I will put out this year for them as it might save them. We are in a Severe Drought and there is little to no grass growing (more than 1/2 of my yard is bare dirt) so it is going to be a long hard winter for wildlife that are 'grazers'. I know several ranchers that have already sold a lot of their stock (or all of it) because there is no pasture left and little to no hay available to keep them alive through the coming long winter.

There are 3 or 4 wild bunnies (all wild bunnies look the same so not sure how many - Buggsy and Foo Bunny do not look alike at all other than being broken - Bugs is broken black and Foo is broken tortoise) that visit the yard at least daily and will let me walk to within 3 feet before they run off. I have a couple of 'spots' in the yard that I have alfalfa growing - primarily to pick fresh alfalfa for 'snacks' for my guys but also for the wild bunnies - there is almost no alfalfa this year in the yard.

I've tried putting pellets out in several different areas that I know the bunnies go, but they don't eat them. Have put out alfalfa cubes too - some dry/some soaked - and they don't eat them either. (They don't eat cur up carrots or apples either.)

So - ANY ideas to try would be appreciated greatly!

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Comments

  • Freya244117
    Freya244117 Member Posts: 603
    edited September 2017

    Hey Kicks, we have lots of wild bunnies here. Ours are strange though, they sit under the peach or apple trees and wait for us to pick one for them. They are not keen on carrots, but love the green carrot leaves. The only thing I can think of is to just keep putting out small amounts of food in the same place/s. They will learn where it is if they need it.

    It is the second day of spring here, and we have had the warmest driest winter on record. It is going to be a really bad bushfire season this year.

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  • Kicks
    Kicks Member Posts: 4,131
    edited September 2017

    We are still 'officially' in summer - autumn/fall starts officially on Sept 21.

    During winter here, our actual temps (not wind chill) can drop to -35f so think that equates to about -35c (+/-) - that's really cold for critters out in it. Especially if they don't have 'full bellies' to keep them warm. Depending on the year, snow can cover basically everything with drifts to 10' or more. So yeah, our winters are not 'nice' and these few wild bunnies who come in the yard, I'd like to try to help IF I can. (They are Cottontails - not Jack Rabbits.)

    I will keep trying putting out pettets and hopefully they will learn to eat them. Think I may be able to get a bunch of carrot tops from a friend who will be canning her carrots soon and will try to add them to the pellet areas as an enticement to them. Also planted some faddish seeds sort of near the areas as raddish will be up and growing quickly and can put pellets I those areas when radishes were up. Buggsy likes raddish greens and small raddish so maybe they will.

    Any other ideas -

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  • MinusTwo
    MinusTwo Member Posts: 16,634
    edited September 2017

    Kicks - as you know, I rarely look at the active threads anymore. But boy did this one grab me. I'm like "WHAT?" Except it's you posting so I figured it was legit. Sorry I don't know anything about wild rabbits. Good luck.

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  • MTwoman
    MTwoman Member Posts: 2,704
    edited September 2017

    kicks, my sister has rabbits, so I'll ask her, but I'm not sure she's tried to feed wild rabbits.

    (edited to add: her first "mommy" bunny was named Mrs. Hoppy)

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