Something chewing my porch

One of our neighbor's rabbits dug a hole under the lattice around our porch. I was out awhile ago to see if it had dug any more. I saw that something has really been chewing on the lattice in 4 or 5 places. Would a rabbit do that or am I dealing with another pest here? Thanks

When you find out let me know as something just chewed a hole up under the siding to my home at ground level and then chewed in through the insulation on in through the drywall to get into my garage. I can hear it scurrying around up in the ceiling of the garage. Pitter patter pitter patter bump thud bump then silence before the scurrying starts again. It isn't one of my chipmunks either as the hole is "rabbit" sized. Raccoon? Opossum? Squirrel? Whatever it is, it can stay for the time being but it sure is loud.

Hmm! I know squirrels and chipmonks will do that and we have a lot of them. But they have never done that before. The rabbits are eating the bark on my trees but I don't know why they'd chew on wood. I may have to call my nephew. He has done a lot of trapping, could give me some suggestions. I have asked the neighbors to pen the rabbits up but they haven't. If I get any info I'll let you know.

Your neighbors have pet rabbits that aren't penned up that are in your yard chewing on the bark to your trees? You have asked them to pen them up and they don't? I think I'd go to my doctor and get a nice tranquilizer if I had a neighbor adding to my misery around here. You poor thing.

Rabbits chew bark all the time. There are products out there to protect trees from this type of damage but I haven't a clue of how to get them to stop chewing on your lattice. Just a little note for you... if those rabbits chew off enough bark, your trees will slowly die. What they are doing is girdling the tree.

Please forgive me while I digress here for a moment but I'm thinking hassenpfeffer stew right about now for your particular situation.

Yep! I have been spraying my trees and plants. Nice neighbors,huh? They had about a dozen, slowly they are getting killed on the road. Not by me, altho--! I am thinking of devising a live trap and hauling them away.

Sounds like a 4H project gone bad... very bad. It's not common practice but rabbits can be spayed and neutered, a fact that evidently your neigbor is unaware of. I'm thinking 12 bunnies will turn into a hundred by next year.

Here ya go Pyrola5-
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We have a similar, much smaller trap on loan to us to get the chipmunks out of our garage. We suspect they are coming back in through the hole the mystery critter made. We're plugging that up today so maybe the chipmunks will finally stay outside where they belong. I still can't figure out what is up in the ceiling to my garage but it isn't a rabbit and I doubt very seriously if it is a chipmunk. Oh, call your animal control before investing in a trap! Ours Animal Control gives out loaner traps for a small deposit and they come back and deal with the contents.

Is that tranquilizer for you or the rabbits, Equi? I would be tempted to make a complaint to animal control, Pyrola5. The one thing a rabbit can't stop doing is chewing on something. If it does his teeth keep growing and pretty soon it can't close it's mouth. Best of luck to you. Jessamine

Thanks, Jessamine. That is so encouraging! Another trip to the neighbors and then I will get a trap of some kind! If they roam all Winter, I won't have a tree or a porch. I just planted two new shrubs. I sprayed them with an egg mixture, so far so good. I have a viburnum they have really chewed on and a dogwood that is already struggling that they started on . I am going to get some liquid fence and speak to the neighbors once more. Then I'll have to get "nasty"!

Sounds to me as if the neighbors are begging you to call animal control. These rabbits must be doing the same thing to stuff in their own yard. If they are not keeping them penned then it seems obvious to me that they want to be rid of them. Do they have kids? Sounds to me like they want to be rid of the rabbits but they want somebody else to look like the bad guy by having animal control pick them up.

Hmmm... the tranquilizer would be for me to take before I went over to the neighbor's house and calmly and in a non confrontational manner submitted a bill for property damage with attached photos of their bunnies gnawing their way through their lives on my property. When they didn't pay the bill, I'd buy a nice bunny trap and systematically trap every last one of the bunnies and haul them over to an animal shelter right now so that people looking for pets for their kids for Christmas would have an ample selection.

These are always lose/lose situations when the pet owners feel that "it takes a village" to raise their pets. Harumph! The loser is always the pet. I can't imagine people buying animals and not keeping them safe by letting them roam. You would have thought these people would have confined the rabbits right about the time the first one ended up a postage size thickness on the road outside their home. Real responsible pet owners- not.

The teeth deal with rabbits is the real thing. If they do not keep their teeth "filed" down, they overgrow and the animal slowly dies of starvation because it can no longer eat. Field mice have the same issues so we tossed our entire turkey skeleton from Thanksgiving Dinner out into the woods so the critters could have at it. There will be no trace of it left by spring. We also toss lamb shank bones out in the woods for the critters as well as beef ribs and actually any bones we have that they can use to keep their teeth in check. A friend of ours saves ham bones in her freezer and she tosses those in our woods too. We put a road kill deer on a tarp and dragged it over to our woods once. No sense letting the county pick it up and let it go to waste. The turkey vultures had a fine feast with that. If I ever get my hands on another road kill deer, I am going to put it in a clearing on my property so I can get some photos. Turkey Vultures are magnificent and they all sort of chow down together with no bickering. I did have a neighbor finally ask what my girlfriend kept tossing out of her car last spring. I told him ham bones. He said oh and didn't ask for me to elaborate so I offered no details.

Best wishes to you Pyrola! May your lattice work survive the winter!

They have a trap in their yard now but must not be baiting it as one rabbit was in their yard all afternoon and never went near the trap. I haven't seen the big white one that is usually over here - more so than the others. I have suspected it is pregnant so perhaps it went off to have babies. NO! NO! NO! Or hopefully they may have caught it and penned it up. There is at least one more, and I haven't seen it in a couple of days either. So I am really hoping they are trying to pen them up. However, they are not too good at that. Their dog quite often "escapes" and comes over. And a couple years ago they had a calf which also got loose. Maybe they just don't like it there. Their cat ran off and went up through the woods to live at my SIL's place twice, so they finally left it up there! They don't even clean the carcuses off the road.

I like to see the turkey buzzards, too. This Summer there was a lot of hawks, about 15, soaring around. They were beautiful. We don't like to give our dogs bones so maybe I will start throwing them up in the woods for the critters.

Thanks for your suggestions. If they aren't getting them penned up, then I am definitely going to do something. My husband yells at them about the dog but doesn't say anything about the rabbits!

Oh my gosh! Even jumbo breeds of dogs like what I have and bones don't mix. We toss our bones way in the back at least 1000 feet behind the house. My girlfriend does toss her big ham bones to the south side of the driveway but our dogs don't ever go there so no chance of them getting them. We walk our dogs in the front yard and one of them has to always walked on a leash as there are so many feral and stray cats that we are afraid a cat may bolt and that dog would take off after it for places unknown. I know it sounds silly to be walking one's own dog in their own yard on a leash but we can't trust her and the neighbors around here would not take kindly to cow piles in their yards if one of mine took a poop so... just in case... we walk that one on a leash. I am so glad you mentioned that about not liking to give your dogs bones because we certainly don't give our dogs bones either. I paid one vet bill that was ghastly because of chicken bones that were taken out of the garbage can and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. So glad you mentioned that!

When our dogs are out they are on a chain or leash. They would take off after another dog, a cat or rabbit. We have had a few dogs that would stay in the yard on their own. One even told on the others if they left. He was a Border colloe and he'd stand and bark if another dog went out of the yard. He liked to have something to take care of and herd! No, we don't give them bones ,as much as they would like them.

I'll have to start saving our bones and dump them up in the woods.

Well Pyrola... you are the only other person I know of who walks their dogs on a leash in their own yard. I am feeling much better that there is somebody else out there who admitted to doing that. Seems as if our dogs stick to the front but we always end up with one that would never recall and would take of to be freeeeeeeee if it wasn't on a leash! Truth be known, we also don't want any of ours smacked by a car taking off after Peter Rabbit or Wylie Coyote or who knows what it would be that would be deemed irresistable.