Thread: Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits..opportunity abounds

I noticed a lot more ferrets and cats doing well when the rabbit numbers are up too .

Out for a hunt yesterday afternoon an hours drive of Napier. Walking past the boundary fence of the neighbours place with hundreds of rabbits visible. What got me was the amount of black rabbits but also white patched rabbits visible. Rabbits galore.

Must've been a good breeding season recently. I've noticed I've been shooting a lot more juveniles in the last few weeks than I have for a while

We popped 403 rabbits saturday night and couple of hours sunday morning on a station near Tekapo. Few bunnies with white patches, but zero black rabbits on that block.

One of the biggest changes I have noticed in Central and the rabbits is a lot of the flatter paddocks now have pivots or irrigation working on them.
One station I shoot used to have large flat paddocks with no irrigation and they held plenty of rabbits, now those paddocks have green grass or crops for the stock and the rabbits are gone from those areas.
They have moved into the dirty gullies or up a little higher onto the dry hills. Still plenty there but just relocated into terrain they like better . It's strange as you look at all the feed and long grass you would think the rabbits would be into
that area but they are living in the dusty, rocky hard areas that look like they hold very little feed for them but they thrive on it.

Rabbits dont like wet grounds and grass.

Originally Posted by Trout

Rabbits dont like wet grounds and grass.

This, when Southland started changing from sheep/beef to dairy the rabbit numbers (my old lady used to do an r.d. run and would keep a track of what went under the wheels) dropped off and were replaced by hares

Originally Posted by 223nut

This, when Southland started changing from sheep/beef to dairy the rabbit numbers (my old lady used to do an r.d. run and would keep a track of what went under the wheels) dropped off and were replaced by hares

Yeah same kind of thing here ( hare ) parts of Central look like the Waikato now. Rabbits been Rabbits will no doubt adapt.

Yes - on the face of it the Tekapo bunnies shot in the weekend had nothing to eat in that bony, stony country. Yet they were all in good nick... thriving. And no evidence of disease or virus.