Got me to thinking

[stickbowhntr]

The wood duck box thread got me to thinking about building some brush piles fo rabbits. Does anybody else do that anymore? May have to see if any good ideas here for several on my property. What and how woul dyou build them for rabbits?

[coalbank]

Simply piling brush works well for rabbit cover. You can lay a couple of larger pieces on the bottom to leave room for ease of movement.
If you want to get fancy you could find some old 6" pieces of pipe or drain tile for a rain/wind shelter and place under brush.

[woodsman416]

Between hawks, owls, fox, coyotes and domestic cats in my area I'd have to board up all my brush piles because of vacancy issues!

[trapperbud]

Brush piles will work but until you remove most of the predators it's almost useless .

[stickbowhntr]

Well UNTILL THE FED gets it right we will have red tail hawks FOREVER IN INCREASING NUMBERS. They are ONE if not the worst predators and hard on LOTS of game, young and old.At least if the rabbits make the brush they are pretty safe from the hawks. I am going to give it a try .Had My property timbered a few years ago and still lots of tops to plie up inj big piles not just helter skelter as they now are.

[trapperbud]

I helped a farmer once do the same thing your talking about doing . We removed all the land predator that we could , we even relocated some rabbits to the area . The hawks and owls cleaned them out in just a few days . A biologist told us he had tried the same thing with no success . He said rabbit run in cycles some years they do better than others

[trapperbud]

Stickbowhntr , I call my buddy up to see how things went with the brush piles after I helped him get them started . He said he did see a slight increase in numbers maybe 20% After the second year . Here's what was done .

Brush piles were 6 to 10 feet across with at less 3 entrance and exit . Natural forge planted as close to brush piles as possible to help cut down on birds of prey getting them . Trap predators hard each fall and winter . Don't over hunt the rabbits in that area during hunting season .

He said chicken snakes were his worst problems they could get in the brush pile and clean out the nest in one setting .

He keep this up for 5 years before stopping . Hope this helps .

[stickbowhntr]

I have about 65 acres to try it here. I wanted toi do as much as I can to improve my trap and hunting exoerences.

[otterbarn]

I caught about dozen foxes last season near my house. this summer I've seen more young rabbits than I remember seeing before. This is anecdotal evidence only. I still have plenty of hawks around and have lost some chickens to them. I least I feel like trapping hte foxes helped the rabbits, but maybe it is all me trying to justfy my new obsession with trapping....