Ugh. Woke up to carnage this morning in my bunny pen. First time in seven years that I have had a wild animal hurt anything here, aside from very infrequent, isolated incidents. What I found was one bunny with her head neatly removed, half a bunny that had been dragged (lifted?) out of the pen & disemboweled (the front half was missing), and strangest of all, two bunnies that were dead but completely intact, with no blood or injuries. Eyes were even open. And, there are at least a couple bunnies who are missing altogether. It was all just in this one pen, even though there are three other pens right next to this one that contain chickens and rabbits. Aside from the dead animals, the crime-scene was neat & clean. No tufts of fur, no signs of struggle, no injured animals. Can anyone offer a suggestion as to what happened here last night?

-- Shannon (Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary) (gratacres@aol.com), September 12, 2000

Answers

Sounds like the work of Mr. or Mrs. Coon. Now that it has found where the food bar is at, it will be back.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 12, 2000.

Could be a weasel. They are very neat in their destruction. They are also vicious and kill for no reason, hence the dead bunnies just laying there. Ken is right, though, once they've found a source, they will be back.

-- Julie (rjbk@together.net), September 12, 2000.

I was losing chicks nightly. I wouldn't mind, as much, if they were eaten but some were just killed. It was raccoons. Each night that they were feasting, I was trying a different method of keeping them out.

If you have electric fencing, that will work. Run a strand or two around the other pens.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), September 12, 2000.

I have no ideas about the predator except to repeat what the others have said, it will be back.

However, the bunnies with out injuries could have been scared to death. I know, sounds silly, but it has been known to happen.

Good luck in catching your bad guy. Annette

-- annette (j_a_henry@yahoo.com), September 12, 2000.

Hmmm,unusual for so much destruction in one night without being a dog or coyote,but they probably would have torn up the pen.We don't have weasels here so I don't know anything about them and I've(personally) never heard of a coon eating a rabbit so I'm leaning towards owls or maybe cats.

-- nobrabbit (conlane@prodigy.net), September 12, 2000.

We had the same exact thing happen here last spring--had two cages with two bunnies each in them. One cage had half a bunny in it, and the other disembowled-the other cage had not been touched. I put a " false bottom " of small poultry netting a couple inches below the wire bottom of the cage, since these are outside cages the rest is made of wood. I had no more problems after this--the coons could not reach far enough up through the chicken wire to grab the bunnies. Hope this helps--!

-- Lynn Royal (homesteadmama@aol.com), September 13, 2000.

I don't think it would have been a weasel, as they are small and can't eat that much, for one thing. I really suspect it was a coon or probably two of them. They can get quite large, and will eat anything they can catch and kill -- don't think they have anything in particular against bunnies, though chickens are more common victims. Dogs would have made a mess of things. We lost a whole pen of chicks without a trace in one night, and are pretty certain it was racoons -- they came back later to finish off what was left of our second attempt after a weasel had killed most of that batch.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 14, 2000.

I might include Dr. O'possum in my list of all the usual suspects ! They are great Chicken killers and have nasty ripping teeth. It seems they sometimes kill but usually don't. I can't fiqure out why unless times get lean than they turn predator.

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), September 16, 2000.

I wouldn't rule out a cat. Around our area, the cats are really messing up the wild rabbit population. Sorry to hear about your loss! and good luck to you!

-- Daniel Winger (dwinger23@yahoo.com), September 18, 2000.

Rabbits will definitely die of fright (read "intense stress" if it makes you feel better), and those others had enough reason.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 18, 2000.

I vote for cat. My second vote is for weasel. Maybe a coon. In the pen, I wouldn't think it was a hawk or owl, but could be a randy one. For coon, put an old sweaty shirt out by the pen. For cats, get a bigger cat.

-- Dan (dconine@dotnet.com), September 18, 2000.

My guess is a dog or coyote,lost rabbits once to neighbor hood dogs, they got in my yard ate the legs off on rabbit [had to be put to sleep] and draged other rabbit out though feeder hole and killed him.hope you catch it what ever it is.

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), September 18, 2000.

Have you considered couger. We had a couger kill 2 baby goats and it had taken the doe and left the buck. The buck looked normal no blood anywhere I believe he a broken neck, it took a few hours before we though couger, and we found tracks leading down the beach with drag marks from the doeling. Anyway he came back for the buck that night and we got him and found the little doe in his stomache. Do you have cougers in your area, if you do it might be a consideration. Sorry about your loss, it's always such a setback when it happens. Good luck to you. Megan

-- Megan Milliken (millikenfarm@telus.net), September 19, 2000.

Get a Rottweiler they will sought out every wild animal

-- Alex (www.salmax15@yahoo.com), September 16, 2001.