If you’re a rabbit owner, you’re probably aware that these furry animals can be a handful. They love to nibble on grass and dig holes in your backyard. Getting rid of them can be a big challenge.
However, some homeowners believe that ground coffee works exceptionally well when it comes to repelling rabbits. Wondering if this is true? Well, we are happy to report that it is!
Ground coffee does indeed repel rabbits. In fact, it is one of the easiest and most eco-friendly ways to keep these furry little creatures away from your yard.
With that in mind, here are a few ways to use coffee grounds to keep rabbits away and a few other ways to keep your home off-limits to these cute but annoying creatures.
Benefits of Keeping Rabbits Away From Your Yard
Rabbits are rapacious eaters who cause serious harm to your plants. Their primary targets are your plants’ leaves and stems. They prefer to harm plants at ground level because of their small size.
Most wild rabbits will constantly graze on the vegetation in your garden, including your shrubs, vegetables, and herbs.
Even the bark of trees, flowers, and decorative plants is fair game for them.
In addition, having rabbits in your garden can result in an infestation since they breed quickly. With a gestation period of just twenty-nine days, they can produce up to three litters of six per year.
Why Coffee Ground Repel Rabbits
As rabbits are prey rather than predators, their only way to survive in the wild is their heightened sense of smell. This means that most scents and odors can be overpowering for them.
That said, such a powerful sense of smell keeps these tiny little creatures alert. It allows them to detect scents and odors left behind by larger animals from a great distance.
But, you can use their sharp sense of smell to your advantage. And this is where coffee grounds come into play.
The smell irritates their nostrils, keeping them away from your yard or garden. This is because coffee contains caffeine, and rabbits aren’t particularly fond of its smell.
Like nicotine and alcohol, caffeine is a psychoactive chemical that can alter a human’s behavior, thoughts, feelings, and moods. However, it has the same effect on animals, especially rabbits.
What’s more, when you scatter coffee grounds to keep rabbits away, you also provide your soil with much-needed natural fertilizer.
After all, ground coffee is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc. It’s like killing two birds with one stone!
How to Use Coffee Grounds In Your Garden to Repel Rabbits
Below are a few tips on using coffee grounds to keep rabbits away from your yard or garden.
- Take a bowl and fill it up with coffee grounds. Scatter and sprinkle them on the soil around vegetables such as beans, peas, broccoli, beets, etc.
- Fill several bowls with ground coffee and place them in different locations in your garden
- Moreover, you can burn some coffee grounds to increase their potency.
- Then, please place them in a bowl in your yard or add them directly to the soil.
Other Ways to Deter Rabbits
The easiest method to handle a rabbit problem, like other pests, is to avoid one in the first place. Your best option is to entirely keep the rabbits out rather than trying to get rid of them once they’ve taken over your garden.
Moreover, we’ll always advise doing this in the most non-toxic and humane manner. So, on that note, here are a few ways to help keep rabbits away from your garden or yard, other than using coffee!
Place a Fence
Of course, we’re not talking about placing a small picket fence and expecting great results. Instead, you’ll need something more substantial to keep rabbits from your garden or yard.
So, we recommend that you build a fence around your entire garden using chicken wire with a minimum of 1/2-inch or 1-inch mesh size. The fence must also be high enough, preferably more than two feet.
Moreover, since rabbits are excellent diggers, the fence should also be buried around six inches below the ground.
To rabbit-proof your garden more, you can install an electric fence or motion-based sprinklers that will send them running away as far as possible.
Place Individual Barriers around Particular Plants
Another way to deter rabbits is to install barriers around particular plants that rabbits love to eat. This is especially the case for woody shrubs and young plants that can’t survive during winters.
Using chicken wire with a 1/4- to 1/2-inch mesh, you can create a unique protective cage for each plant.
However, similar to the external fence, your plant barrier needs to be sufficiently spaced from the plant and buried deep enough in the earth to avoid burrowing.
A few plants that you need to place barriers around include but are not limited to:
- Shrubs like Rose of Sharon, lilac, juneberry, crabapple, quince, etc.
- Vegetables and fruits such as spinach, strawberry, peas, pear, broccoli, lettuce, pepper, beans, beets, blackberry, raspberry, apples, etc.
- Flowers like zinnias, sunflower, petunia, rose moss, morning glory, and much more
- Perennial plants like daisies, tulips, hosta, iris, aster, coneflowers, lilies, daylilies, baby’s breath, etc.
Grow Plants That Rabbits Don’t Like To Eat
Since rabbits are opportunistic eaters, they prefer to eat seedling shoots like young shrubs and trees. In fact, when rabbits find something they like, they will keep going back until they have eaten everything.
So, your best bet would be to remove temptations in the early spring that can stop this behavior. It means planting food items they don’t like.
Ultimately, rabbits won’t bother you if you have any of these plants in your garden.
- Grass such as Bleavena, feather grass, oat grass, and blue fescue
- Vines like pachysandra, Virginia creeper, English ivy, and ajuga because of their strong smell
- Trees like oak, pine, spruce, hawthorn, fir, and Japanese maple
- Herbs including oregano, sage, chives, lemon balm, catnip, tarragon, parsley, marjoram, asparagus, and basis due to their pungent smell
- Vegetables such as leeks, tomatoes, and onions
- Bulbs like hyacinth, Persian onion, and daffodil
- Prickly, smelly shrubs such as Russian sage, speedwell, primrose, Adam’s needle, lamb’s ear, meadow rue, peony, and foam flower
- Annuals like pot marigold, vinca, Mexican ageratum, four o’clock flower, and spider flower
Place Visual Deterrents
If rabbits or other pests sense a human presence, they will probably avoid the area. Farmers typically use various strategies to deceive them into thinking this.
Therefore, you can put a variety of conventional visual deterrents in your garden, such as:
- Strips of aluminum foil tied between stakes
- Owl Statues
- Rubber snakes
- Scarecrows
- Metal pinwheels that rotate and generate noise
- Aluminum cans
- Wind chimes
- Garden ornaments
- Solar-powered LED flashing lights
Remember to switch up the placement of these visual deterrents to prevent the rabbits from getting used to them.
Remove Nesting Areas
Providing rabbits with favorable mating conditions is the last thing you would want to do. After all, these creatures hate open areas and love to hide in locations where they are safe from predators.
Removing potential nesting spots is an easy method to keep female rabbits away. Female rabbits typically build their nests in densely vegetated locations.
So, it’s better to get rid of dense vegetation around crops and plants if you have any. In fact, get rid of the wood and debris mounds because they can also become potential nesting spots.
Lastly, keep a close eye on your fence and block any gaps they can squeeze through.
Place Traps and Spray Repellents
Live trapping is a successful method for removing wild animals from your garden, including rabbits. But, it would be wise to hire a professional to do this for you. Such a thing is recommended because experts know how to properly release the bunnies into the wild.
Furthermore, applying chemical repellents to plants prone to rabbit attacks is a similar but less advisable approach. Of course, commercial chemical sprays are readily available, although most are not recommended because they could harm edible plants.
Adopt a Dog or Cat
Pets such as dogs and cats naturally hunt rabbits. So, adopting a few pets can help you solve your bunny problem. In fact, they don’t even need to attack the rabbits. Their presence will be deterrent enough.
You can also leave some of your pet’s fur around your garden to repel rabbits. The smell of this fur will keep rabbits away as they will think a predator is waiting for them.
Wrapping Up
The fact is that keeping rabbits away from your yard is an ongoing challenge. However, coffee can help you accomplish such a thing without spending too much money on an exterminator.
So, rather than throwing away unused coffee grounds, scatter them throughout your garden to keep wild animals like rabbits at bay.
Sure, coffee has one of the best aromas and tastes. However, rabbits tend to flee in the opposite direction because they find the smell of coffee nauseating.
So, the next time rabbits invade your yard or garden, along with other deterrents, scatter some coffee grounds and let them work their magic!
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