The is a spring permaculture tour of the DR orchard, which was first planted around time the founders bought the land over 20 years ago. Parts of the orchard have gone in and out of production over the years, but some of the fruit and nut trees have been steadily growing and are almost to the point of paying off.
https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/
Funny we are surrounded by rabbits also but really don’t have a problem with them. There is an arroyo right next to us with aprox 100 x 200 meters or more of scrub, filled with choyas, and whatnot where they live. I have no idea what wild Mexican rabbits eat, they are small cotton tails. Strange huh. Cesar my partner, leaves water out for them lol, and at times he will place food also. He says that they only eat a little. Heck not what I’ve experienced.
Ourproblem isn’t the rabbits it’s catapillar boring things that eat my cucumbers and squash! And horses ! they wonder all over our pueblo, so we must have a fence to keep them out! Not the rabbits jajaja.
But the moral of the story is don’t give up, the critters won’t either. We decided that sharing some of our harvest with them is acceptable and as we say in Mexico, asà es. That’s the way it is.
You are lucky the rabbits don’t do much damage. I wish the same were true here. They have food all around them and they make a point of breaking in the garden to eat all our hard work. It’s very frustrating because it isn’t just a small amount. They can decimate your seedlings, and I can’t even grow edamame at all if they are able to get to it. I think maybe it’s also harder here because we seem to have a lot of animals and small gardens, so they can do a lot of damage. I try to have an “asi es” attitude, but it’s not always easy.
We do have to protect all our fruit trees from rabbits. We always keep the trunks protected because if you don’t rabbits will girdle them in winter and kill even an older tree.