Oh deer. That was my first thought when I didn’t see my fig saplings though the living room window. While I wanted to accuse deer, the usual suspect, of munching my future fruit-bearing favorite, it was actually another offender.  

After closer inspection, I didn’t need even a minute to ruminate on who done it. The saplings were cut neatly and at an angle, and of the group I had planted, only the taller ones remained. Blame the bunny. Rabbit use their teeth to make a clean cut and are able to eat plants up to 16 inches off the ground. Deer browse is different. Since deer don’t have upper incisor teeth, they cannot make such a neat cut, and plants eaten by them are ragged and torn.

To confirm the culprit, I looked for the telltale small, round pellets of scat. I didn’t see any scat, though that could be blamed on the rabbit’s peculiar habit of coprophagy.

Coprophagy describes the practice of eating feces. In the rabbit’s case, it is autocoprophgy, or the eating of one’s own waste, and it serves the important function of deriving the most nutrition out of foodstuff.

Rabbits have two types of pellets: hard ones and soft, green ones called cecotropes. Cecotropes are produced through the process of hind gut fermentation after food is passed through the digestive system, but nutrients remain. After expelling the soft green pellets through their backside, the rabbit reingests them and extracts the remaining nutrients in a process that can be compared to the chewing of cud in ruminants. The next round of droppings will be the more familiar dark, hard pellet type and will not be eaten again by the rabbit.

No matter what was left, or not left behind, with this damage it is unlikely that figs will be in my future or that those noshed plants will even survive. To protect my remaining plants and the future ones that I will plant, there are a few suggestions to reduce a rabbit’s rampage.  These efforts can also help deter other unwanted garden lovers.

Fencing is the option most likely to work at keeping your garden pest-free, as long as your fencing is high enough. Remember that fencing out rabbits requires a four-foot high fence, but deer need at least 10 feet of height to be effective. Don’t forget to dig in that fence at least six inches deep to preclude any determined diggers. Sounds like overkill for my few fig plants, not to mention what it would do to the view out my window.

Companion planting might work, since I noticed that the figs that were co-planted with garlic survived the rabbit onslaught. Onions, as well as garlic and other fragrant plants, are recommended associates to deter wildlife from eating your plants.

Other natural remedies include everything from the spicy to the soapy. Hot pepper sprays and infusions are recommended, as was shredding stinky soap and leaving it amongst the plants. Dusting plants with talcum powder is also advised, as was leaving human hair, dried blood or sulfur, and putrefied meat around your garden areas to make them as uninviting as possible. That last option seems wrong on so many levels.

Other amusing ideas included leaving rubber snakes to scare the wild intruders and decorating your garden with glass bottles that make a noise unappealing to rabbits when there is wind. Suggestions get stranger as gardeners get more desperate to rid their space of the competition.

Getting rabbits out of the garden is definitely not a new problem or an easy one to solve. Bugs Bunny knows the frustration he brings when he asks, “ain’t I a stinker?” 

The answer is yes, though I am sure that Bugs and his wild friends will continue to make us all mad as March hares.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature.