Rabbits. How can rabbits be prevented from eating a whole field?

​One of the most important problems we have encountered​ ​in some fields is the appearance of rabbits because they are eating our barley. It is an important pest that doe​s​n't let barley or wheat grow; therefore, rabbits are producing us important losses.

It is a really common problem in our area and generally in Spain. Besides, it is very complicated or impossible to solve in most cases. Sometimes, you can install a small fence to avoid (it is not 100% effective) rabbits encroach and eat a whole field. We have installed a fence on the border of one field where we have a serious problem with rabbits.

The configuration of our fence is:

• Corrugated iron stake of 12mm thick and 1.2 meters height. Price: 0.69 €/m
• Stake of angle of 30 mm width and  1,5 meters height. Price: 1.8 €/m
• Metallic mesh of 1 meter height and 0.8mm thick (rolls of 50 meters). Price: 0.52 €/m

We used a subsoiler to fix metallic mesh. It allows us to fix it at 30cm deep in order to avoid rabbits go across under metallic mesh. After that, corrugated iron stakes are fixing between 5 meters and angle stake are installed every 5 stakes of corrugated iron stake (25 meters)... this will give more force to the fence along the 300 meters that we have installed.

As you can see in our pictures, some leaves of our barley were eaten. We hope barley can produce new shoots... we are going to speak about that in a few months again.

Versión en español.