Property management for small game

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BryanH

BryanH

Member
Feb 24, 2018
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N.C., United States
Trying to buy my first home, offer accepted, already daydreaming about hunting prospects. About 5 acres, mostly wooded, down in a holler. A few neighboring homes, probably 3 or 4 in about 160 acres wooded surrounding us, and farmland for miles outside this little holler.

Lots of little critters, lots of deer, not a lot of cottontails but cottontails are what i want.

How would you manage for cottontails? Lots of predators and hawks around, i know they need thick cover, surely somebody here knows how to manage for better cottontails.

Thanks.
 
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I live in wisconsin where we have a lot of predators that wreaked havoc on our small game. I trap and hunt both which helps but giving them places to hide helped the most. For the rabbits we took large pallets the predators couldn't get under and then piled off cut brush on top of it to make a brush pile. In 2 years of this we have plenty of rabbits back.
 
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BryanH said:
Trying to buy my first home, offer accepted, already daydreaming about hunting prospects. About 5 acres, mostly wooded, down in a holler. A few neighboring homes, probably 3 or 4 in about 160 acres wooded surrounding us, and farmland for miles outside this little holler.

Lots of little critters, lots of deer, not a lot of cottontails but cottontails are what i want.

How would you manage for cottontails? Lots of predators and hawks around, i know they need thick cover, surely somebody here knows how to manage for better cottontails.

Thanks.
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Congrats!
 
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BryanH said:
Trying to buy my first home, offer accepted, already daydreaming about hunting prospects. About 5 acres, mostly wooded, down in a holler. A few neighboring homes, probably 3 or 4 in about 160 acres wooded surrounding us, and farmland for miles outside this little holler.

Lots of little critters, lots of deer, not a lot of cottontails but cottontails are what i want.

How would you manage for cottontails? Lots of predators and hawks around, i know they need thick cover, surely somebody here knows how to manage for better cottontails.

Thanks.
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Sounds like a dream come true! I would suspect you are the envy of many airgunners - congrats!
 
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Any kind of scrub brush. Here it's mostly creosote bushes, but any low-lying bushes should do. Treed areas aren't as good, because the shade drives out the low-lying brush that lagomorphs depend upon. I am over-run with cottontail (and quail). I feed them and don't hunt them. I can satisfy my hunting urge with ground squirrels and doves, and I rather enjoy having a mob of bunnies to watch come to eat when the wife and I have coffee out back in the mornings.

GsT
 
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BryanH said:
Its not mine yet. Still gotta go through inspections, etc. Never bought a home before.
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Correction, you never bought a home for yourself, but pitched in buying tens of thousands of homes for other people, including me. The housing crash of 2008 and all that entailed let me buy my place from the federal government for just a hair over 28% of the mortgage note they were holding, so everyone else payed off the other 72% of the note, damn near 250k citizens paid for me to own my home. There were lots of deals like that in 2011-12. Rural properties that had enough land to be a significant portion of the value, banks would not loan a penny to anyone no matter how good their credit or what kind of down payment they would make. Banks had lost a disproportionate amount of money on those properties and it was a long time before they would loan money on them again. That left the feds with a huge inventory that was un-sellable, except to investors/business. It was the fed policy not to sell to them no matter what. The Feds just started selling them off for cash offers by people who signed a legal form stating they were going to be an owner/occupier. No rental, no investors, no companies allowed to bid, only people buying a home to live in. My first home, paid cash for it, no mortgage.
 
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Managing for cottontails can be a bit tricky, especially with predators and hawks around. What’s worked for me in the past is creating dense cover. Brush piles and thick undergrowth can provide great hiding spots for them.

You might also consider a few strategic planting spots to attract them. Low shrubs and grasses can create a safer environment and increase their numbers.

***A.I. BOT removed ***
 
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Congratulations on your new house! Thats a huge step for a man. I moved in to my house after years and years of scraping and saving and getting that credit score up. I am sure your story is much the same. I can tell you from my experience being backed up to a nature preserve that just as someone else mentioned. Start a garden or in our case a flower garden. It gives them a place to have babies, shelter from both the elements and predators. It also of course gives them food. The other thing to do is to target said natural predators. I hunt racoons, coyotes (especially), and possums. Predators aren't stupid usually. They will know to keep out of an area after you shoot one or two they tend to tell their friends why there's a giant hole in them. So doing these things as well as actually appreciating and loving to watch the baby bunnies grow up. As well as the momma and daddy bunnies hide in your yard as they know it's safe with you...its all very rewarding. Now I have tons of bunnies that aren't too afraid of people. Granted my old english bulldog owns the back yard. So if they don't step lively in retreating into the forest she will chase them. I don't think she would kill them as she has had oppertunities before. Anyway, sorry to ramble. I guess the first step is to set up a feeder. Just a cheap wooden one off amazon that you nail into wood in case you accidentally shoot it. That will attract all sorts of animals and you can sort of pick and choose which ones you want to promote and which ones you wish to cull. My friends call this cleansing the forest :p. I like to just use peanuts in shell or out of shell. This also attracts some pretty awesome birds for you either to watch or to shoot :p. I typically go under the if it's cute it lives and if it's ugly it dies modo myself. Other than with squirrels and chipmunks....Rodents are rodents and need to die. Really though I am not sure if your intent with the rabits is to get more in to hunt? Or just to have more rabits around. As I think either way you will have to see how many are around by using the feeder. Then I would give it a year if you don't have as many rabits as you want. There will be babies as long as you have a nice garden for them to use. You can then go on a killing spree ;) or if you are like me you grow to appreciate them. Hope this helps as it's been my experience!
 
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Congratulations. The pallet idea seems good to me too. I would also suggest expanding your horizons a bit and include squirrels in your list of targets. I find rabbits are less plentiful but it may be because they are pretty dumb. Squirrels are smaller, tougher targets and more plentiful around here. I would also make a habit of taking raccoons and possums when you see them and when it is legal. A well aimed 22 or 25 caliber PCP shot will take them. Coyotes too for that matter. I do not think you can legally take owls and hawks but if you can they eat bunnies too.
 
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