Yes Sir, you are right but in Ma Nature's Kitchen a preferred meal may not come to pass very often during trapping season. It may be short lived like deer gut piles (for 2 weeks out of the year), or a 1000 lb. steer belly up in the cattle grave yard.. If trying to mimic another canine's buried "stash" A.K.A. the dirt hole set, a rabbit probably fits the bill as good as any other if they (rabbits) are common prey species. I've watched my dogs bury a preferred "treat" many times around the place here so I know there are preferred (better tasting) foods for animals. I've watched from the combine as I approached the end rows while a coyote sat and waited for a rabbit or mouse or a pheasant as it tried to exit the end only to become dinner. Seen coyotes parallel the moving combine doing the same thing when the machine acted as the driver and any prey trying to side step the header was "toast if they ducked back into the standing crop. Since we have started using more narrow row spacing (15-20") in corn - beans this activity is not as frequent anymore (or maybe I can't see as good as I used to - Ha). I still see a few yotes picking mice but it seems its more calorie output than they want to expend to catch bigger prey as it darts between narrow rows. Really with No-Till farming there is an "Ocean of mice" and voles for canines to eat here until deeper snows put them under and are harder to get. Rabbits still have to come out and are vulnerable to predation during those times even in deep snow. I make bait out of rabbit and try something new just like you younger guys every year. Most natural meat type prey has worked for me and can't say one is "preferred" over some of the 3 or 4 others I use. Look at the droppings and see what is being eaten (right now its lots of grasshoppers here). Just my take.
