Any of you guys intentionally build brush piles with structure cavities under them for rabbits and other small wildlife? Thats on my spring to do list this year.

Yes. It is beneficial. In my area, piles also attract wood rats and create excellent bobcat set locations.

Every time I cut firewood I make brush piles the bigger the better.

I used to pick up used Christmas trees and stack them up. They work but break down quickly.

If you do controlled grass burns, you will need to reconstruct.

Yes i have been building some. Also have some brush tests gotten to mature i need to cut back so light hits the ground and will use the brush to make new cover for the wall animals and structure for honey scuckel to climb on.

If you have any Siberian Elms you dislike cut them down in the winter, the rabbits love the bark. If you make brush piles out of it they'll strip all the bark to eat.

You can get the cardboard rolls from carpet store and build piles over them for holes as they rot there still holes there.

About 20 years ago my uncle and his boys bought 120 acres , about half timber and half poor tillable ground. We killed some rabbits but wanted to disperse them across the farm. Most were up tight to the old barn, farm junk, and roadway as expected but not many on the rest of the property. They left a 30’ buffer from the existing wood line into the fields for planting pines and oaks and plots. I think we planted over 500 trees. Just inside the wood line we removed scrub trees and anything dying off. Either Placed a pallet on the bottom or laid 2 logs parallel on the ground with several perpendicular to them on top, then loaded them up as high as we could. I think we built close to 30 piles around the 2 fields. Most were placed as close as possible to honeysuckle or briars. They had several food plots out and the previous owner continued to plant corn on the property also.

After 2 years we had to split the farm into multiple day hunts to cover it all. 5 guys would limit out on each hunt. Just about every pile had a rabbit in it or very close to it. The quail have returned as well. “If you build it, they will come”

Cool pallets are a great idea. Thank you

Yes.

I believe I heard the term Rabbitat on here years ago. I still stack pallets, cut cedars, and topple dying trees yearly for them.. rabbits live it and so do their predators!!

I do it every year with fallen branches and tree tops cut from fire wood we cut every year. Also add to pre existing piles that have been there for years.

X2

Had hardly any Bunnies here's when we moved to Virginia now 28 years later had to put up chicken wire around the bean gardens.

When I was trapping in western Ky a guy that I trapped on did the pallet pile method. He had lots of rabbits. He also had coyotes and bobcat that he wanted trapped.

Brush piles in Kansas were a cat magnet for sure. They supplied habitat for rabbits, Jacks, pack rats, skunks and quail. I always hated to see when I would go back the next year many of the large brush piles had been burned.

You guys with a ton of rabbits, are they hard on the trees? Seems like some of these big populations would put a hurting on younger trees.

I've been doing that for twenty eight years on this farm.And we have bunnies everywhere

No shortage of rabbits here some years more than others it seems like every few steps in good cover another one will take off again and again. I take the dogs out at night for walks seldom do I not rabbits. The trees take a hit in winter the more drifting the worse it gets but in normal years they have the brush and even grass to eat.

Few folks hunt them here compared to other places you mention hunting rabbits you get a little side eye often. LOL