Last Updated on February 22, 2023 by Marjon Ramos
Snakes are a natural predator of rabbits in the wild. It’s also common for snake owners to feed rabbits to their pets. Large snakes like pythons can easily swallow a fully grown adult rabbit.
While smaller snakes are also a threat to younger or newborn rabbits.
That’s why it’s important that you protect your rabbits if their hutch is outside.
Always make sure that there are no entrances for a snake to get inside your rabbit’s hutch.
Now that I’ve given you the gist of the article, read on as I explain the article in more detail:
Table of Contents
Would a snake eat a rabbit?
Rabbits are one of the most common small animals that are fed to snakes.
Large snakes like pythons, boas, cobras, and rattlesnakes can swallow a whole rabbit.
Here’s an example of a boa eating a rabbit (WARNING, GRAPHIC):
How do you protect your rabbits from snakes?
Now that we know that snakes would not hesitate to kill and eat a rabbit, here are the following ways you can do to help protect your rabbits from snakes:
Keep your rabbits inside.
The best and most effective way to protect your rabbits from snakes is to keep them inside.
Most snake incidents happen to rabbits that are living in outside hutches.
As for your rabbit’s exercise time, always keep an eye on them when you’re letting them play outside.
If your area is prone to snakes, consider not letting your rabbits play outside at all.
Some rabbits have been reported to die from cardiac arrest due to the mere sight of a snake.
Build a snake-proof hutch.
If you really need to house your rabbits outside, you must build them a sturdy hutch that is snake-proof.
The most important thing to remember when building a snake-proof cage is to make any opening holes small enough so that snakes cannot enter them.
Here’s a great guide on how to build the best predator-proof rabbit hutch:
I just want to add that you should make sure that your rabbit’s hutch is well shaded.
Never compromise on this.
Rabbits are prone to heatstroke because they can’t sweat except on their lips, so they could easily die from too much humidity.
Use natural snake repellants.
You should also use some natural snake repellants around your rabbit’s hutch to further protect them.
The best rabbit repellents are those that have a strong smell like the following:
Remove anything from your yard that might attract snakes.
You should also remove anything that might attract snakes to your yard.
Here are the most common things you should remove or fix in order to not attract snakes to your property:
- Keep your grass short.
- Remove hinding places like small holes. Snakes like to hide in dark, damp places like cracks and holes.
- Clean out any trash, like left-over food. Left over food might attract rodents like rats, which in turn could attract snakes because snakes hunt rodents.
Conclusion
Wild snakes naturally hunt and eat rabbits.
The same thing is true for domesticated snakes and rabbits.
Snakes would always eat rabbits because they are carnivores.
In fact, most snake owners feed their snakes whole live rabbits.
So make sure that your rabbit’s hutch is well protected from snakes.
Make your rabbit’s hutch as protected as possible by using the proper guidelines when building a predator-proof hutch.
You should also use some natural snake repellants like sulfur, vinegar, smoke, garlic, onion, sulfur, ammonia, lime, cinnamon oil, and naphthalene.
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