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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Eastern Cottontail

(Sylvilagus floridanus)

 June 1999 Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet Number 4

General Information

The eastern cottontail has long been a common inhabitant of backyards

and open farmlands throughout the eastern and mid-western United

States. This rabbit’s elusive nature and palatability have made it a

popular small game mammal as well. The presence of cottontails in rural

settings has come to symbolize healthy plant and wildlife communities

throughout its range. The cottontail’s genus name, Sylvilagus, combines

the Latin word silva, meaning “forest,” and the Greek word lagos,

meaning “hare,” as the rabbit historically inhabited swamps and hardwood and boreal forests. However, because the eastern cottontail has the

ability to reproduce prolifically, it has adapted over time to inhabit the

open, grassy habitat where it is most commonly found today. A nonsocial animal, the cottontail is mostly nocturnal but can commonly be

seen foraging alone in the periods between sunset and dark and in the

early morning before sunrise. Cottontails frequently emerge after

summer rain showers to feed on lush vegetation.

Although abundant in some locations, the eastern cottontail is sensitive

to change in habitat composition. This has caused significant rabbit population declines in parts of its range. The clearing

of fence rows, hedgerows, and grassy buffers along woodland edges and field borders, as well as habitat loss to urban

development, has had a significant effect on eastern cottontail populations. The cottontail’s presence and success in an area

is largely dependent upon the availability of dense cover and old field habitat.

This pamphlet is designed to serve as an introduction to the habitat requirements of the eastern cottontail and to assist

land managers in the development of a comprehensive cottontail management plan. The success of any individual species

management plan depends on targeting the specific needs of the desired species and analyzing the designated habitat area

as a whole to ensure that all required habitat elements are present. This leaflet also provides monitoring guidelines to

document success and to identify additional management actions needed over time.

Range

The range of the eastern cottontail spans from southern Canada south to

Central America. Within the United States, the cottontail is an eastern,

central, and southwestern species—primarily found in the eastern two-thirds

of the United States with the exception of Maine, a majority of New Hampshire and Vermont, and northeastern New York. The rabbit is absent from

parts of Louisiana’s coastal marsh as well. The cottontail’s western limits reach

as far as the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains region, New Mexico, and

Arizona.

WILDLIFE HABITAT COUNCILSM

© 1988 WHC

Natural

Resources

Conservation

Service

Wildlife Habitat Management Institute

United States Distribution
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Habitat Requirements

General

The eastern cottontail prefers dense vegetation growing as edge between woody vegetation and open grasslands. Dense

grasses and forbs growing along open fields, meadows, orchards, farmlands, fence rows, stands of deciduous trees, lowgrowing brush, shrubs, vines, windbreaks, and hedgerow thickets are preferred cottontail habitats. Open grasslands

provide the rabbit with areas to forage, nest, and sun while nearby habitats of piled brush, shrubs, vines, and tangled

thickets provide essential escape and resting cover, offering refuges from predators and adverse weather. Thickets are

widely used for feeding and nesting as well. Cottontails will inhabit lawns and frequent vegetable gardens that contain

adequate nesting and foraging cover nearby and lack the threat of predation. Adequate cover is crucial for an area to

support a rabbit population, and the continued loss of nesting, escape, and resting cover remains the largest threat to the

cottontail’s future. Preserving brushy cover and properly managing open areas can assist landowners in boosting local

eastern cottontail populations, as well as populations of other species that rely on similar habitat.

Food

The eastern cottontail’s diet consists of a wide variety of green vegetation and woody plants. Spring, summer, and autumn

foods consist primarily of native and introduced grasses such as orchard grass, timothy, redtop, bluegrasses, wheatgrasses,

Indian ricegrass, cheatgrass brome, squirreltail, common chess, Korean lespedeza, small and common crabgrass, and

common lawn grasses. White clover, wild strawberry, dandelion, sedges, and various fruits are eaten in these seasons as

well. Given the opportunity, rabbits will feed on garden vegetables such as green beans, peas, lettuce, cabbage, and others.

Winter food sources include woody plant items such as buds, branch tips, and bark of blackberry, raspberry, sumac, witchhazel, apple, black cherry, oak, dogwood, maple, birch, willow, and sagebrush. Oats, winter wheat, clover, and other green

foods are eaten in winter months when available. Rabbits inhabiting farmland and agricultural areas feed on rye grasses,

vetch, chufa, oats, alfalfa, corn, soybeans, and various other crops and available waste grains.

Important eastern cottontail food items. The following species are known to be important food items in the diet of

eastern cottontails. Those species in bold print are of particular value for their usefulness as a winter food source.

Grasses and forbs:

orchard grass timothy redtop bluegrasses wheatgrasses Indian ricegrass

cheatgrass brome squirreltail lawn grasses sedges clover

wild strawberry dandelion globemallow fruits

Woody vegetation:

tree buds branch tips

Bark of :

blackberry raspberry sumac witch-hazel apple dogwood oak

birch black cherry maple willow sagebrush

Cultivated food items:

rye grasses vetch chufa oats alfalfa corn soybeans

winter wheat other crops and waste grains

Where appropriate, these species may be used to enhance vegetation that already exists in and around open field areas and

brushy cover. Adding the appropriate above species to those currently existing will enhance food availability for eastern

cottontails.
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

 Cover – Nesting

The eastern cottontail is a ground-nesting

mammal, raising its young in a shallow grass

and fur-lined depression, or form. Forms are

dug under the cover of felled trees, shrubs,

woodpiles, briar thickets, hedgerows, brush

piles, and in overgrown fence rows. Tall grass

and weedy patches are used as nesting habitat,

as is low cover growing along field edges and

ditch banks. Ideal nesting cover lies adjacent to

dense grassy cover. To reduce predation,

females rest and feed in nearby grass habitat

during daylight hours and return to the nest at

dawn and dusk to nurse the young. Nesting

cover is vital to the young for protection until

they are weaned and permanently leave the nest

at approximately 16 to 21 days after birth. In

areas lacking dense vegetation, allowing natural

vegetation to grow into thickets along fence

rows, ditch banks, windbreaks, and field edges

can help increase nesting cover for cottontail

rabbits.

Cover – Winter

Winter habitat requirements for eastern

cottontails differ very little from nesting and

summer cover types, as the cottontail is active

year-round throughout its range. Dense

grasses and other vegetation growing as edge

habitat, fields, meadows, orchards, farmlands,

wind breaks, and hedgerows, as well as thickets

of low-growing brush, shrubs, vines, and

deciduous trees provide required winter cover

elements for eastern cottontails. Due to the

varying temperatures between the cooler

northern and eastern reaches and the warmer

southern and western reaches of the

cottontail’s range availability of common food

sources may differ, but cover requirements

remain constant.

Water

Daily foraging activities and the types of foods

eaten by the eastern cottontail generally

provide it with an adequate amount of water.
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Preserving nesting cover, Brush pile construction. – Preservation and maintenance of nesting and escape cover is an important

element of cottontail habitat management. Preserving hedgerows, dense grasslands, low-growing shrub and briar thickets, field

border grasslands, and brushy cover along open field habitat is essential for an area to support a rabbit population. Disturbances

such as mowing, burning, or clearing of vegetation within these habitats should be kept to a minimum. Where possible, allow

vegetation to grow freely and avoid mowing, burning, and chemical application during the peak nesting season (February to

September). Occasional mowing, disking, and burning are beneficial management practices as they promote regeneration of

succulent grasses and other preferred forage vegetation. However, such disturbance should be conducted on a rotational basis

and be implemented outside the nesting season. Brush piles can also improve an area’s habitat composition by providing nesting

and escape cover. Brush piles are constructed by piling brush and loose branches on top of a base frame comprised of large logs

or tree trunks (see fig. 1). The base is constructed by stacking logs perpendicular to and on top of one another to create a sturdy

crisscross log structure with a height of 12 to 20 inches. A four-foot long piece of drainage tile can be placed under the base to

enable cottontails to easily enter the pile. Tile diameter should not exceed six inches to preclude foxes and other predators from

entering the pile. Cinder blocks can also be used to elevate the base up to eight inches off the ground to prevent the acceleration of weather rot and enable cottontails to enter the pile. The crown is constructed by piling loose branches on top of the

base to create a tangled pile of brush. Brush piles can be constructed of various sizes according to the habitats in which they are

placed. However, piles 12 to 18 feet in diameter and three to six feet in height are best in order to enable multiple individuals

and species to occupy a single pile. Well constructed brush piles can have a life span of more than 10 years, and proper placement can promote use by eastern cottontails as well as many different species of songbirds, insects, and other small mammals.

Placement: Brush piles should be placed along hedgerows, briar thickets, windbreaks, and within dense grasslands when

additional brushy cover is nearby. Properly locating brush piles within an area is important. Improper placement of a brush

pile (e.g., isolated and distant from tall grass and other forms of escape cover) can potentially create a “death trap” for cottontails and other prey species due to increased access by predators. Brush piles help to establish a balance between predator and

prey species within an area, but improper placement can cause a brush pile project to be counterproductive. Lands managed for

timber can benefit rabbits when slash from harvested trees is left as brush piles. Tree tops and branches assembled into windrow

slash piles following harvest can provide excellent cottontail cover for several years.

Interspersion of Habitat Components

Ideal interspersion of eastern cottontail habitat components consists of a complex of open grassy fields, meadows, orchards,

and hedgerows, dense grass along field and woodland edges, briar thickets, and low-growing brushy areas. In order for

successful cottontail reproduction and survival to occur, all required habitat components must be available in relative

proximity to one another. Because cottontails experience high mortality each year (up to 80 percent) and therefore

reproduce as many as seven times in one season, the most critical aspect of habitat interspersion, or the mix of different

habitat types, is the proximity of suitable foraging habitat to nesting habitat. The highest quality nesting habitat is of little

use if the nearest open foraging and resting habitat is not within close proximity. Likewise, the best foraging habitat will

not support nesting cottontails if adequate brushy cover is not present.

Minimum Habitat Area

The eastern cottontail seldom travels more than a half mile in a day and usually spends its entire life on an area no larger

than 10 acres in size. Although cottontails tend to display a lack of tolerance for other individuals inhabiting an immediate area, no reasonable estimate of minimum habitat size throughout its range exists. Distribution and interspersion of

food and cover within an area determines whether or not the area can support a rabbit population and the number of

individuals present. A small area with an abundance of edge brush and open field habitat may support a large number of

cottontails, whereas a large area lacking one component or the other may have few or no rabbits. Thus, cottontails will

inhabit areas of suitable habitat in numbers that individual territoriality will allow and that the area can naturally support,

regardless of its size.
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Figure 1 Brush pile construction

Eastern Cottontail Habitat Requirements Summary Table.

Habitat Component Habitat Requirements

Food – Young • Milk nursed from mother until weaned at approximately 16-21 days (weaning may not occur for

up to five weeks). Forage on succulent grasses and other green and woody vegetation after

weaned.

Food – Adult • Green vegetation — orchard grass, timothy, redtop, bluegrasses, common lawn grasses, wheatgrasses, Indian ricegrass, cheatgrass brome, spuirreltail, globemallow, clover, wild strawberry,

dandelion, sedges, various fruits, and garden vegetables. All are eaten in spring, summer, and

autumn months.

• Woody plants — buds, branch tips, and bark of blackberry, raspberry, sumac, witch-hazel, apple,

black cherry, oak, dogwood, maple, willow, sagebrush, and birch. All are eaten primarily in

winter months.

• Cultivated crops — oats, winter wheat, ryegrasses, vetch, chufa, soybeans, corn, alfalfa, and

various other crops and waste grains.

Nesting and Litter-rearing • Beneath cover of felled trees, shrubs, woodpiles, briar thickets, hedgerows, overgrown

Cover fence rows, and brush piles lying adjacent to dense grassy cover. Within tall grass, and low cover

growing along field edges and ditch banks.

Winter Cover • Dense grasses and other vegetation growing as edge habitat, fields, meadows, orchards, and

hedgerows. Thickets of low-growing brush, shrubs, vines, and deciduous trees.

Water • Water requirements for cottontails are met through daily food intake.

Interspersion • Prefer a complex of open grassy fields, meadows, orchards, hedgerows, dense grass along field and

woodland edges, briar thickets, and low-growing brushy areas.

Minimum Habitat Size • No reasonable estimate of minimum habitat size exists for eastern cottontails. A cottontail’s

home range is 10 acres or less, and an individual seldom travels a total of more than a half mile in

a day.

Limiting Factors

For planning purposes, use the following table to inventory the site to determine the availability of each of the basic habitat

components, based on the above habitat requirement descriptions. Habitat components that are absent or rated low are

limiting habitat quality for eastern cottontails.
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Inventory of Limiting Factors Availability/Quality

Habitat Component High Medium Low Absent

Food

Nesting and litter-rearing cover

Winter cover

Interspersion of habitat components

Management Prescriptions

Management treatments should address the habitat components that are determined to be limiting eastern cottontail

habitat potential. For planning purposes, select among the possible action items listed below to raise the quality or

availability of each habitat component determined to be limiting. A list of programs that may provide financial or technical assistance to carry out specific management practices is given, when applicable.

Habitat Management options for increasing Assistance

Component habitat quality or availability Programs

Food • Maintain grassy and open field areas by conducting rotational WHIP, EQIP, PFW, CRP

mowing, strip disking, and managed grazing where appropriate.

• Preserve and plant, when practical, blackberry, raspberry, sumac, N/A

witch-hazel, apple, wild black cherry, oak, dogwood, maple, willow,

sagebrush, and birch trees, shrubs, and vines.

• Establish food plots such as alfalfa, wheat, corn, and other grain WHIP, EQIP, PFW, CRP

crops, or soybeans within 250 feet of existing rabbit

resting/escape cover.

Nesting and • Preserve hedgerows, overgrown fencerows, dense grasslands, low- WHIP, EQIP, CRP

young-rearing growing shrub and briar thickets, field border grasslands, and

cover dense grass and brushy cover along open field habitat.

• Construct brush piles along hedgerows, briar thickets, windbreaks, N/A

and within dense grasslands containing a brushy component.

Winter cover • Maintain grassy and open field areas by conducting rotational WHIP, EQIP, PFW, CRP

mowing, strip disking, and managed grazing where appropriate.

• Preserve hedgerows, grown-up fence rows, dense grasslands, low- WHIP, EQIP, CRP

growing shrub and briar thickets, field border grasslands, and

dense grass and brushy cover along open field habitat.

• Construct brush piles along hedgerows, briar thickets, windbreaks, N/A

and within dense grasslands containing a brushy component.

Interspersion • Combine above prescriptions to increase interspersion of habitat N/A

of habitats components or amount of suitable cottontail habitat.

Landowners interested in sharing their individual efforts with the community can work with WHC and NRCS to involve

school, scout, and community groups and their families in habitat projects. A cottontail management project is an easy

way to provide fun, hands-on learning opportunities, especially for children. If the land is corporate owned, encourage

interested employees to become involved. Involve students or scouts in building and maintaining brush piles. The

educational benefits can greatly increase the value of your cottontail management project for community members and

wildlife alike.

Parasites and Disease. Parasites and disease are a natural occurrence in many species of wildlife. The eastern cottontail may harbor fleas, ticks, botfly larvae, and tapeworms. However, rarely is the rabbit negatively affected by these

parasites. Bacterial tularemia is recognized as occurring in cottontails more often than in any other species of wildlife.

Although tularemia is transmitted primarily by tick bites, humans can become infected by contact with diseased

rabbits. Lethargic rabbits should not be handled and should be avoided. Tularemia does not pose significant threat to

humans when treated appropriately with antibiotics.
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Grassland management – Maintaining open grassy areas is important to the nesting and foraging activities of eastern cottontails.

Rotational mowing, strip disking, and controlled burning in meadows and grasslands promote new growth of important forage

grasses, legumes, and forbs. Controlled burning is a highly regulated technique and should only be conducted in cooperation

with fish and wildlife agencies and with assistance from licensed burners. Rotational mowing and strip disking can be conducted

by landowners and maintenance contractors with beneficial results. Both practices are conducted by dividing an area into 15- to

25-foot wide strips (depending on the area’s size) that are separated from one another by 50 to 85 feet (see fig. 2). A single strip is

mown to a height of four to six inches, or disked to a depth of six to eight inches, twice a year. Smaller areas can be divided into

three strips; mow or disk one strip in early spring (mid-March to mid-April, depending on the region) before grassland nesting

birds and mammals commence nesting activities, and again in late fall after nesting activities are completed. The following year,

the second strip would be mowed or disked in the same months. The third strip would be mowed or disked in year three, and the

process begins again in year four. Larger areas evenly divided into six or more strips can be rotationally disked or mown in pairs,

so that strip one is worked with strip three, strip two with strip four, strip three with strip six, and so forth. Managing a grassland

in this manner produces vegetation growing at various ages, providing resident cottontails with nesting, foraging, and resting

cover.

Figure 2 Rotational mowing and strip disking regime.

Programs that provide technical and financial assistance to develop fish and wildlife habitat on

private lands.

Conservation Reserve

Program (CRP)

Program Land Eligibility Type of Assistance Contact

Highly erodible land,

wetland, and certain other

lands with cropping history.

Stream-side areas in pasture

land

50% cost-share for establishing permanent cover and

conservation practices, and annual rental payments

for land enrolled in 10- to 15-year contracts. Additional financial incentives are available for some

practices

NRCS or FSA

state or local

office

Environmental Quality

Incentives Program

(EQIP)

Cropland, range, grazing

land and other agricultural

land in need of treatment

Up to 75% cost-share for conservation practices in

accordance with 5- to 10-year contracts. Incentive

payments for certain management practices

NRCS state or

local office

Partners for Fish and

Wildlife Program

(PFW)

Most degraded fish and/or

wildlife habitat

Up to 100% financial and technical assistance to

restore wildlife habitat under minimum 10-year

cooperative agreements

Local office of the

U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service

Waterways for Wildlife Private land Technical and program development assistance to

coalesce habitat efforts of corporations and private

landowners to meet common watershed level goals

Wildlife Habitat

Council

(301-588-8994)

Wildlife at Work Corporate land Technical assistance on developing habitat projects

into a program that will allow companies to involve

employees and the community

Wildlife Habitat

Council

(301-588-8994)

Wildlife Habitat

Incentives Program

(WHIP)

High-priority fish and

wildlife habitats

Up to 75% cost-share for conservation practices

under 5- to 10-year contracts

NRCS state or

local office

State fish and wildlife agencies and private groups may have assistance programs or State or local

other useful tools in your state. contacts
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Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

References

Bookhout, T.A. 1996. Research and management techniques for wildlife and habitats. The Wildlife Society. Allen Press,

Inc., Lawrence, KS. 740 pp.

Burt, W.B., and R.P. Grossenheider. 1980. Mammals. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, New York. 289 pp.

Merritt, J.F. 1987. Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA. 408 pp.

Merritt, J.F. 1987. photograph. Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA.

408 pp.

Mississippi State University Extension Service, 1998, Eastern Cottontail Rabbit, in

http://www.ext.msstate.edu/pubs/is624.htm.

Ohio State University Extension, 1998, Controlling Rabbits in the Landscape, in

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/hyg-fact/1000/1031.html.

University of Michigan – Museum of Zoology, 1996, Sylvilagus Floridanus, in

http://www.oit.itd.umich.edu/bio/doc.cgi/Chordata/Mammalia/Lagomorpha/Leporidae/Sylvilagus_floridanus.ftl.

Wasowski, A., and S. Wasowski. 1988. photograph. Native Texas Plants. Texas Monthly Press, Austin, TX. 406 pp.

NRCS

Wildlife Habitat Management Institute

100 Webster Circle, Suite 3

Madison, MS 39110

(601) 965-5886

In cooperation with partners, the mission of the

Wildlife Habitat Management Institute is to

develop and disseminate scientifically based technical materials that will assist NRCS field staffs and

others to promote conservation stewardship of fish

and wildlife and deliver sound habitat management

principles and practices to America’s land users.

www.whmi.iastate.edu

Wildlife

Habitat Council

1010 Wayne Avenue, Suite 920

Silver Spring, MD 20910

(301) 588-8994

The Wildlife Habitat Council’s mission is to

increase the amount of quality wildlife habitat on

corporate, private, and public land. WHC

engages corporations, public agencies, and

private, non-profit organizations on a voluntary

basis as one team for the recovery, development,

and preservation of wildlife habitat worldwide.

www.wildlifehc.org

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color,

national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at 202-720-2600 (voice and TDD).

To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326W, Whitten Building, 14th and

Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call 202-720-5964 (voice or TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.