NDSU Extension Service Horticulturists One of the most familiar animals in North Dakota is the Eastern cottontail rabbit. The cottontail rabbit can cause serious damage to home vegetable gardens and ornamental plantings. Cottontails eat many garden vegetables, especially lettuce, carrots, beans and peas. Where abundant they can eliminate landscape plantings and nursery and orchard stock. Cottontails generally do the most damage in winter and early spring.
Exclusion includes fencing and protection.
For individual plants a fence is the best all-around protection for prevention of rabbit damage. A fence of two-foot wide chicken wire with the bottom tight to the ground and well staked will stop most rabbits. Be sure the mesh is one inch or less or young rabbits will be able to penetrate it. You can roll it up and reuse it for several years. You can protect individual saplings or plants by encircling them with a cylinder of one quarter inch hardware cloth braced several inches from the stem.