DDMRB for Landholders
Feral rabbits cost the Australian rural industry between $600 million and $1 billion every single year.
By understanding how to recognise signs of rabbits on your property, and how to get in contact with DDMRB for advice and assistance, you can protect your land and your livelihood.
How can DDMRB help me?
The 555km Darling Downs-Moreton Rabbit Board Fence protects some of the state’s most productive agricultural land from the devastation caused by rabbits, which pose a constant threat of establishing in plague proportions.
Over 100,000 farms and lifestyle properties within the fence are protected by DDMRB.
DDMRB can assist farmers and landholders in our community by providing:
- Information and resources on identifying and managing rabbit populations.
- Maintaining the fence
- Assisting in the removal of rabbit populations from your property.
Rabbit population FAQs
Rabbits breed from 3-4 months of age. Rabbits are pregnant for 30 days and give birth to litters of 4 – 7 young.
A mature female rabbit can be continuously pregnant for between 6 – 8 months per year in the right conditions. A single pair of rabbits can produce 30 – 40 young per year.
The immediate and potential damage that rabbit populations can inflict on your property is significant.
Even in low numbers, rabbits can have a devastating effect, including:
- Damaging crops, pastures, infrastructure, lawns and gardens.
- Leading to ‘weedy’ pastures.
- Attracting foxes, feral cats and wild dogs. High numbers of rabbits can support large numbers of feral predators.
- Ringbarking native tree and shrub species.
- Competing with native animals for food and shelter.
- Leading to accelerated soil erosion and land degradation.
Maintenance of the rabbit-proof fence, as well as proactive measures by farmers and other landholders to monitor any signs of rabbit populations on their property, are our best preventative measures against rabbit outbreaks.
The best way to prevent a rabbit outbreak on your property is to remove the places where rabbits breed.
In the absence of burrows, rabbits will get under things that offer them protection from predators. This can include man-made structures as well as disturbed or natural habitat, including:
- In rubbish piles
- In mounds of soil mixed with timber
- Under low-set buildings
- Under concrete slabs
- Under shipping containers
- In weeds like lantana and boxthorn
- Along creek banks
Removal of these places may require:
- Burning or removing log piles or rubbish piles;
- Raising materials off the ground;
- Using barriers such as wire netting to block rabbits from getting under things.
Rabbits leave tell-tale signs like droppings, dung piles, scratchings in the soil surface and burrows. By identifying these signs early — often in bare areas such as garden beds or sprayed areas like fence lines — you can remove the places where rabbits breed before the problem becomes an infestation.
These ‘rabbit signs’ include:
- Fresh scratching
- Dark, fresh droppings – or pills
- A large dung-pile – or ‘buckheap’
Yes, it is legal to humanely kill rabbits on your own land, or another property with the permission of the landowner.
All landholders are expected to take all reasonable and practical steps to remove rabbits. This includes:
- Using machinery with a ripper or bucket to destroy rabbit warrens or lots of burrows.
- Fumigating or digging up single or isolated burrows.
- Digging barrier into the ground to keep rabbits away from low-set buildings.
555km, protecting roughly 100,000 private farms and lifestyle properties.