Rabbits taking a bite outta the garden

[Libertarian]

Around the perimiter of my raised be i planted various flowers.  I went to check on the sprouts yesterday and the sprouts that had been looking good the previous day had been cut in what appeared to be perfectly straight lines.  I looked up the bite mark on google and found that it was a rabbit, i also saw the rabbit sneak up to the are later that night.  It's funny because the flowers are surrounded by clover, yet the rabbit bypassed all that and went for the tiny sprouts.

Im considering hardware cloth wrapped around metal stakes driven into the ground to create a rounded cage around each set of flowers.

Anyone else have any other ideas? 

[ShenandoahJoe]

If you have lots of neighbors close by, you could plant catnip. It grows like a weed, and there were always a bunch of highly-skilled predators hanging around when I had a bush in the flowerbed. It would take a brave rabbit to make his way through that.

I got rid of it because my wife's cats are sissies, and kept getting beat up.

[Nikki]

^ Haha!

I was going to pretty much say the same though, try to attract more predators that might go after the rabbits, but that you also don't have to worry about (like coyotes, nobody wants those).  I live RIGHT by an unused grain elevator, so I'm going to be building owl boxes and hoping it helps keep the mice in check.

Heh.. I had Easter with some close friends, and one of the kids got one of those wind-up chicks that hops around when you wind them.  The old man said he needed a bunch of them to put out in the yard to attract predatory birds.  

[BZHound]

Rabbits are sneaky. I have two dogs that patrol "sleep outside" during the day, but the rabbits are hard to keep out.  I plan on finding a couple of my garden friends during rabbit hunting season!