Those shallow, grass-lined depressions in your yard are most likely cottontail rabbit nests, not burrows. Unlike their European cousins, cottontail rabbits don’t dig deep underground tunnels. They scrape out a shallow cup in the soil, line it with dried grass and their own fur, and use it to raise a litter of four to six babies. The good news: rabbit nests are temporary. The bad news: rabbits may dig several per season across the same yard.
What Rabbit Nests Actually Look Like
A cottontail nest is a depression several inches wide and deep, just enough to hold a cluster of kits. The mother lines it with grass and pulls fur from her own chest to insulate the babies, then covers the whole thing with more fur and dried grass between feedings. From above, it can look like a small patch of dead grass or a bare spot in the lawn. You might not notice it at all until you’re mowing or your dog starts sniffing one area obsessively.
If you pull back the covering and see small, pink, hairless animals (or slightly furred ones with closed eyes), you’ve found an active nest. Leave it alone. The babies develop fast: their eyes open within a week, fur grows in by the second week, and they leave the nest at about three weeks old. By four weeks, they’re gone for good.
Is It a Rabbit or Something Else?
Several animals dig in yards, and the holes look different enough to tell apart once you know what to check.
- Rabbit nests are shallow, wide depressions lined with grass and fur, usually in open lawn areas. There’s no tunnel leading away from them.
- Skunk holes are cone-shaped, about 3 inches wide and deep, and typically appear in clusters. Skunks dig these while hunting grubs, so you’ll often find a scattered array of them rather than a single spot.
- Mole damage looks like raised ridges or tunnels just below the surface. The grass above dries out or gets scalped by the mower. Moles don’t leave open holes so much as push the ground up.
- Vole runways are narrow surface paths where the grass has been removed, often running between two points of cover. They look like tiny trails carved into the turf.
- Groundhog burrows are unmistakable: large openings (often 6 to 10 inches across) with a mound of excavated dirt nearby and a clear tunnel going underground.
If the hole is shallow, lined with soft material, and sits in the middle of your lawn with no tunnel, it’s almost certainly a rabbit nest.
How to Tell If a Nest Is Still Active
Mother rabbits nurse their young only twice a day, at dawn and dusk, and they deliberately stay away the rest of the time to avoid attracting predators. This means you’ll almost never see the mother near the nest. That absence tricks many people into thinking the babies have been abandoned, but in most cases they haven’t.
If you’re unsure, lay four pieces of string or thin twigs in a tic-tac-toe pattern directly over the nest, as straight as you can. Leave and check back in 12 hours. If the strings have been displaced, the mother returned to feed. If they’re completely undisturbed and the babies look thin with loose, wrinkled skin, the nest may genuinely be orphaned. In that case, contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in your area.
A baby rabbit that’s fully furred, has open eyes, and is larger than a softball (roughly 4 ounces or more) is old enough to be on its own. Finding one hopping around your yard doesn’t mean it needs help. The only reasons to intervene are visible injuries, bleeding, broken bones, signs of a cat or dog attack, or the rabbit being cold, wet, and crying continuously.
What to Do With an Active Nest
The simplest and best approach is to wait it out. Three weeks from the time you notice hairless babies, the nest will be empty. You can mow around the area, giving it a buffer of a couple feet.
If you have a dog that won’t leave the nest alone, place an upside-down laundry basket over it with a brick or heavy object on top to keep it secure. Remove the basket at dusk and again at dawn so the mother can get in to nurse. Replace it after each feeding window. This low-tech solution protects the kits without disrupting the mother’s routine.
Filling the Hole After Rabbits Leave
Once you’ve confirmed the nest is empty (no babies, no fresh fur lining), repairing the lawn is straightforward. Remove any remaining nesting material, then fill the depression with topsoil, tamping it down so it’s level with the surrounding ground. If the area is bare, scatter grass seed over the fresh soil and water it lightly. For a faster fix, cut a small piece of sod to fit the patch.
The nesting season for cottontails runs through September, and rabbits sometimes reuse the same spot or dig new nests elsewhere in the yard. Filling one hole doesn’t guarantee another won’t appear a few weeks later, so prevention matters if you want to break the cycle.
Making Your Yard Less Appealing to Rabbits
Rabbits choose nesting sites based on two things: cover to hide in and short grass nearby to feed on. You can’t eliminate your lawn, but you can remove the cover that makes rabbits feel safe enough to nest there.
Start by clearing brush piles, rock piles, and overgrown patches of tall grass. Trim shrubs so there’s open space beneath them rather than dense thickets at ground level. Seal off gaps under decks, sheds, and crawl spaces with hardware cloth or lattice. The less shelter your yard offers, the less attractive it is as a nesting site.
Planting species that rabbits dislike around your yard’s perimeter can also help. Lavender, marigolds, rosemary, sage, and alliums all have strong scents that rabbits tend to avoid. Other rabbit-resistant options include daffodils, boxwoods, geraniums, peonies, and Russian sage. These won’t create an invisible wall, but a dense border of unappetizing plants discourages rabbits from venturing further in.
Repellents and Deterrents
Scent and taste repellents work as a secondary layer of defense. Commercial sprays based on egg solids, garlic, or capsaicin (the compound that makes peppers hot) can be applied to plants and garden borders. Homemade versions using crushed red pepper or garlic work similarly. The catch is that all of these wash away in rain and need reapplication every week or two to stay effective.
Motion-activated sprinklers startle rabbits with a burst of water and can be effective at training them to avoid a specific area. Predator decoys like plastic owls or rubber snakes offer some short-term deterrence, though rabbits eventually learn to ignore stationary objects. Moving the decoys to new positions every few days extends their usefulness.
Fencing as a Permanent Solution
If rabbits are a recurring problem, fencing is the most reliable long-term fix. Use wire mesh with gaps no larger than about 1 inch (rabbits, especially young ones, can squeeze through surprisingly small openings). The fence should stand at least 3 feet above ground level. Bury the bottom edge at least 6 inches underground, angling it outward in an L-shape, to prevent rabbits from digging beneath it.
For protecting a garden bed rather than an entire yard, a simple chicken wire enclosure with these dimensions will keep rabbits out season after season. For a full yard perimeter, the investment is larger but eliminates the need for repellents, decoys, and annual nest relocations.