Farmer’s creative solution to pests

Jan 17 2009 by Sam Wood, The Journal

RABBITS, on the whole, are not exactly famed for their quick wittedness when it comes to responding to the threat of imminent danger.

Nonetheless, you might expect even the animals who frequently meet their end whilst caught in the headlights of an approaching vehicle to be able to see through the disguise dreamt up for his tractor by one North East farmer.

Paul Coppen, of White Close Hill Farm, near Bowes, County Durham, was struggling to get rid of the animals who have been stripping his farm of grass, leaving his livestock hungry.

So, in an attempt to fool the animals, Mr Coppen camouflaged one of his tractors, disguising it as one of his cattle.

He painted a picture of one of his black and white animals onto a wooden board and attached it to the side of the farm vehicle.

Mr Coppen drives the tractor around his farm, homing in on the unsuspecting rabbits, then uses the cover of a tree painted above the cow to shoot them with an air rifle.

But he admitted his disguise was not entirely foolproof and that some of the rabbits had been scared off by the sight of a moving tree attached to a cow.

The 69-year-old said: “In spite of myxomatosis, poachers, farm cats and ferrets, rabbits remain a serious problem at my farm.

“A dozen rabbits consume as much grass as one sheep and they create other problems by burrowing into the ground.

“I have had cows injured after they fell into a rabbit hole, I’ve sprained an ankle or two and it makes it a lot harder to plough fields if the machines keeps getting stuck in holes, so I need to get rid of these rabbits.

“One of my neighbours, Stan Mitchell, came up with the idea and helped me out, and I just went with it. I hoped the rabbits would ignore the fake cow, thinking it was just another member of the herd, thereby presenting a stationary target for the rifleman as I drive about the farm.

“It has to be said that not all rabbits are entirely fooled.

“Nevertheless, the weird contraption does seem to engage the rabbit’s curiosity, and as a result they don’t scamper off quite as fast as usual. Luckily, no cows have been accidentally shot so far and Granite Brain, the stock bull, has not displayed any amorous or belligerent intentions towards the glamorous heifer depicted on the side of the tractor.”