Rabbiting

Rabbiting (also rabbit hunting and cottontail hunting) is the sport of hunting rabbits, often using ferrets or dogs to track the prey and various trapping and shooting methods to catch them.

Hunting of rabbits involving dogs (usually beagle or basset hounds) is called beagling.

Hunters without hounds have the following options. A hunter, alone or with a partner, walks through the possible locations of rabbit hiding places, kicking or stomping possible covers to chase the rabbit out. In winter an advantage is visible rabbit tracks after fresh snow. Unravelling tracks allows the hunter to locate the hiding place: if no tracks leave out of a suspected location, then the quarry is located. After this, hunters with short range arms (archers or the ones with small calibre) may scrutinize the location to find the rabbit and shoot it immobile. Alternatively, one may just as well scare the animal out and shoot it on the run.

Typically, long nets are placed around burrows so that a bolting rabbit (that is, one leaving its burrow while being chased by a ferret or other animal) will become ensnared, allowing the hunter to dispatch it. Another method is to use a purse net, which is a net with a draw string at the opening. This net is placed over the burrow, so that when the rabbit bolts, it will run into the net and cause the draw string to pull the net shut.

Rabbits are occasionally killed by a priest, but may also be killed with a sharp blow of the hand to the base of the neck, or by holding the neck between the thumb and first finger and using a whipping motion.

Ferrets tend to be the primary animal used in rabbiting, due to their ease in moving about burrows. A jill (female ferret) is more typically used in a hunt than a hob (male ferret), as the hob is more likely to "lay up" (killing and eating a rabbit in the burrow, resulting in the hob falling asleep) due to it being stronger than the jill. In modern rabbiting, ferrets may wear a locator collar, and the hunter will use a device that emits a faster clicking noise the closer it is to the ferret's collar. When the ferret lays up, the hunter uses the device to locate the ferret, digging down to remove it and the trapped rabbit.

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