Is it illegal to poison a pet rabbit ?

I always said I wouldn’t get involved in these “I’ve got a dispute with my neighbour, what should I do ?” threads. However, I could do with some legal advice, so I’ll try to keep it brief…

Mrs MTG’s daughter has got two pet rabbits.
I built a pen for them using the fence as one wall of the pen.
One of the rabbits rattles the wire early in the morning.
The neighbour complained about the noise.
Mrs MTG’s daughter now moves the rabbits to a small portable pen on the opposite side of the house at night and back to the big pen in the morning.
The nieghbour still complains about the noise. I think whiskey, rats, nearby sheep and screech owls, not rabbits, may have something to do with it.
He said if we don’t do something about it, he will.
Today, he put two trays of rat poison right by the gap at the bottom of the fence, partly pushed through to our side.
Mrs MTG mentioned this earlier and I thought she had done something about it.
I just found out she hadn’t, so I jumped over his gate at 10pm and kicked them away from the fence.

So, the question is…
Is it legal to deliberately try to poison a pet rabbit under the pretence of trying to kill rats ?

Of course it’s not legal to kill someone’s pet rabbit !

REPORT THE NEIGHBOUR TO RSPCA, they love that sort of thing, some people have such sad pathetic neighbours,like ones i used to have that put poison on the grass because i was feeding the birds, problem was it killed the grass and the birds just few away.

Wtf….
the neighbour needs to see a shrink.

Put the rabbits in the house, that’ll shut him up … maybe.

Edit: to be fair, rabbits can be noisy in a pen as I’ve found out BUT is it any worse than any other sounds one hears when windows and doors are open?

It’s all very well being cross about it but you do have to live next door to those people. Talk to the bloke about it and find out what his problem really is.

I often get annoyed by the standard STW response of “call the police”. However in this case, I think it may be well worth them having a word. That seems a slightly psychotic response to a minor annoyance.

Winston and Roxy say “No to poisoning Rabbits!”

That person is having mental health issues I’d guess.

TBF depending on the construction of the cage I can well believe that a rabbit rattling the wire early in the morning can cause enough noise as it resonates through a wooden cage to be a nuisance. Can’t you replace the wire front with wooden dowels or something ?

buy a cockerel

Kill the neighbour.
Plead insanity in court caused by the noise caused by the rabbits.
Job done

Hammer and every glass on his car will do it if you don’t mind going to court? I would not fancy it though …..so ! 2 people and 2 20″ SQUARE FIRE WORK PACKS (you know the multiple effect ones)any way synchronize watches and go to front and back of propety and lay the fireworks under the outside of windows light tape whilst breaking glass of main rooms(better if ground floor flats as a bedroom?)throw in flash bomb(any mail order theatre store and then retreat- now important video making sure all exits were clear and no exits blocked -He will move for sure no charges just a couple of windows and a talking to?

I reckon the Animal Welfare Act should cover it.

It covers protected animals which are commonly domesticated in the British Islands, under the control of a person on a permanent or temporary basis and it’s not living in a wild state.

There is an offence of administrating a poison…..

Administration of poisons etc.

(1)A person commits an offence if, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, he—

(a)administers any poisonous or injurious drug or substance to a protected animal, knowing it to be poisonous or injurious, or

(b)causes any poisonous or injurious drug or substance to be taken by a protected animal, knowing it to be poisonous or injurious.

buy a cockerel

I concur. Also if your neighbour has kids, poison them.

id be more worried about his blatant use of poison and kids animals about!!
pretty sure putting down rat poison without correct procedure will be an offence , the kicking you should give him will be so fares fare ?

My neighbour’s kids make a right racket .Can I give them poisoned ice cream?

Thanks amplebrew, that’s the answer I was hoping for.

It looks like

A person commits an offence if…(c)he permitted that to happen or, knowing the drug or substance to be poisonous or injurious, he failed to take such steps (whether by way of supervising the other person or otherwise) as were reasonable in all the circumstances to prevent that happening.

covers me jumping over the fence and moving the trays.
I’d have been committing an offence if I hadn’t done that.

Fairly sure it is illegal to put poison down uncovered. RSPB will be very interested in that, take photos next time, especially if its on your property.

Also, a pet is property, killing it is criminal damage.

Time to put a nice patio or pond in..

I just told Ruby the story, and she was so upset she hid under Tak’s protectionary fluff.

Animal Welfare act – Unnecessary Suffering – though that may be after the incident.

In addition – it may fall under Criminal Damage? They are your property.

Meanwhile I’d be round there like a shot with a set of Bombers. Fraking cheek of it, trying to poison a defenceless animal!!

To ease the situation I suggest you swap the mesh for smaller mesh – Ruby [who you can’t really see] above has serious teeth, and has damaged the mesh on their hutch by chewing it in the AM in enthusiasm for nuggets. I changed the mesh for 5mm square mesh from Wickes and no more chewing, so less noise.

But mainly, I’d be speaking to the Polis – see what they have to say..

The pen.

The gap between the bungalow and the fence had already been covered over and a door put on to make a sort of shed.
I tacked the pen on to this to give them both an outdoor and indoor area.
I made it tall enough to stand up in and it ended up looking more like an aviary than a rabbit pen.

Edit;
There are buzzards round here. That’s why it’s got a mesh roof.

That’s a cracking pen. Better than my house. Just call the police in the morning. Be very polite and make sure they sort him for you.

There are fairly comprehensive laws about deliberately placing dangerous substances on other peoples’ property.

btw, how tall are these rabbits of yours? Or do they hop really high?

Excellent pen. I can see that that’s a lot of mesh – so perhaps look for the area that’s being chewed and tack smaller mesh over that bit, see if that does it. Failing that I doubt they stand and chew, so perhaps only the first coupla feet need it.

Truth be told though it is kinda expensive from Wickes, so maybe sort the neighbour out instead.

wordnumb – Tak could leap 1m when he was about 6 months old. I used the metal wire lid [in the background in the above pic of my buns] to make a gate allowing me to leave the door open and step over it.

Little bugger used to jump onto it, balance on the top edge like a cat and then drop down to the other side when I got up to try and retrieve him!

Send round Kehaar to peck his eyes out, and Bigwig to rip his face off!

I’d pop round and tell him you are off to the hospital as your daughter ate the poison – would you mind looking after the rabbits while we are away….

Are these your rabbits, everyone knows it’s hand grenades for rabbits

Don’t you live in the FoD?

Post rabbit poo through his letterbox. but lace it with un digested pellets. Let him know what kind of monstrous animals he’s meddling with

CCTV and RSPCA.

What a total ***t your neighbour is!

Or, stiffen up the chicken wire somehow and tell or even better show the neighbour what you’ve done to try to minimise his suffering. Then ask him if poison is really the right way to go about finding the solution?

Make sure you have Mrs MTG’s daughter there too.

What if a neighbours cat eats the poison?

What if a visitor to your house/garden and you are out/forget to mention/look out for anything if they have small children? (Or more likely you have to say ‘sorry you can’t go outside’).

I’d speak to your local Police Officer asap. If anyone pushed poison into my property or threatened harm to my pet(s) I wouldn’t hesitate.

I think you need to act to ward off/head off a potential breach of the peace.

On a slightly different tack, is the ‘scratching’ a redherring? Maybe the neighbour finds your (admittably) over-large looking pen as an eye-sore? It is abit overkill. Its none of their business but it is quite large tbh. Maybe talk to them first, see if you can scale it down in height a wee bit. Do rabbits fly/climb to freedom? 😉 This sadly could also be a sign of weakness to your neighbour but its worth a try.

If I saw that sign pen next door to me I’d 😐 everytime I looked out of the bedroom window.

What if a neighbours catyour child eats the poison?

totally totally not OK, balls to RSPCA, call the police imo.

Try and resolve it with the neighbour first – ask him exactly what it is that he would like you to do about the situation. It sounds like you have already tried to accommodate his wishes, but there may be a solution that can be worked out without either poison or the police.

Can you get a neutral neighbour to give a second opinion on the noise level? It may be that it actually IS causing a disturbance. Even if it is, it’s not ok to poison someone’s pets, but some sort of further compromise may be needed.

When my younger siblings had rabbits and guinea pigs, they were put in a hutch in the garage at night – is that an option?

If I saw that sign pen next door to me I’d 😐 everytime I looked out of the bedroom window.

And I’d respectfully suggest you didn’t look into my garden out of your bedroom window

There is a step in ground level between the gardens. Its a 2m fence our side plus a 0.5m wall his side. He keeps his caravan by his side of the fence and theres a high hedge at the front, so no one can see

HE HAS A CARAVAN?! Retribution options unlocked!

post this through his letterbox (the pic, not the rabbit. obvs)

Put the rabbits in the house

Wrong answer. Put some rabbits in HIS house:

If he does poison them he can be done for “Causing Unnecessary Suffering” and be fined or sent down.

Break into his caravan and shit on/in the bed/couch/shower/fridge/cooker over a few consecutive days.