13 Easy Tips To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
If you’re like us, you can’t deny how cute and exciting it is to see a rabbit hop across your lawn, right? Especially if you live in wooded areas, you probably see rabbits often. If you’re noticing rabbits in your swimming pool, it’s time to hop on it – and act fast.
If rabbits are in your swimming pool, your backyard may have aspects that are attractive to them. You can discourage rabbits from coming to your yard or swimming pool by maintaining your property, removing food scraps, adding a barrier around your pool, and adding scents that rabbits dislike outside.
If you’re having a rabbit problem, it’s best to get ahead of the game before more come around. Today, we’re sharing our top tips on how to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool – and away from your backyard!
Why Are Rabbits Swimming In My Swimming Pool?
There are a few reasons why rabbits may be swimming in your pool. The reality is that 9 times out of 10, it’s not because rabbits want to swim. Rather, it’s because they are attracted to your backyard itself.
But there’s still a 1 out of 10 chance that they may want to swim. More on that later.
Rabbits are generally attracted to outdoor spaces providing water during hot, dry spells. Naturally, this will attract them to your backyard and surroundings, a-hem, your pool.
If the weather is particularly hot or if you’re having a drought, there’s a good chance that a rabbit is swimming in your pool to cool off, or drink.
However, the other 9 out of 10 times that rabbits are in your pool is because your backyard and pool area may be providing the perfect conditions for them.
Rabbits like to nest near borders, specifically shrubbery along a border in your yard. They like this because they can enter a field that’s bordered, and return to safety quickly after. Ever notice how a rabbit can dive under your fence with ease? This is why!
Now, let’s get into those easy tips to stop rabbits (and probably just about every other animal) out of your swimming pool!
Your Backyard May be Attracting Rabbits To Your Swimming Pool
The reality is your backyard may be attracting rabbits to your swimming pool without you even realizing it.
Rabbits are attracted to food and in the summer months, rabbits will eat weeds, grass, clover, wildflowers, along with your flowers and vegetable gardens. In the colder months, they will eat twigs, buds, bark, greening plants, and conifer needles.
Rabbits are also attracted to areas where they can nest. You’ll usually find a rabbit’s nest or den is typically located near bushes, fencerows, field edges, within the brush, gullies that now have shrubs, and any landscape that has cover, like under a deck.
Click here to learn more about where rabbits go during the day in our in-depth guide!
So, if you’re noticing that rabbits are winding up in your swimming pool, take notice of your backyard. If you have any of these aspects in your yard, especially around your pool, you may be attracting rabbits to your outdoor space.
That’s why rabbits come to your pool. With this in mind, you may be wondering: How do I keep rabbits away from my swimming pool? Well, we got you covered! Read on to learn what you can do today to shoo the rabbits away!
1. Maintain Your Outdoor Space To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
If you’re having a rabbit problem, the most important thing to remember is to maintain consistency and keep up with your surroundings.
The best long-term tip that we can offer you to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool is to maintain your outdoor space. You can do this by mowing your lawn weekly, pruning shrubbery when needed, picking and using a weed killer to get rid of any overgrown weeds, and raking up fallen leaves or picking up any other environmental debris like acorns. This will help keep your outdoor space tidy.
Rabbits are attracted to weeds. If you have a large variety of weeds that are overtaking your landscape or the surroundings of your pool area, it’s important to get rid of them to make sure your backyard isn’t attractive to rabbits.
A great way to maintain and get rid of any weeds is with this weed killer, which can also get rid of unwanted grass. if you’re looking for immediate results, you can use something like Green Gobbler’s 20% Vinegar Weed and Grass Killer. However, you can also use grocery store distilled white vinegar (around 5% acidity) but it will just take a bit longer!
One other way to maintain your outdoor space is to create a schedule and stick with it. Sticking to a clean-up routine that consists of mowing the lawn, and tidying up to keep the space clean, will help make your yard as unattractive to a rabbit as possible, and arguably, more attractive to you!
2. Add Automated Lights To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
Creating a disturbance in your yard by adding automatic lights is another great way to deter rabbits from your yard and in turn, your swimming pool. Making the space as unattractive is possible is key in keeping rabbits out of your swimming pool.
Rabbits typically will stay in a location that is predictable and free from danger, so if you add something unfamiliar (like automatic lights) into your outdoor space, they are going to be startled and deem the area unsafe.
A light like the Lutec Integrated Dual-Headed Flood Light is perfect to add to your outdoor space, and it will work even better if it’s specifically lighting up your pool.
Contrary to popular belief, rabbits are not nocturnal which means they do not spend their awake time during the night. Rabbits are crepuscular, which means they are most active during dusk and dawn.
Although dusk and dawn are typically when it’s dark out, since rabbits are more active in the darker hours of the night and morning, adding automatic lights will confuse them at these times and will keep them away!
3. Automated Sprinklers Will Scare Rabbits Away From Your Pool
With the same purpose as automatic lights, automatic sprinkles will bring something unfamiliar and dangerous into your outdoor space, which will keep rabbits away from your swimming pool.
If you have sprinklers around your swimming pool area, rabbits aren’t going to risk their safety to get to the pool. The automatic sprinklers will startle the rabbits, and will keep them from nesting in your backyard, keeping them from swimming in your pool.
Adding automated sprinklers that turn on at dusk or dawn is a great way to deter rabbits, and, as an extra bonus, it’s better to water your grass during the milder temperatures of the day, so that it doesn’t burn!
4. Use Aluminum Pie Tins Around Your Pool To Keep Rabbits Out Of It
I know, this one sounds different, and that’s not a bad thing because adding aluminum pie tins to the space can be an effective way to keep rabbits away from your swimming pool.
If you’re having a more challenging rabbit problem, we always recommend you checking in with a professional first and foremost.
But after that’s done, although this isn’t the most sightly, adding aluminum pie tins can make a difference. You’ll have them hanging from tree branches nearby or hanging over the pool.
Hanging the pie tin in your garden is effective because not only does it produce an unfamiliar sound when it moves around, but it also reflects light, which is definitely unfamiliar and dangerous to a rabbit!
Grabbing a pack of pie tins like these Disposable Aluminum Foil Pie Pans, would work wonderfully to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool, but hey, you can also bake some amazing pies with them, and that sounds like a win-win to us!
Pie tins not your style? Here are other sounds and noises that’ll scare rabbits away.
5. Plant Allium Plants like Onions or Garlic To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
Another easy way to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool is to add allium plants to your gardens and around your pool.
Allium plants (like onions and garlic) are a major deterrent to rabbits and most wildlife.
Onion and garlic both have poignant smells that will overwhelm and irritate a rabbit’s senses – which in turn, will keep them away from your yard and your swimming pool.
By planting garlic or onion plants into your garden and around your property, you will surely create an unattractive environment for a rabbit and, in turn, they will stay far away from your outdoor space and far away from your swimming pool.
Other ways to use onion and garlic to keep rabbits away is by generously sprinkling onion powder or garlic powder around your pool, or adding fresh cloves of garlic, throughout your yard.
Does the scent of onions or garlic drive you away too? Here are some other scents rabbits hate (and how to use them).
6. Plant Geraniums To Keep Rabbits Away From Your Pool
According to the University of Florida, planting geraniums will encourage a rabbit to avoid an entire area completely.
Geraniums offer a beautiful light citrus and rose fragrance—one that although we may like, rabbits absolutely hate.
Imagine it to be like the taste of soap. The aroma might be good, but as a food? Yuck!
Since rabbits instinctually find space where there are plentiful food sources, having geraniums, especially paired with plants like onion or garlic, is going to deter them away since they won’t eat them!
Since geraniums are a beautiful looking plant, planting them around your swimming pool is a no-brainer. Whether you add them to a nearby garden or the perimeter of your swimming pool, this will be a great deterrent in keeping rabbits out of your swimming pool.
7. Tabasco Sauce Will Keep Rabbits Away From Your Swimming Pool
Another trick of the trade if you will. Tabasco sauce may just be the answer if you’re having rabbit problems.
Mixing Tabasco sauce and water in a spray bottle and generously spraying the solution around pool areas, and even on plants or grasses that are getting destroyed by rabbits, is an easy solution to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool.
Tabasco sauce not only smells too strong for a rabbit to endure, but it also tastes equally as strong and can be irritating to a rabbit’s senses.
The National Library of Medicine notes that rabbits have sensitive lips. They use their lips as tactile structures to distinguish what is and isn’t food.
If a rabbit goes and touches its lips to tabasco sauce, it’s going to hate it—and because of that, they will mark the area as dangerous, and stay far away.
8. Adding Barriers Around Your Pool To Keep Rabbits Out Of It
An easy, fool-proof way to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool is to add a barrier around the pool either permanently or as a removable barrier to use when you’re not in the pool.
If you’re in the pool swimming often, there’s a good chance that a rabbit isn’t coming anywhere near you. Humans are considered predators to them. However, when you’re not around, the pool may be enticing. Adding a barrier will keep them from hopping in for a quick dip!
If you have any areas where rabbits are digging near your swimming pool, take a look at our piece on stopping rabbits from digging – adding a wall or barrier can go a long way!
9. Irish Spring Soap Will Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
If you’re having a rabbit problem or notice a few extra rabbits in your yard today, run to your pantry and see if you have some Irish Spring Soap handy. Rabbits absolutely hate the strong scent of Irish Spring Soap.
Refreshing smelling to some, and absolutely overwhelming to others, Irish Spring Soap is an extremely fragrant soap that works well with deterring rabbits and actually, all types of unwanted pests. With scent notes of bergamot, citrus, floral, and wood, Irish Spring Soap is too fragrant for a rabbit’s nose and will taste absolutely disgusting on a rabbit’s lips.
To use Irish Spring Soap to deter rabbits, adding chunks of the soap throughout your yard, or, grating the soap around the perimeter of the pool, will be a great way to deter rabbits.
Throwing full bars of the soap under decks or patios, or in sheds, will also help to keep them away.
If you don’t want the soap to be unsightly, grating the soap and adding it to little sachet bags and then placing those around your yard and pool, will be a way to add Irish Soap into your outdoor space without it looking crazy!
10. Keep Your Filter On To Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Swimming Pool
If you happen to have some wild rabbits that are brave and just like to swim in your pool, there are things that you can do to your actual pool that will keep them out of it. The simplest? Keep your filter on!
When you notice a pattern or time period when rabbits seem to enter your pool, keeping your filter on during these hours can help deter rabbits from going near and in your swimming pool.
The filter will make a sound that is unfamiliar to a rabbit, and when it collects debris in the pool, it will also make a noise. All of which will scare rabbits away! They will think the filter is a predator!
11. Keep Inflatable Pool Toys In Your Swimming Pool To Help Keep Rabbits Out
Speaking of predators, it may be time to throw some “predators” into the pool area, and by this we mean inflatable pool toys.
Some predators of rabbits include owls, hawks, eagles, dogs, cats and ground squirrels (here’s our full list of rabbit predators if you’d like more info.)
Fun fact: rabbits will actually run-in a zigzag when they sense a predator so it’s easier for them to get away, while confusing the predator.
Keeping rabbits out of your swimming pool can be as easy as adding some inflatable pool toys to your swimming pool, especially when it’s not in use. Try adding this adorable Ride-On Inflatable Sea Lion or this Inflatable Husky Dog Pool Toy. Since these floats are completely new and unknown to a rabbit, they’re likely going to stay away when they first see them!
Having inflatable floats or toys on top of the water, especially at dusk or dawn, will make rabbits wary of the space, and will find it unattractive to nest, feed, or swim nearby.
12. An Automatic Pool Cleaner Can Scare Rabbits
Another “predator” to introduce into your pool is an automatic pool cleaner. That will surely keep rabbits from swimming!
Imagine being a rabbit and all of a sudden hearing and seeing something move under the water. You’d be afraid for your life!
To think of it, it’s kind of like us swimming at the beach and seeing a shark. Your brain and body sense danger, and you get out of there as fast as you can and will be reluctant to return.
Adding a pool cleaner into your pool mimics this idea, without any harm. Plus, the pool cleaner gives you an extra benefit, as it will clean your swimming pool for you!
The Dolphin Nautilus Pool Cleaner is an amazing option because it does all the work for you. By setting your own schedule (whether every day, week, or month) this pool cleaner cleans in 2 hours with just the touch of a button.
13. Cover Your Pool To Keep Rabbits Out
Another great option that we can offer to you to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool is by adding a pool cover to your pool when you’re not using it!
Adding a solar cover, like BigXWell Solar Pool Cover, is a great way to keep heat in your pool, and rabbits out!
Rabbits aren’t going to jump in a pool that they can’t see the water in. To them, a pool cover will look just like an unfamiliar surface that they are not going to want to explore.
Easy to add on, and coming in a bunch of different sizes, a solar cover can be the right move to keep rabbits out of your swimming pool.
All in All
At the end of the day (and sometimes in the morning too), if you’re seeing rabbits in your pool, try using some of the tips above. This will keep them out. This is not only good for you and your pool, but it’s safer for the rabbits as well.
Sometimes rabbits get into the pool by accident, and many times, they really don’t want to be there. If this seems to be happening, adding Animal Saving Escape Ramps to your pool is a good way to help rabbits escape and all unwanted pests, at a very low cost.
As annoying as it can be to have rabbits in your swimming pool, the safety of you and the animal is always the highest priority. If you are unsure how to go about keeping rabbits out of your swimming pool, we always recommend checking in with a professional.
References
“Home – PMC – NCBI.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Varga, Molly. “Rabbit Basic Science.” Textbook of Rabbit Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2014.
