rabbit snaring

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Assembling Snares, Tealers and Pegs to create a working rabbit snare

Selecting the tealer............................................................................................................................ 2

Attaching the noose to the tealer ...................................................................................................... 2

Snare dimensions .............................................................................................................................. 4

Attaching the peg to the tealer .......................................................................................................... 5

Locating the run ................................................................................................................................ 9

Setting the snare ............................................................................................................................. 10

Setting a fence wire ......................................................................................................................... 11


Selecting the tealer

There are generally two types of wire rabbit tealers used: - a ‘standard’ tealer in the middle of four ‘figure 4’ or ‘double’ tealers.

Tealers are normally 9 ½ inches long, the ‘blade’ you see on the bottom of the figure 4 tealer is inserted into the ground sufficiently to hold the snare erect at a height of 6 ½ inches to the bottom of the loop.

Straight tealers are a little easier to push into the ground, but the figure 4 tealer is more stable due to its shape at the base. Longer tealers can be used to achieve extra height.

Ensure the tealer ‘eye’ has been filed down correctly and that there are no snags for the snare to catch on.

Attaching the noose to the tealer

Snare eyelets often have two different sized faces, a large one and a small one.

The blank end of the snare wire should be passed through the large face to form a loop.


After forming the loop or ‘noose’ of the snare, we then need to attach it to the tealer. Holding the tealer upright, thread the end of the snare through the eye in the tealer.

Now form a double knot in the wire below the tealer eye and tighten.

When the snare is pulled taught this knot will act as a swivel against the underside of the tealer eye helping to preserve the life of the snare by lessening the effects of twisting.

Pull the knot downward about 1.5 inches and wrap that small part of the snare around the shank of the tealer. This holds the snare in place and prevents it from being blown by the wind or knocked aside by small animals or birds.


Snare dimensions

The snare loop should measure 7.5 inches wide and 5.5 inches high and resemble a deep pear shape.

The snare is set 6.5 inches high, from the bottom of the noose to the ground on short grass.


Attaching the peg to the tealer

Take a peg of wood around 7 inches long and drill a large enough hole to allow you to put para-cord or bailer twine through. The hole should be central to the middle of the peg and about ¾ - 1 inch down from the top.

Fold the cord in two and pass the loose ends through the hole in the peg.

Tie a knot in the two loose ends of the cord behind the peg.


Tie another knot in the cord at the loop end, approximately one third of the way along its length from the peg. This allows us to pull up the peg via the cord using a tent peg puller or similar.

Pass the loop of cord through the blade of the figure four tealer (see below for plain tealer) and then pass the peg through the looped end of cord and pull taught.

Using a standard tealer.

Pass the loop through the round eye in the shaft of the tealer.


Pass the peg through the loop of cord ensuring that the when the cord is pulled taught you have captured the spine of the tealer in the formed knot – NOT the round eye of the tealer.

The cord should now be facing the back of the tealer (opposite to the way the snare is facing).


When setting the snare in position, push the tealer into the ground first and then hammer the peg in ensuring that the cord is kept under slight tension.

Do not use an excessive length of cord on your snares; a finished cord of around 8 inches is sufficient.


Locating the run

The ideal place to set a snare on a run is where the run is straightest, and where we can identify small ‘beats’. If you imagine the beats of a rabbit run to be like stepping stones – a place where the rabbit’s feet touch the ground as it moves along, then they will be easier to spot.

The small beats are where we want to set our snares, so ignore long hollows or depressions, or where there are a lot of rabbit droppings in one place, these are where the rabbits often sit or rest. Ignore places where two runs join or where one run turns into two.

Here we see another obvious rabbit run, but notice the two places where a lot of rabbit droppings have accumulated in the bottom half of the picture, this would not be an ideal snaring location, as this is where the rabbits are resting.

The small mounds further up in the picture are where the rabbits are hopping over the grass, snaring either side of these grassy mounds is a good place.


Setting the snare

Here we can see an ideal rabbit run, readymade for snaring.

Looking along the run we need to identify the straightest part, where the small beats are.

We set the snare across the middle of the small beat; the pear shape of the noose ensures we cover the entire runs width. This snare is set at 6 ½ inches high because of the short grass we are snaring on.

The view from above.

Notice the snare is set across the middle of the beat length ways.

The white dots in this picture show the other beats on this part of the run, (you can see the discolouration of the grass) we could have easily chosen to place our snare here; the white line shows the placement of the snare across the beat in the foreground.


Setting a fence wire

A fence snare. You can see where the wire has been cut and folded back to allow a larger access area for the rabbits to pass through, in this instance the snare is tied directly to the fence wire with no tealer.

The base of the snare loop is set where the missing wire should be, this allows the rabbits feet to pass under the snare whilst the head enters. The top of the snare is set at or just above the height of the upper strand of fence wire, this helps to break up the outline of the snare.

In all cases whether using pegs and tealers or snaring on fences, if you capture a rabbit around the middle, with a front leg through (across the chest) or around the hips, the snare is set too low and the loop needs to be raised.

On medium length grass the snare should be set higher, around 7 - 8 inches and on long grass as much as 10 inches, this may seem very high, but it is the optimum killing height in these conditions.

With experience you will also learn the effect weather has not only on the catch rate but also how it can affect the height at which the snare should be set.

Happy hunting.

rabbit snaring

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