One of our apple seedlings we planted last spring was killed by rabbits.  They totally girdled the tree bark off the Pristine tree.  One side of the pear tree is gone and so are the side branches.  All the side branches of the Honeycrisp are gone too.  When I found out what happened, I quickly brushed some latex paint on the exposed stems and the tip of branches that were eaten.  We should be able to save the pear tree and Honeycrisp.  The next day I added chicken wire to surround all 5 remaining trees. 

Before winter last year, I already put hardware cloth around the root of each seedling so the mice cannot access it.  True enough, there were no damage to the root part.  However, because of the accumulated snow, the rabbits were able to reach above the top of hardware cloth and helped themselves to the young tree.  Well, thank the Lord that we still have 5 trees left.  Good lesson learned.