# Rabbit Fertilizer



## funnybunnymummy (Mar 4, 2010)

For those of you who use rabbit poop for fertilizer, do you just take the contents of your rabbit's litter box and dump it into your garden? Or do you separate out the poops first? Or do you compost it first?

Thanks!

Rue


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## tamsin (Mar 5, 2010)

It depends what I'm doing. If I need fertilizer at that specific moment I raid the nearest litter tray for some poops and use those. When I'm just doing a general litter tray clean I tip the contents (poop, paper based cat litter and hay) in a compost bin to rot down. That way there isn't hay blowing around the garden.


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## Cabrissi (Mar 5, 2010)

I generally toss everything in the compost but with 5 acres and a lot of manure producing animals I have several bays of compost going at any given time! LOL


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## BlueGiants (Mar 5, 2010)

Rabbit manure is considered a "sweet manure", it won't burn plants or their roots and it doesn't need time to compost to break down. It can be dumped right into the garden. If you use a recycled newspaper litter, it all breaks down very quickly. Roses thrive with rabbit manure... and tomato plants get huge! (It can be turned into the soil if you want to "hide" it.) It ishigh in nitrogen and phospherous.

Our rabbit manure gets put in 55 gallon drums (with lids!). I have 3 local "organic" farmers that order it ahead of time, usually asking for 8-10 barrels at a time. (The New York State record holder for thelargest green gourd pumpkin- 975 lbs.- is one of them!) I also have a bunch of people that come every spring and fallto take home a few feed bags full for smaller gardens.


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## funnybunnymummy (Mar 5, 2010)

Thanks, guys!

I use pelleted pine. Would that be okay to put straight into the garden? Or am I better off composting it first?

Thanks again!

Rue


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## BlueGiants (Mar 5, 2010)

The pelleted pine is kiln dried and will break down very quickly in the garden. And it will certainly help with soil aeration.


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## funnybunnymummy (Mar 5, 2010)

Fabulous! Thanks!

Rue


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## aurora369 (Mar 5, 2010)

I have people come to my house and pick up my rabbit waste. They will put it around plants and trees in the fall and winter as a mulch, and compost it in the summer or dig it in to the gardens. My waste contains hay, poop, wood pellet litter, and the remnants from shredded phone books.

When I made a garden last year, I put cardboard over the grass (to kill it), then some leaves and lots of rabbit waste. Then covered the whole thing with a good layer of high quality dirt. The garden was very fertile and would grow mushrooms in the shady parts. 

I'm going to try and make a small garden at my new place as well, and will probably use a similar technique. 

Any stray poops not in the litter box, I put in a bucket for myself. I mix it into the soil I put potted plants in. Works wonderfully.

-Dawn


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## juliew19673 (Mar 7, 2010)

this coming summer I'm going to try bunny composting and see if my tomatoes do better than last year.


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## Wabbitdad12 (Mar 7, 2010)

I dump it right on my flower beds, litter and all. Plants love it, my lillys have gone nuts.


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## tonyshuman (Mar 9, 2010)

I made a poo tea last year. I put the poops in water for a few days, it makes a slushy, mix with dark colored liquid that I poured on my garden. It did really well--so well I had to learn how to do home canning (on a 10' x 15' community garden plot)!

I personally wouldn't put pee-soaked pine pellet remnants directly on plants. I have read that the ammonia content of rabbit urine is too high to do that, but I could be wrong.

I composted my bedding remains for a few weeks before putting them on the plants, with kitchen vegetable scraps and lots of red worms in a worm bin composter. This year I think I might use a big garbage pail with drainage holes drilled into it as a temporary holding place for the pee-soaked bedding to let the ammonia evaporate for a week or so before putting it on the garden.


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## BlueGiants (Mar 9, 2010)

I have not had any problems with the ammonia or shavings. It doesn't even smell after a few hours out in the sun.


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## tonyshuman (Mar 9, 2010)

Oh, OK. Thanks Cathy!


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## BlueGiants (Mar 9, 2010)

You might be right if it's really fresh, guess you should be careful if it smells very strong. But everything seems to thrive under the shavings and poop. (And it certainly smells a LOT less than my neighbor that had "mellowed" cow dung delivered for his garden! Hooo Whee! That smelled all summer long... every time it rained!)


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## myheart (Mar 9, 2010)

So glad I clicked on this thread!!! Extremely informative!! I am so tired of throwing bags of waste away in the trash. Maybe I'll ask my dad if he wants to experiment with some a fertilizer. 

Will guinea pig poops be the same "sweet fertilizer"as bunny poops? I have two cages of pigs now, and I don't know if I want to separate cage/pan poo's if I don't have to. My pigs eat basically the same stuff as my bunners do, except for the piggie pellets and the oranges.

myheart


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## fuufuu34 (Jul 8, 2012)

Hi my name is Attila Mocsotar!

I have a small roofgarden in Manhattan and I would like to buy some rabbit manure. What amounts do you sell and how much do they cost? And where are you located in Long Island?

Thank you,

Attila Mocsotar


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## silversky2668 (Jul 8, 2012)

This is an awesome topic! My dad has a garden and I'm going to see if he wants to use Honey's free "fertilizer" for his vegetable plants, lol. Maybe we'll get more tomatoes than last year!


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## ZRabbits (Jul 9, 2012)

Bunny poo is excellent for gardens. Just make sure if your bunny is on any medication, that the poo doesn't get into your garden. I had to separate Neville's from the others because he was on Baytril. 

I always compost it first. I never use it direct. It's tough to get the wheat out in the Spring. But you can use it directly. Just not bunny urine. Too acidic. That's the reason we compost it. 

K


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## MyBabyHasPaws (Jul 9, 2012)

Great post! Thanks for bumping it!

I was just talking to my mom about how good rabbit poop is for her plants. My mom has 3 huge avocado trees, a peach tree, a orange tree, a really pretty flower bed and a mango tree. 

So I can just take the litter boxes dump them into some kind of container with a lid, shavings and all... and my mom can use that?! Put it right on the soil around the tree barks? 

I use Aspen shavings.. this would be AWESOME!


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## BlueGiants (Jul 9, 2012)

I got over 45 lbs of peached off my little "dwarf" peach tree last August. That made a lot of peach pies and Peach jam! All fertilized with Rabbit poop... and my Fig tree loves it too.

I don't compost it at all... it goes directly around the trees, bushes and plants. I do rototill it into the soil of my vegetable garden before I plant. And then I add more on top as the tomatoes, eggplants, squash and peppers mature. The shavings helped keep the soil moist last year, inspite of the fact that we has a VERY dry summer. 

And I agree, I wouldn't use the manure if it comes from an animal that is being treated with antibiotics.


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## wendymac (Jul 9, 2012)

I just dump all my trays into the manure pile, then it gets spread on the fields. I have a black thumb, so no flowers or pretty shrubs to use it on.

I am going to start making a separate pile for the bunny manure. Then, after it's composted for a while (to kill off any hay seeds/weeds that may be mixed with it) we're going to bag it and sell it. At least that's the plan. lol


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## kagerod (Jul 9, 2012)

Does anyone know if vermicomposting (spelling?) aka worm-composting will help break down the poop/pee/pellet litter/hay? I am using the stuff I get now for my plants outside and some inside, but come winter I would really like to start composting my remaining veggies the rabbits won't eat and as much of their waste as I can. I just don't know how the worms will deal with it.

ahh I'm so excited that there's plenty of others out there who don't think composting/using rabbit poo as fertilizer is gross!


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## BlueGiants (Jul 9, 2012)

Oh my! Worms LOVE rabbit poop. Many people that raise rabbits use worms to break down the waste material. And we all know how wonderful worm "casings" are in a garden! If you're going to raise "red wrigglers", the worm most people use, you will have to make sure you have enough manure to "feed" them and keep them warm. The issue with doing this during the winter is keeping the worms from freezing. (Depending on where you are located and how cold it gets by you.)

Here are a couple of websites with info on raising earthworms:
http://homeschool.priswell.com/worms.htm
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1972-05-01/Grow-It-Earthworms.aspx


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## MiniLopHop (Jul 9, 2012)

I just started to compost bunny poo with worms and they love it! Granted the rabbits look at me like "where are you going with my poo?" I bring back the litter box empty and clean. I'm about ready to harvest my first batch and it only took 2 weeks for them to compost a tray full of poo and scraps. I use the horse stall bedding, dumped it streight from the box. The rest that the worms aren't using I put on the garden.


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## MyBabyHasPaws (Jul 9, 2012)

*BlueGiants wrote: *


> I got over 45 lbs of peached off my little "dwarf" peach tree last August. That made a lot of peach pies and Peach jam! All fertilized with Rabbit poop... and my Fig tree loves it too.
> 
> I don't compost it at all... it goes directly around the trees, bushes and plants. I do rototill it into the soil of my vegetable garden before I plant. And then I add more on top as the tomatoes, eggplants, squash and peppers mature. The shavings helped keep the soil moist last year, inspite of the fact that we has a VERY dry summer.
> 
> And I agree, I wouldn't use the manure if it comes from an animal that is being treated with antibiotics.



45lbs! WHOA!

We got like8 maybe 10 peaches max.. tiny little things too, but sweet as could be!

Thank you! I'll surely forward this info on to my mom


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## 1357rabbitlover (Jul 11, 2012)

Can you use the straw and paper too or do you have to take it out?


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