Gardening with Rabbit Manure

[TEG Project Manager]

It is hard not to love rabbits - with their little wiggly noses, fluffy tails, and silky ears! Backyard farmers may be hesitant to add rabbits to their small farms if they don't raise meat animals. There's more to rabbits than just meat!

They're not just adorable and gentle companions, but they're amazing gardeners, too.



It's hard to beat rabbit manure when it comes to building soil health and improving soil structure. Adding rabbits to a backyard farm is also incredibly easy. Their small size, low space requirements, and quiet nature make them the perfect animal for urban or suburban farms.

The benefits of rabbit manure for backyard farmers include:

• Rabbit poop is odorless and dry.
• There's no need to compost rabbit manure since it's "cold" manure. The majority of animal manure is "hot", which can burn delicate seedlings and plants in the absence of composting.
• Exceptional NPK values! To grow healthy, strong plants, you need three major elements: nitrogen (nitrogen), phosphorus (phosphorus), and potassium (potassium). Plants need nitrogen to grow healthy leaves and strong roots, phosphorus to produce big blooms, fruit, and strong roots, and potassium to produce fruit that is high quality and disease-resistant. NPK values of rabbit manure are 2.4, 1.4, and 0.6 respectively. Rabbit manure has a higher N, P, and K value than chicken manure, which has N, P, and K levels of 1.1, 0.8, and 0.5, respectively!
• Pellets that release over time. These convenient little pellets of rabbit poop are packed with power. In your garden, these pellets dissolve in the soil, releasing nutrients into your plants all the time! Furthermore, they contribute to the soil's stability and structure as they break down.
• There is nothing better for red wiggler worms than rabbit manure! Vermicomposters around the world swear by red wigglers as the best worm for composting.
• There is no season when rabbit manure cannot be used. As a nitrogen boost for seedlings in the spring, a side dressing for plants in the summer, and to replenish nutrient-depleted soil in the fall, it can do wonders for your garden.
• There's plenty of it and it's free! Poop is a natural part of rabbit life. Each bunny produces 100 pellets or more a day, which is completely normal and healthy! All that poop keeps your garden green, even if you only have two bunnies.

Using rabbit manure in your garden​

Straight from the rabbit - You can simply sprinkle the pellets right into the soil. The urine and urine-soaked litter of rabbits must be composted, but the dry pellets can be used immediately. Add a few to holes when transplanting plants, side dress plants that are already growing, or use them to top dress an empty bed.

Composting - Is it unsettling to think about adding fresh manure to your garden? Don't worry, rabbit manure is great for composting. Combine dry shavings/leaves with manure in equal amounts. You can break down the pile by mixing it occasionally with a pitchfork and keeping it moist.

Rabbit manure tea - Rabbit manure tea is an amazing organic liquid fertilizer that is loved by young plants and seedlings alike! A bucket of water and a bag of manure are all you need. The water gets dense with nutrition as the manure dissolves!

Purchased rabbit manure - You can still use rabbit manure if you don't keep rabbits. Prepackaged versions are available in garden centers and from rabbit farmers. A friend with a rabbit who doesn't garden or an animal shelter might be able to provide some for free or cheap.

Do you use rabbit manure in your garden? Share your experiences below.

 

[Alasgun]

Im very happy to see this writeup, and cant add much else in terms of attributes! I jokingly tell folks, “i raise rabbits for the poop” which is mostly true however we do eat some as well.
Im roughly 3 years into this project and the only thing i’ve changed along the way is my application. I have two distinct “forms” of poop; winter poop and summer poop. during the summer my rabbits have access to the outside pens but in the winter the doors are shut to hold heat and keep water from freezing. In the summer they prefer to use “they’re toilet’s” outside which is free of any hay. Early on i’d apply the cleaner stuff directly to the garden but it got to be a nuisance keeping up with ”who got what” so i just started running it all thru the compost bins; this sped up the compost and in the fall it’s divided equally among the beds.
Pre Rabbit, i spent roughly $1100 a year for organic soil amendments
and now i spend that same amount for a year’s worth of Organic rabbit feed And un sprayed Timothy hay. I have chores now and have to be here for the brief amount of care they require each day but They’re enjoyable and we have all the rabbit we’d like to eat during the year.
Cant say enough good about rabbits, Thanks again for getting this going.
Mike

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

I'm excited to see this and since my kids have 3 pet rabbits, I get plenty of manure. Worms absolutely love rabbit and chicken manure.

 

[Alasgun]

A little at a time; i’ll share some other sources of information on differing uses for the “by products”.

Uses For Rabbit Urine - Fertilizer and Pest Repellent

Rounding out our discussions of the use of rabbit manure and rabbit manure tea as outstanding fertilizers and soil amendments (links below), we wanted to also cover some interesting information about…

hobbyfarmheaven.com

 

[Alasgun]

One more then i’ll give you some time to digest all this!
In my own operation it’s very easy for me to separate out the urine, which i do for a period of time beginning in March. In a 5 gallon bucket i’ll add 2 gallons of urine, a cup of liquid kelp, a cup of blackstrap molasses, a cup of Em-1 essential microbe's and a cup of ground oat flour. After setting for a month i bottle it in gallon or quart jugs and use it during the growing season, diluted with water And applied periodically. I’ll make 2-3 batches in the spring and have a loyal following of folks who i’ll gift a gallon or so to each spring. A gallon goes a looooong ways. This article goes into they’re version of a fermented product and this was the starting point for my own experiment and ruminations.
Hope you find something interesting.

Mugisha is harvesting money from rabbit urine

A family based in Kyanja, a Kampala suburb, has embarked on rearing rabbits on a large scale to harvest their urine and make organic manure

www.monitor.co.ug

 

[ducks4you]

Might try pine pelleted bedding. Rabbits wouldn't use anywhere NEAR what a horse needs, but they are 100% pine so not toxic and do a great job at deodorizing urine.

 

[Alasgun]

In my Rabbitry; i run a percent cycle timer and fan so a floor mounted exhaust fan comes on 5 times an hour for 3 min at a time; 24/7-365.
They have a somewhat sensitive respiratory system and i don’t take any chances, especially in the winter when things are shut in. With this arrangement there are no smells.

 

[Jane23]

Wild rabbits literally surround me. I keep wanting to scoop up everything where they visit frequently and add it to my garden. Of course, that is time-consuming. I might try something in the future as the wild ones are my friends, and I talk to them regularly when they come by for noms.

 

[Branching Out]

Last year I tried popping a few rabbit pellets in the container when I was bumping up miniscule Lisianthus seedlings, and they seemed to respond really well to it. This year I am adding rabbit poop to most of my transplants when I bump them up-- except for vegetables like lettuce and mustard greens, that will be harvested immediately. I have very few houseplants, but when I refreshed their potting soil I added rabbit manure to those containers too. It seems like such an easy way to provide slow-release food for the microbes in the soil.

I also like to add quite a bit when I prep my garlic planting site in the fall. My thinking is that it will start to break down over the winter, feed the garlic come spring, and then keep on giving for the growing seasons that follow. Given that I rotate my garlic planting site, over time rabbit manure will eventually be added to each section of the garden. One rabbit produces a LOT of manure though, so I have buckets full that are layered in the compost bin on a regular basis too. Bunny poop is the gift that keeps on giving!

 

[Jane23]

Last year I tried popping a few rabbit pellets in the container when I was bumping up miniscule Lisianthus seedlings, and they seemed to respond really well to it. This year I am adding rabbit poop to most of my transplants when I bump them up-- except for vegetables like lettuce and mustard greens, that will be harvested immediately. I have very few houseplants, but when I refreshed their potting soil I added rabbit manure to those containers too. It seems like such an easy way to provide slow-release food for the microbes in the soil.

I also like to add quite a bit when I prep my garlic planting site in the fall. My thinking is that it will start to break down over the winter, feed the garlic come spring, and then keep on giving for the growing seasons that follow. Given that I rotate my garlic planting site, over time rabbit manure will eventually be added to each section of the garden. One rabbit produces a LOT of manure though, so I have buckets full that are layered in the compost bin on a regular basis too. Bunny poop is the gift that keeps on giving!

My home is surrounded by rabbits. I wonder how silly it would be to go around collecting it. It also has a bunch of wild horses that keep visiting. They did so in the fall, so my garden is now well supplied, but they just visited again, so I guess that manure will go in my compost bin.

How much is too much? My soil is terrible either way.