Years ago I bought rabbits from a rescue for a small rehoming fee. At the time my boys wanted to start showing animals for 4H so this was a great animal to begin their showing careers. Fast forward 4 years and the boys decided not to show the rabbits after all and I still have them. At first I held on to them thinking they would change their minds, then I started using their poop and old hay in the my garden and I quickly justified keeping them!
Rabbit manure is a great option for an all-around garden fertilizer with many benefits! They are small so you don’t need a lot of space and they are inexpensive to take care of.
Benefits of Rabbit Manure for Fertilizer
Nutrients, nutrients, nutrients. Rabbit manure is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. It is also loaded with other macro and micro-nutrients like calcium, sulfur, magnesium, boron, zinc, copper, manganese, and cobalt. Since rabbit dung is dry and breaks down quickly, there is usually little threat of burning the roots of plants.
Cost and Time. Rabbits are very easy to keep whether you live in town or in the country. I give mine fresh hay daily which I scoop up with their poo and add to the garden. I also buy a little bit of rabbit feed, a 25lb bag costs around $15 at Tractor Supply and lasts around a month. If you want an even healthier option, like an organic feed you will pay a bit more but since this is only a small portion of my rabbits diet I don’t worry about it. And they eat all my vegetable scraps! Rabbits will eat a lot of stuff that chickens won’t.
Size. Rabbits are small animals that don’t take up a lot of space and although they do produce a lot of manure, it is very small pellets and easy to collect and store.
How to Use Rabbit Manure for Garden Fertilizer
One of the things I love most about rabbit manure is it can go straight into your garden. Unlike many other manures that need time to compost, rabbit manure does not.
The best way to add it to your garden is as a side dressing. Simply make a furrow next to fresh transplants or small sprouts and layer in the rabbit manure. Then simply cover it back up with an inch or so of soil.
Another way I use it is in my walkways, because my rabbit poo has old hay mixed in I use it as both a fertilizer and ground cover. So if I add it in my walk way then it’s a side dressing as well as mulch. The next time I plant, I alternate walkways and crop rows so that the manure and hay is broken down in the soil by the time I plant again.
You can also add it into your hole with each transplant or into the row when you sow your seeds.
Another way to utilize rabbit manure for garden fertilizer is to compost it. You can add it to an existing compost pile and it will add lots of nutrients and break down quickly. It will help break down hay, straw and grass clippings.
Compost tea is another way to use rabbit manure. All you need is 2 cups of manure into a 5 gallon bucket. Fill with water, seal with a lid and place it in a warm sunny spot. Be sure to stir it at least once a day. After about 3-5 days it will have dissolved a bit and you can pour it right onto your plants.
How to Catch Rabbit Manure
You don’t need a fancy, expensive set up for rabbits. I keep mine in the barn in mesh cages. As they munch on the hay and poo, it falls down onto the floor. Our barn floor is sand. I have put a tarp on the floor in the past but found it harder to collect since hay is mixed in as well. Every few weeks I scoop up the hay and manure mixture and put it in my wheelbarrow. Then I take it over to the garden! That’s it.
If you’re just looking to collect the pellets you are better off hanging the tarp under your cages, keep one end higher than the other, and under the low end have a bucket or some sort of tray to collect the pellets. You could also build your poop-ramp out of wood with small sides that would allow them to roll down into your bucket.
How Many Rabbits do you Need?
Not as many as you think. Rabbits create a lot of poop. For instance, a large breed rabbit can poop a half a pound of manure every day! That adds up to about 15 pounds a month. Not bad for very little cost and care.
I would start with 2 rabbits and add more in if you think you need more. And the only reason I say two instead of one is because I think most animals are happier when they’re not alone. Just make sure they’re the same sex unless you plan on breeding them.
Overall rabbits make a great addition as a pet or a farm animal and their manure is an ideal fertilizer for your garden, fruit trees or ornamental plants.
Looking for more garden inspiration? Check out my other gardening articles here!
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