Rabbit manure

Shadow · #1 05/23/10, 09:42 PM

We have beem given a lot of rabbit manure, We hauled a trailer load home today and did not make a dent in it. Figure about thirty more loads. Now what do we do with it. We started putting it on the raised beds today. Will work it in the Rose garden and Herb garden tommorow. Started building a new compost bin out of 12 inch concrete blocks this evening. We need comments from people that use rabbit manure. I am thinking about builkding a shed roof over the compost bin and a bin next to it so the rain will not leach out the nuturants before we need the manure. Any more uses and things I should not put it on. Can I just spread it around the roses and then mulch them. Will it stink to high heaven like chicken manure. First experience with rabbit and do not want a mess. David and Judy

Horse Fork Farm · #2 05/23/10, 09:54 PM

It can be pungent, espcially if it gets very wet then sours. Even so, I consider it to be black gold! 30 loads... all I can say is WOW..... I use mine everywhere.

HorseGirl31 · #3 05/23/10, 09:57 PM

Second the not getting it wet-yuck. Don't know what else to use it for but garden....works great for that!

katy · #4 05/23/10, 10:12 PM

Here's a link that may be of interest........ Extreme Composting

They sure know how to use manures.............. and they will be jealous -- lol........ 30 truckloads just WOW, i'm jealous.... now where are you, i'll be right over.

Patt · #5 05/23/10, 10:21 PM

Lucky you! We use it on everything to for mulch and fertiliser.

ChristieAcres · #6 05/24/10, 12:11 AM

No, it doesn't smell like chicken manure, but if you are mulching over it, the smell shouldn't be much of an issue.

Like Patt, we use it everywhere we need to.

Shadow · #7 05/24/10, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by katy

Here's a link that may be of interest........ Extreme Composting

They sure know how to use manures.............. and they will be jealous -- lol........ 30 truckloads just WOW, i'm jealous.... now where are you, i'll be right over.

We are in North Alabama, just look for the huge pile of rabbit manure. David and Judy

manygoatsnmore · #8 05/24/10, 02:15 AM

Unlike chicken manure, rabbit manure is considered a cold manure, safe to put right on your plants without needing to compost it first. I used it on everything when I had rabbits...if I got rabbits again, it would be as much for the manure as the meat!

Wisconsin Ann · #9 05/24/10, 06:18 AM

If you have a plot of ground that you're considering planting in but it's been over worked/grown..as in, it's hard or the opposite of all sand...till in loads of bunny berries. That stuff can rejuvenate an old bed FAST.

Bag it up and sell it. Get old feed bags from friends and just shovel them full. If you have avid gardeners around, you've hit a black gold mine.

Forerunner · #10 05/24/10, 06:59 AM

OP..... I like the idea of building a permanent structure for housing the compost pile. 30 loads of rabbit sign will fill up quite a shed....
I've contemplated doing similar for keeping some of my carbon dry.....
I envisioned poured walls, 6 feet out of the ground, with heavy beam construction above that after the fashion of a typical pole barn.
The concrete would then take the lion's share of the composting abuse, and your "studs" would only need by 4 to 6 feet tall.

My suggestion is to use the stuff where you can, and mix the rest half and half with sawdust and let it heat. Any idiot would drool over the finished product of that combination.

Paquebot · #11 05/24/10, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manygoatsnmore

Unlike chicken manure, rabbit manure is considered a cold manure, safe to put right on your plants without needing to compost it first. I used it on everything when I had rabbits...if I got rabbits again, it would be as much for the manure as the meat!

The manure itself is not a problem but Heartstrings also knows that it can be mighty pungent and ugly when the urine is also involved. There's more nitrogen there than almost any other animal due to their green diet. Used fresh and wet, with all of the free ammonia still intact, makes it hotter than similar chicken manure. Your nose will tell you.

Martin

ChristieAcres · #12 05/24/10, 10:14 PM

I knew a gal who raised beautiful Angora Rabbits. Her rabbit barn had a huge grapevine growing behind it. It was an incredibly happy healthy grapevine. I asked her about it. She said that when she sprayed to clean her barn, all the run-off ran towards the base of that vine. Now, here, I'll confirm that a lot of the manure produced was bagged, but a fair share, mostly dry aged stuff, was washed out the back of that barn.

Paquebot may know why on this one. "Larry" was putting fresh chicken manure in a bucket with water and then using that "tea" to water his plants and burned them good (he let the bucket sit for a few days before he used the "tea). I did the same thing with rabbit manure, and my plants weren't burned. Was the urine more diluted due to the water, letting it sit for a few days, or what? I have also been able to spread the rabbit manure throughout our garden when it was fresh. It didn't burn it. Did it have something to do with the fact I used the manure that wasn't urine soaked? I'll be real careful after reading Martin's post, since I think I have been lucky so far.

Paquebot · #13 05/24/10, 10:33 PM

Difference between fresh chicken manure and just plain rabbit manure is the amount of free ammonia. Can't be avoided with chickens since it's all in the same place. If rabbits have enough room, they defecate in one place and urinate in another. One can have nice sweet dry pellets in one spot and something yellow and revolting in another. We raised NZ Whites for a local IGA store from 1965 to 1976 and size of most pens meant that both manure and urine eventually ended up going on a pile as one. Can't give a definite example of plant damage to explain why but just about everything was trench composted back then. We maxed at just over 80 animals so it wasn't a few gallons per month. It was trenches 2' deep and 3' wide twice a year; spring and fall. Surface crops such as beans the first year and bottomless root crops the second.

But I digress. The chicken manure in Lori's question was still loaded with free ammonia. The rabbit manure was either just pure manure or aged enough to have already released it.

Think of this without considering hot or cold claims. We know that certain manures are better than others. Better generally means hotter due to higher nutritional value. If rabbit manure is so much better than most others, makes one scratch his head as to how it can be colder!

Martin

ChristieAcres · #14 05/24/10, 11:28 PM

In my example, I used fresh rabbit manure right off the top of of the pile. Martin was right- pure manure. My hutches are big enough for a pile to develop and yes, the rabbits urinate on the other side of their cages. The lack of urine in the rabbit manure was the difference in the manure tea I made compared to Larry's chicken manure tea. But that doesn't explain why it didn't burn the plants as the manure I used was very fresh (despite lacking urine).

I am still a bit puzzled why it is recommended in most sources to use the "fresh" rabbit pellets right in the garden. I've been doing that for years without burning my plants and with great results. I am still puzzled, as well, by it being so high in Nitrogen. Also, in most sources, it isn't recommended you compost rabbit manure like the others.

Right now, I have compost piles under my bunny hutches. A few months ago, I added my chicken house sweepings to them, so I could hot compost the chicken manure. We have been dumping all our compost buckets onto the piles, and they are layered with straw, too. Every time I change the water, the extra is dumped on top (covered hutches so the compost under them stays dry except for this).

"Better generally means hotter..." I am scratching my head, too!

Paquebot · #15 05/24/10, 11:42 PM

Stop scratching heads but use what's in them. Farm manures generally also contain the urine of the animals and automatically do with chickens. That causes fresh manure to be up to 10% salt. Rabbit manure and their urine are able to be collected separately. Their urine is no less salty than the chicken manure but the difference is that it's not in the manure. Ding, ding, ding!

Martin

ChristieAcres · #16 05/24/10, 11:50 PM

Well dear Martin- I am not that slow, completely understood "including urine" and "NOT including urine." What I still wonder at is WHY you can use rabbit manure fresh. I've been doing that for years, with no ill effects (despite it being so high in Nitrogen, which you corrected me on as I was uninformed how high it really was). While most sources say, use rabbit manure fresh, others now say to compost it. That is why I was scratching my head...use fresh OR compost. Also, why doesn't it burn plants while fresh even though it is high in Nitrogen? This Q isn't referring to urine or lack thereof. Simply the state of the fresh manure used.

Manygoatsnmore? I had read the same thing, thought it was lower in Nitrogen than it is, but never burned my plants. You saw our garden in person (use it fresh regularly). What did you think?

Paquebot · #17 05/25/10, 12:17 AM

Always we read that fresh rabbit manure may be used around plants with no burning. And it can be used on the garden with no burning. I've been doing that with fresh horse manure for a number of years. What about underthose plants and in those gardens. Makes a difference how it's applied. Fresh chicken manure next to tender plants will cause them to burn due in part to the free ammonia escaping but mostly from the salts leaching into the soil. Neither will happen with plain fresh rabbit manure which would lack the free ammonia and salts from the urine.

The end use determines how it should be used and that's where the composting or lack confusion comes from. If going to be simply spread as a slow-release fertilizer around the plants, fresh pure rabbit manure would not need to be composted. If going to be incorporated fresh into the soil, and also including the urine, then it should be composted.

For those with rabbits, let your buck have his place to urinate and don't collect it for awhile this summer. As the water evaporates, you may see lots of crystals develop. They are almost pure salt. That's especially true if you are supplying each hutch with a salt lick.

Martin

ChristieAcres · #18 05/25/10, 12:58 AM

Since I have mainly used fresh rabbit manure as a slow release fertilizer, that explains why I never had issues with burning my plants. However, at times, I have taken fresh rabbit manure mixed it w/rotting compost, placed at the bottom of a deep hole, then covered with good soil, and planted a tomato or other heavy feeder over it. Great results with that! I never just mixed fresh manure of any kind with soil and planted in it.

Beaners · #19 05/25/10, 07:26 AM

Hmmm. I have trays underneath my hanging rabbit cages. Occasionally they will pee on the wall or something similar but most of the pee ends up on the trays. I scrape everything, pee included, into a 5 gallon bucket. Once the bucket is a little less than 1/4 full from the rabbit trays, I fill it up with water to a couple inches from the top. That went on everything this year and last year with no problems that I saw.

Is it because I dilute it then? It does still have a smell to it but I don't think it ever reminds me of ammonia the way that poultry manure does. There is definitely the majority of the urine included in my method. The information here indicates that I should have burning, but I haven't yet.

Kayleigh

Paquebot · #20 05/25/10, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beaners

That went on everything this year and last year with no problems that I saw.

ON everything or BESIDE everything? I can't imagine anyone dumping that mixture on plants.

Martin