Things to Do with Rabbit Poo (and/or Straw) in a Garden !!!?

Question

My husband and I live next some folks with about 30 rabbits. We have a large and growing compost pile of rabbit poo for our garden. How do I start using it? Other neighbors have given us 8 bales of somewhat waterlogged straw. If I mix the two, hoping in the future that it will break down into good organic soil, at what ratio should I mix them? Also - Thinking of maybe making a square box using the straw and putting the poo inside it hoping it will break down faster since it will help retain the heat as it composts. What do you think is the best way to do this? Thirdly and lastly - I have built 3 raised beds using pannels I made out of scrap lumber that are 6 ft. long and wide, and 19 inches tall. Since they are so tall I'm wondering if I can use some of the poo as fill - I know it would be bad if it was REAL close to where the veggi seeds get planted - but also we don't know where else to get fill and we will need several yards of soil/top soil to fill them up.

Answer 1

Rabbit poo is compost gold.

However, I only have ONE rabbit, and it's just fine mixed with my kitchen scraps, and other compost fodder.

If I had a huge pile of bunnypoo, and a huge pile of rotting straw - I would DEFINITELY mix them together. Then are made for each other. The straw is the "brown" you need, and the poo is "green". Mix them, and use them in about a year if you're lazy (like me). If you actually turn your pile, it should be ready to use in 6 months.

The raised bed idea is good. You might also consider making a "hot bed" (the "warm" version of a cold frame) in one of those. Build it in the fall, fill them with 10 inches of straight bunnypoo, then 5 inches of soil. Sow your winter crops in there and cover, and the "heat" from the decomposing bunypoo should keep the soil above from freezing. Read up on hot beds/cold frames if you're not familiar with them, and you can see what will grow well in them.

Answer 2

The rabbit poop can be put directly in the garden. Unlike other manures it is not very acidic. I works great around tomato plants and will make them really grow well. I till rabbit manure into my garden every summer and my tomato plants grow about twice as big as any of my neighbors tomato plants do. In fact, the guy who holds the world record for the largest tomato uses rabbit manure to get his tomato plants to grow big. I was reading an article on it one time. He used the Delicious tomato variety, gives the tomatoes rabbit manure, and cuts the flowers back to grow one tomato on the plant.

My great aunt also uses the rabbit manure on her flowers and swears it makes her flowers grow twice as big. It also would help out a compost pile a lot by adding nitrogen and bacteria to the pile helping the pile to break down.

One of the best ways to use rabbit poop though is to put it in a raised bed, mix a little dirt with it then throw some redworms in it. Keep it moist and throw like old leaves on the top of it. Redworms love reproducing in rabbit manure. And once they are through eating the manure up, they turn it into about the best compost you could possibly hope for. Many rabbit breeders will raise the redworms in the rabbit poop and use the money they make off selling the redworms to pay for the rabbit feed. I've heard the compost from what the redworms leave makes the best soil to raise african violets in.

The straw I wouldn't put directly in a bed. It will need to be composted first or you can till it into your garden at the end of the year. This allows the straw to break down by next spring. When straw breaks down it actually uses up nitrogen in the ground to break down. So if you put it in your garden right away it would make your garden worse than better because it would take nutrients away from your plants instead of giving more nutrients too them.

There are several great things about rabbit manure. First, it is very low in acidity. Second, it is very high in nitrogen. Third, you don't get the weed seeds in it like you do with cow or horse manure due to the fact that rabbits eat rabbit pellets and don't graze. Fourth, it works awesome for growing redworms.

Answer 3

You do want to let that rabbit poop compost and it usually has quite a bit of urine in it when it's fresh. For that reason, I'd be reluctant to recommend using it as fill in an active bed.
Why don't you let one of the beds lay fallow for a season while a mix of straw and manure composts in it? I've also heard of others using hay bales to form a compost pile - that should work too.
One last caution, I've had terrible problems using hay that had nutgrass seeds in it. You may want to be familiar where it came from.