Anyone who comes to the rabbitry and my homestead will see our many gardens. I have been asked many times what is your secret. You must use miracle grow they say. I just chuckle, thinking they just opened up a can of worms, and worms love rabbit manure! And now they are going to hear it! Now they get to discuss all about rabbits any there purpose on the homestead, the conversation will start about the many benefits and uses of rabbit manure, but more will come. I am determined to spread the word of raising rabbits, and all the many benefits that go with it. That’s how I came up with our slogan – Raising Meat Rabbits To Save The World!
Rabbit manure is one of the best manures for your organic gardens! It will increase poor soil by improving soil structure and also improving the life cycle of the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. Rabbits are very good at producing an excellent source of manure. It is rich in many nutrients and very simple to use. One doe and her offspring will produce over one ton of manure in a year.
Rabbit manure is packed with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and many minerals, lots of micro-nutrients, plus many other beneficial trace elements such as calcium, magnesium, boron, zinc, manganese, sulfur, copper, and cobalt just to name a few.
N – P – K VALUES – Rabbit= N- 2.4 P- 1.4 K- .60, Chicken=N- 1.1 P-.80 K- .50, Sheep=N- .70 P- .30K-.60, Horse=N- .70 P-.30 K- .60, Steer=N- .70 P-.30 K-.40, Dairy Cow=N- .25 P-.15 K-.25 As you can see by the nutrient values of farm manures and how they measure up and rabbit manure really shines! Rabbit manure also doesn’t smell as strong as other manures making it easy to use.
Nitrogen(N)- Rabbit manure is higher in nitrogen than sheep, goat, pig, chicken, cow or horse manure. Plants need nitrogen to produce a lush green growth. Nitrogen helps plants grow greener and stronger helping the plant reach its full potential. This is great for all those quick growing salad greens! Great for the early growth of tomatoes, corn, and many other vegetables.
Phosphorus(P)- Rabbit manure is also higher in phosphorus than the other manures. It helps with the transformation of solar energy to chemical energy. Which in turn helps with proper plant growth. Phosphorus also helps plants to withstand stress. Phosphorus in the soil encourages more and bigger blossoms helping with flowering and fruiting also great for root growth.
Potassium(K)- Potassium helps with fruit quality and reduction of disease plants will not grow without it. Plants use potassium as an enzyme to produce proteins and sugars.They also uses potassium to control water content.
More than just the awsome NPK values of rabbit manure it is loaded with a host of micro-nutrients as well as organic matter that improves soil structure, drainage, and moisture retention. Vegetable gardens, pastures, and flower gardens all will benefit from using rabbit manure. It helps retain soil moisture and soil structure.
Rabbit manure is one of the few fertilizers that will not burn your plants when added directly to the garden and can be safely used on food plants.
Grab a handful from under the hutch and use it as is, or work it into the topsoil. Rabbit manure at first glance many seem to be less powerful than commercial fertilizers but in reality they are better and healthier for your garden providing food and nourishment for your plants as well as earthworms and other beneficial animals and microorganisms in your soil. So why use chemical additives that are know to kill all soil life. Some manures have to be aged so they do not harm your garden, Bunny Berries can be used fresh as is. This is also a very organic way to add nutrients back to you soil.
HOW TO USE-
Use It As Is – “Bunny Berries” – Because rabbit manure is dry,odorless,and in pellet form makes it suitable for direct use in the garden. It can be applied any time of the year and helps give your plants a boost during the growing season or as a storehouse of nutrients when applied in the late fall and winter. Because it is considered a cold manure there is no threat of burning plants and roots. So use it as a top- dressing, mulch around plants, bury in the ground under transplants or just working it into the soil right from the rabbit. This is the easiest way to use your Super fertilizer! Grab a handful and add it to your garden today. The Berries are a time release capsule of goodness for your soil. This is the way i use it the most in my gardens, so the next time you find yourself knee deep in rabbit poop just add it to your garden!
Compost It – Composting rabbit manure is an easy process and the end result will be ideal fertilizer for gardens plants and crops. I only compost the rabbit manure/urine/shaving mix i get from my drop pans in the stack a hutch setup. Simply add to your compost bin or pile and add in equal amounts of dry straw or shaving to the manure (Unless like me you only compost the shaving/poop mix-the shaving have all ready been added plus the urine starts the heat up fast!) you can also mix in your usally composted materials grass clippings, leaves ,kitchen scraps. Mix with a pitchfork and keep the pile moist not saturated you may have to cover it with a tarp. It will take any were from a few months to a year depending on how often you turn it. I have heard some of my composting friends complaining that their compost pile will not heat up. The poop/urine/shaving mix is the best compost activator i have seen. Add it, turn it, and it will heat up! If you can get your hands on even a small bucket of this mix every now and then you and your compost pile will be in nitrogen heaven as far as composting rabbit manure goes rabbit manure is nitrogen on steroids it will get your pile hot and breaking down at accelerated rates .Those friends with the cold compost piles are usally here on cage cleaning day with buckets and shovels. Now if i could just figure out to have them do all the cleaning chores!
Manure Tea – “Bunny Brew” – Rabbit manure tea is the colored water that manure has been steeped in and is full of nutrients making a concentrated liquid organic garden fertilizer! The nutrients from the manure dissolve easily into the water were it can be added to sprayers or watering cans. To make the tea, put a heaping shovel full of rabbit manure in a burlap bag or porous cloth with the four corners tied together. Put the bag in a 5 gallon bucket and fill with water. Allow it to seep in the warm sunshine for a week. Remove the bag and suspend it above the bucket until it stops dripping. You can speed up the process by putting manure directly into the bucket with the water and let it sit for 3 days, stirring daily. Then put some burlap over the top of another empty bucket (making a strainer) and pour thru the cloth to strain out the solids. Suspend the solids in the makeshift strainer above the bucket until it stops dripping. In both processes the solids will not have released all their nutrients to the tea, and they will still be a beneficial soil amendment (put into the garden or compost pile). If you have many plants, you may want to use a big barrel by using the ratio of 1 part manure to 5 parts water. To use the Tea, dilute it until it is about the color of kitchen tea, which should be about one cup of the concentrated manure tea to a gallon of water. Use it to dip every new plant before you transplant them. Dip only the root ball, until bubbles stop coming to the surface (also do this to trees and shrubs before transplanting). Also wet furrows before planting, and fill holes with it before you plant trees or shrubs. Wait until it is all absorbed into the soil allowing all the nutrients to permeate the nearby soil of the plant you are planting. Making and using manure tea is a great way to give your garden crops the extra boost they need for optimal health and growth. Give once a week as a fertilizer and throw out your miracle grow! Experience will tell how often to use and how much. Now that you know how to make bunny brew, you can use it all the time to give your plants that extra boost!
Growing worms- I am not going to go into this in to much detail in this post as i am writing up a post on benefits of raising worms and rabbits together for sustainability. Although fresh rabbit manure is considered one of the best organic garden fertilizers it is also the best worm feed and bedding. You can grow and raise worms directly in the rabbit droppings under cages, or hutches, or making boxes and adding the manure to those. Rabbit manure along with wasted feed makes some of the best worm feed there is. When properly cared for red worms eliminate unsightly manure piles, odor and fly problems. The best worm to use is the red worm or red wiggler(Eisenia fetida). You should have about 200 to 400 worms per square foot of surface area. To start off add bedding material to the bed. Bedding could be any combination of carbon material-shredded paper,decomposing leaves, hay, straw, peat moss, ect. Remember that worms cannot eat dry rabbit manure so maintain moisture level so the bedding is damp. Worms do not like salt and rabbit urine contains salt so you must remember to remove wet urine spots regularly adding them to the compost or directly to the garden. Keep adding a thin layer of your carbon material of choice to cover the surface of the bedding and loosen the bedding occasionally with a fork do not use a shovel(worms do not like being cut in half).The rabbits and worms will do the rest. You can remove and harvest worms and replace bedding every 3 to 4 months, if the worms are doing their job. Join The Rabbit Revolution! Subscribe to our blog and get the updates as they are posted. The Benefits Of Raising Worms With Rabbits For Sustainability will be a good one! I been working on this one for a long time!
Making Methane- This is something I will be experimenting with this summer with a 55 and 30 gallon barrel the 30 gallon nesting inside the 55 gallon barrel with a slurry of rabbit manure, shavings and urine mix being anaerobic composted to make methane. I will be trying to run a lawnmower engine hooked to a alternator to charge my battery bank stay tuned for this one! I will be posting the information on making and using this unit soon!
Hope this answers all you questions on rabbit manure and its benefits as well if you have any question or other ideas please let me know I will post them or add them to this post!
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