Bunny Rabbit Manure

[beachbum757]

I have a bunny and so I have bunny manure and her straw/hay when she is done with it.
I would like some advice on using the manure to most benefit my soil.
I have several perennial beds as well as vegetables.
Should I only add the wastes from my bunny to my compost pile or are there other beneficial ways to use this?
I did apply some of the manure straw mix last winter to my vegetable garden. Mixed it in this spring and have begun building raised beds over my old vegetable plot.
Thanks for anymore ideas

[imagardener2]

I would think bunny manure would be right up there with chicken and sheep manure - super hot.

I use to have a registered sheep flock and every winter when it was lambing time I would have to clean the jugs out (the 3'x4' pen where lambs were born & stayed until they bonded w/ the ewe). The hay would be loaded with fecal matter, feed and urine. I made a pen just across the 'alley' from the lambing barn and would pile the dirty hay in that pen. In the mornings steam would be pouring out of the piles. Eventually I had the most beautiful compost you can imagine.

Because sheep, goats, deer and rabbits poop pellets their fecal matter is highly concentrated and dry. Chickens poop is hot because it has fecal matter & urine combined. Because they are all so hot they really need to be mixed with some type of cellulose/hay and composted, thus mellowing it out, before using it on vegetation.

[pixelphoto]

bunnny manure can be applied directly.
Bunny manure (in my opinion) is not hot like chicken manure. Chicken manure will burn your plants if not composted first.
Bunny manure can be applied directly without having been composted.

[imagardener2]

Bunny manure (in my opinion) is not hot like chicken manure. Chicken manure will burn your plants if not composted first.

Agreed. As I noted chicken manure has urine in it. "[url=https://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/633ureacycle.html]Animals such as birds and reptiles which must conserve water, excrete nitrogen as uric acid as a solid mixed with very small amounts of water[/url]."

Like chickens sheep/goat/deer and rabbit are made to conserve water. Unlike chickens they urinate and defecate from dual outlets rather than just one, thus their feces are dry. As such they tend to stay as pellets if they aren't composted or kept heavily watered for an extended period of time, thus allowing micro-composting and leaching to take place.

Either way, their manure is extremely rich in organic matter and, as such, is hot.

Manure ____N - P - K
Chicken ___1.1 - .80 - .50
Diary cow _ .25 - .15 - .25
Horse _____.70 - .30 - .60
Steer _____.70 - .30 - .40
Rabbit ____2.4 - 1.4 - .60
Sheep ____ .70 - .30 - .90

Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the Rodale Guide to Composting.

[beachbum757]

Thanks, that is just what I needed to know!