We love our rabbits! They add wonderful diversity to the landscape, and are sweet pets. But my favorite thing about our long-eared friends? Their dung. Rabbit poop makes the best fertilizer, hands down. Anyone who comes to visit us gets to see our chickens and our rabbits and discuss the benefits of poop for healthy plants!
Rabbits provide the fastest – and cheapest – soil conditioner around. Each backyard bunny will reliably produce about a pound of dry manure per week. Per. Week. Yes, 52 pounds a year. And larger breeds like the New Zealand, chinchilla, or silver fox could produce as much as a pound every 2-3 days.
Besides increasing the fertility of your own farm and garden, this plethora of plant nutrition can be marketed and sold as a value-add product. It is highly desirable, too, because it is one of the richest fertilizers you can get your hands on.
Plant Nutrition
Fresh rabbit pellets are incredibly nutrient dense, containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and many micronutrients. They are much higher in critical nitrogen than any other livestock manure. According to the Michigan State University Extension, rabbit manure has four times as many nutrients as cow or horse manure, and twice as many as chicken manure. Plus, rabbit manure has no unpleasant odor! Even dried pellets remain very high in nitrogen.
And because of their shape, rabbit pellets also serve to aerate the soil and increase drainage as you work it in. The pellets are all organic matter, too, breaking down and creating excellent soil structure.
What’s more, you can apply this ‘black gold’ directly to your plants without burning them. Because rabbits are truly herbivores, their manure is ‘cool’. This means the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is 25:1, which is perfect for an amendment. (Read my post on compost and the brown to green ratio). The manure of chickens and other livestock, which is ‘hot’ , must be composted prior to most garden applications.
The pellets can be virtually free of weed seeds because you will be controlling their diet with fresh vegetable scraps, Timothy hay and select prepared foods. Therefore you can use the bunny doo-doo not only in the veggie beds, but also in your flower gardens. Some people swear by it for their azaleas and roses.
Better for the Environment
And It gets even better. It is free. And uber- locally produced, rather than in a fertilizer factory. Oh – did I mention? Today’s fertilizers are often derived from petrochemicals through an energy-intensive process in fully integrated factories. A factory somewhere far away pumping out fine powder or round granules made out of gasoline from coal-run machinery into non-recyclable plastic bags.
And the inefficient process of distilling nitrogen into fertilizer creates a huge nitrogen run-off. This ends up polluting our atmosphere and our waterways, creating huge dead zones. Even organic fertilizers not made from chemicals still use nitrogen – organic forms of it. And they still create a huge amount of nitrogen pollution. And, they still need coal-run machinery to process, grind, sift, and package the organic fertilizers up.
Rabbit manure not only reduces your reliance on these corporate enterprises, but puts that money back in your pocket. I can attest to the fact that commercial organic soil conditioners and fertilizers are far more expensive than the cost of feeding my rabbits!
How to Use Rabbit Poop as Fertilizer
There are a couple of different ways you can apply the Bunny Doo-doo.
- If your rabbit poop is fresh, you can apply it right to the plant. Sprinkle some pellets at the base of each plant or side dress them, working them in to the soil around each plant. Think of them as slow-release capsules. They break down over time, adding nutrition to the soil for many months and with each soaking.
- Use the bunny dung as a mulch – this is great because the size of the poo helps to retain water at the plant roots. And when you water the plant, the nutrients will seep into the soil. The larger amounts will not hurt or ‘burn’ plants, even tender veggies.
- In the spring, mix a full bucket of pellets into your raised beds when you amend and aerate the soil.
- Make a rabbit manure compost tea. Add water to a bucket filled about a quarter of the way up with pellets, and let it steep for 12-24 hours. Then, just water your plants with the liquid.
- Add a handful of the pellets right to your indoor potted plants. This is especially convenient if your rabbit is a house rabbit.
- Add your pellets to a red worm composter (vermicomposter). Worms just love rabbit pellets!
- When you have added rabbit pellets to every plant you can think of, and gifted your neighbors with some of your homemade super-grow, you can just toss any leftovers onto your compost pile! Because rabbit pellets are already at that magic 25:1 ratio, they help to super heat your pile!
A Few More Thoughts about Rabbit Poop in the Garden
- If your rabbit poop is soaked in urine (this is unusual, except in litter boxes which are very full), you may want to let it dry out for a few days prior to adding in in to the garden.
- Sometimes rabbits flip over their food bowls. Is the rabbit poop mixed with rabbit food? No problem! Many pellets such as alfalfa are generally seed-free and cool. They will not burn your plants. The alafalfa can actually add in additional nitrogen and micronutrients, and it breaks down quickly. (Alfalfa is often used as a cover crop to increase soil fertility on large scale farms)
- Does your rabbit have a litter box? If your rabbit poop is mixed with a simple organic litter such as paper, newsprint or pine, that’s OK. Add it all right to the soil in your garden. But if you are using an organic litter such as wheat or corn, you may wish to compost the contents of the litter box first. Never use clay litter for a rabbit – and never add it to your garden or compost pile!!
Rabbits make great pets which increase your biodiversity. They are great whether you are on a large plot or in a small urban setting. You don’t need to be a gardener to want to raise rabbits. But if you are a gardener, you can’t get much better than a free, high quality, environmentally friendly fertilizer which works on any crop.
Rabbit Poop makes the best fertilizer.💩
