Rabbit Poo

[ZBQ]

Hey guys!
A friend that I work with is my source for rabbit poo. He raises different breeds of them for 4-H'ers.

He told me last night that the fellow that got him started in the rabbit business grows tomatoes too. He has over 100 rabbits.

He told my buddy that he plants his tomatoes in SOLID rabbit poo! Nothing else. No peat, soil or anything else. Says they grow at fantastic rates.

My question.

Would there be anything wrong with this?

[nctomatoman]

Like all manure, if fresh it can burn the plants! Let it compost for a bit.

[timcunningham]

Agree with Craig. To prove the point try putting earthworms in pure fresh manure, they will die.

If I had a source of fresh manure I would do the following: Mash the pellets up, let them "age" a bit, then mix in some peat moss, vermiculite, and a little pelletized lime. Pure manure alone gets quite compact, your roots needs air.

But to answer your last question. Is there any thing "wrong" with planting them in pure manure. Nope. Plants will grow and you will get maters. Is it the "Best"? No. But the "Best" means different things to different people.

[ZBQ]

hmmmm....that's odd. I remember in a thread here that someone told me that you can add rabbit manure without aging it.

This was the quote:

Rabbit manure can be used "fresh". I recommend mixing it into the soil prior to planting though I believe others here might side dress with it.

Is this wrong? I am adding fresh rabbit poo to my beds as I fill them as we speak.

[KCMO_Don]

I use alpacca "poo" mixed straight into the soil in a pretty serious ratio!
and my plants ROCK!

[jerseyjohn61]

Just remember, rabbit poo has a very high
nitrogen count. Don't have the numbers in
front of me, but remember it as prehaps
the most nitro rich pooes of all the
domestic types....JJ61

[jerseyjohn61]

Yep KC,
both of those critters are creating a whole
new meaning for the term "nitrogen Cycle"....JJ61

[ZBQ]

Wow!!
I have access to donkey doo too!!

Would that stuff be too powerful?

[Organic_Nut]

donkey and rabbit poo.

wow you are lucky.

here is my scoop on manure.

you can use it fresh or washed out old. it all depends on how much you use. if you use it fresh then use a little less. if it has been outside in the rain for a few years it will be spent and you can use in full strength. since the strength is washed out with the rain water.

I like to use it as a tea. I throw some into water. and use the water.

get a 5 gallon bucket of rabbit poo. dry it out a bit. now sit it down indoors and lightly wet the top only. do this often. after awhile you will see the poo has changed to well composted soil. and no loss as the 5 gallon bucket retains everything. remember not to let the poo get too wet. just a little moisture on top where it can dry out again.

I like to buy a bag of alfalfa pellets. this is similar to rabbit food but no salt. when the rabbit eats the alfalfa he maybe digests 20% and so 80% is still there. but the fresh alfalfa pellets are like 100% there.

of course it is more economical to take alfalfa and first feed it to a rabbit or cow to make meat or milk and then use the manure for the garden but you can use the alfalfa as fertilizer. many people do just this. alfalfa is a very excellent fertilizer.

[jerseyjohn61]

Organic nut,
Alfalfa pellets rock!(more to follow)

Back in the 90's, my wife and I had a number
of indoor pet, Lop Rabbits. Dear, sweet little
creatures that sadly live only a few years.
Seemingly you weep for their passing as long....

Anyway...

...Loads of manure. Used to let it dry out for
a week or two in the sun. Then lightly mix in
to soil or side dress and leafy plants such as
lettuce would explode in glory.

About 5 years ago, after we had lost our last lop,
i still had about 20 lbs of alfalfa pellets left over.
I also had a neighbor who was lamenting the
decline of his 2 rose shrubs. That november
saw me secretly dump the ALF pellets at the
base of his roses. God's winter rains did the
rest.

That following May saw the prunning of those
roses. They were next to the porch and had
over taken the walkway. And...the blooms
were spectacular....JJ61

[michael johnson]

I think the quality of the rabbit poo depends largly on what they have been fed on, as most rabbits these days are fed on pellet food, whilst a few years ago they were fed on mostly green stuff and other vegetables and grains, ( you are what you eat !) I remember years ago we used to keep a lot of rabbits in wire bottom cages so all the poo fell through below, we used to then heap it up into a cone shaped heap about seven foot high,then let it rot down to a four foot heap- which steamed and steamed for days, and then used it on the garden for everything- lovely stuff, beautifull texture.

[ZBQ]

Ok,
I have a place I can buy the alfafa pellets.

Question:
Are the fertilization properties immeditally available or
does it have to break down first?

I am going to buy some and rake into the top layer of
topsoil. The rabbit poo is about 10 inches below that on the bottom. I don't have a tiller yet so that is where it is going to stay. I only have the rabbit poo on half of the bed and
the other half I have yet to fill with topsoil.

[travis]

Well, this thread has inspired me ... I now have a Sack-O-Scheist (tm) project goin' on.

I went to a local farm supply store and bought ten Croaker sacks ... they're actually empty 70 kg. coffee bean bags from Colombia.

I filled them with straight composted horse and cattle manure that besides poop only contains the bedding material that the animals deposited their t'mater manna on. It's been composted over the winter of 2005-2006, and is really mellow.

I laid the full Sacks-O-Scheist (tm) on their sides, cut an opening in the top side, and inserted one plant in each bag. Now these bags have about 90-100 lbs of composted manure/bedding each. I didn't fill them plumb full so I could fold the tops shut and shove them up against each other in one long line like sandbags. I guess you could get about 150 lbs of poop in each of these big coffee sacks if you sewed the tops shut rather than folded them over, and then probably plant two seedlings in each sack.

Well, time will tell how straight manure works out.

PV

[landarc]

PV,

This SOS prograsm sounds interesting, one can see the packaging in nuseries and graden supllies already, Papa Vics Garden SOS.

I am always amazed at how creative some of you are.

Bob

[Mantis]

I read in a post somewhere about a guy who knew an old fella who would fill 5 gal buckets with straight sheep poop and just let it sit over winter. In spring he would plant his tomatoes straight into the now broken down a bit poop, and apparently grew some lovely tomatoes. Haven't tried it but I might as I can get weed free sheep poop from a shedded sheep factory here. HMMMMM