Rabbit manure, step by step
Interactive lesson: rabbit manure from hutch to garden — collecting it, fresh manure in autumn, compost, a wormery and the rabbitry's yearly plan.
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The whole lesson as text
1. What rabbit manure is worth
Rabbit droppings are dry, in small pellets, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, and they break down quickly.
- How much manure — A doe with her litters gives roughly 100 kg (220 lb) of manure and bedding a year, and a buck roughly 50 kg.
- Rich and mild — A tonne of rabbit manure with bedding holds roughly 7–10 kg of nitrogen. It has more phosphorus than cattle or goat manure.
- Dry pellets — The pellets are dry and don't stick. They are easy to spread and don't "burn" plants the way chicken manure does.
- Urine is stronger — Rabbit urine is rich in nitrogen and ammonia. Bedding soaked with urine goes into the compost, not straight around plants.
Why: Two does with their litters give roughly 200 kg (440 lb) of manure and bedding a year, enough to manure 100 m² (about 1,000 sq ft) of garden well. In return the garden gives weeds, leaves and trimmings that the rabbits eat.
- In the first year plants use roughly 20–30 % of the nitrogen in rabbit manure. The rest is released over the following years.
- There are few weed seeds, but there will be some if the hay held ripe weeds.
2. Collecting under the hutches
Droppings fall under the hutches, and from there you collect them with a sloping sheet, a tray or a wormery.
- Sloping sheet — Droppings and urine slide down a sloping sheet or gutter into a bucket or barrow. It's clean and little work, but it's wet.
- Tray with bedding — A shallow tray with shavings or straw soaks up urine and doesn't smell. The bedding is changed 1–2 times a week.
- No heap — Don't let manure pile up by the hutch. A heap left for months means ammonia, flies, rats and snuffles.
- Twice a week — Every day, or at least twice a week, take the manure to the compost heap or the wormery.
Why: A heap under the rabbitry draws flies, smell and rats, and the ammonia rises straight into the rabbits' noses. That's why you take the manure away every day, or at least twice a week.
- A heap under the hutches is the simplest, but only with frequent clearing.
- A wormery under the hutches gives finished vermicompost with no carrying, but it needs attention to urine and temperature.
3. Straight onto the garden · Locked
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4. Compost · Locked
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5. A wormery under the hutches · Locked
Buy the Rabbit manure and the yearly plan module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.
6. The year and the records · Locked
Buy the Rabbit manure and the yearly plan module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.