# Rabbit manure



## dparish

what do you think about rabbit manure tea on coastal burmuda hay fields???


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## Vol

Rabbit manure tea huh? Gracious, that's a new one on me. How about filling us in a little on it?

Regards, Mike


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## dparish

from what I geather folks are filling a 55 gal drum 1/3 of the way with rabbit shit and the rest water placing a air stone in the bottom ran by an aquarium pump letting bubble for 2 weeks. from what i've read they sell a 55 gal drum of just liquid that you dilute to make 300 gal of liquid fertilizer for $250. they are advertising this for hay fields thats why I was wouldering if anyone else has had experince. I was thinking if it worked about makeing my own.


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## deadmoose

So basically $10/gallon for rabbit droppings? Sounds a wee bit overpriced.


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## Hayman1

So if you like it, what is the real supply of rabbit pellets? I can see it now, a whole new growth industry-breeding rabbits for poop-guess they would be fed like commercial chickens-feed um til they burst or poop themselves to death.


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## swmnhay

Wow the latest Foo-Foo juice.Or shoud say Wabbit Juice?


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## askinner

At first, I was about to say rabbitt poo tea? Yeah, tastes like cr*p! But then I remembered a few weeks back, a gent I know was telling me about a sheep poo liquid fertilizer he was making in the same fashion, he is no nutter, but raved about how well it was doing on his vegie crop.

Has to make me wonder though, unless an animal is some kind of miraculous fertilizer plant, whatever goes in can only come out with equal or lesser quality? You still have to fertilize high production beef pastures??

If I'm wrong, I'm off to find whatever animal poops potash!


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## rjmoses

askinner said:


> If I'm wrong, I'm off to find whatever animal poops potash!


All animals do! Not trying to be a smart-alec, but what goes in, usually comes out. Ever look at a cattle pasture and notice how green and tall the grass is around piles of manure?

That tells me that there must be something really good for plants in the manure. If I had a source and a workable methodology, I would fertilize with manure as much as possible, because, not only would I be putting back NPK, I would also be putting back the trace elements like magnesium, selenium, etc., that are necessary for plant growth.

In a lot of foreign countries, human wastes are use as fertilizer.

Just my thinking.

Ralph


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## swmnhay

It comes down to how much NP&K is in it if they liquefy it by running air bubbles threw it and dialuteing it with water that's exactly what it is watered down rabbit poop.Then they will want you to add it to a sprayer tank full of water and dialute it some more.

THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!!

The fertilizer value of the 55 gals is well under $1 would be my guess.


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## slowzuki

We put a bit of rabbit manure on our fields but it doesn't seem any worse or better than sheep manure, and we certainly don't pay for it.


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## askinner

rjmoses said:


> All animals do! Not trying to be a smart-alec, but what goes in, usually comes out. Ever look at a cattle pasture and notice how green and tall the grass is around piles of manure?
> 
> That tells me that there must be something really good for plants in the manure. If I had a source and a workable methodology, I would fertilize with manure as much as possible, because, not only would I be putting back NPK, I would also be putting back the trace elements like magnesium, selenium, etc., that are necessary for plant growth.
> 
> In a lot of foreign countries, human wastes are use as fertilizer.
> 
> Just my thinking.
> 
> Ralph


Agree, but my point is, it surely isn't possible to get more out than you put in? I would think less would have to come out, due to the body of whatever it is needing a certain level of NPKS and trace elements? So based on that, wherever the manure comes from would have to fertilize more than what they sell?


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## rjmoses

I like to think of it this way (and I will round off numbers just so I can make the arithmetic simple for myself):

A steer eats 10,000 lbs of forage to grow to a shipping weight of 1,000 lbs. of 75% (750 lbs is water). Of the 10,000 lbs of forage, 9,750 is manure. This means that I am returning almost all of my steer's intake back to the soil, including all those trace elements like boron, etc.

Of course, I am not accounting for the energy that the steer burns moving around, staying warm, etc. but that is mostly sugars which is carbon-hydrogen complexes.

So, to my thinking, manure is simply free fertilizer with the added benefit that it is processed, not granular like potash. I would love to have a manure source.

Ralph


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## mlappin

Guys around here that are still using chicken litter are applying a ton or better per acre, how many gallons of diluted rabbit poo are needed to equal one ton of chicken litter?

Hog manure is also applied at a much higher rate than any sprayer I've ever seen is able to apply in one pass.


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## hillside hay

Manure and lime was all we used for years. About every 3-5 years we had to spread a couple hundred pounds of potash.


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## dlskidmore

It's not just about the NPK. By putting it in water and running air through it you're growing different microbes than you would in a compost pile. Perhaps if your ground is too sterile it helps more than the NPK value alone? LIke the raw milk spray some folk use. The NPK/Trace alone is more bioavailable if dissolved in water, but won't have the long term feeding effects as if you just spread the manure directly.


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## mlappin

I'm curious as what a person would ever have to do to make ground so sterile that you need to make rabbit poop tea to reintroduce the microbes?

Might be wrong here, but aren't soil microbes and mammal microbes entirely different things?


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## dlskidmore

Some gut microbes are introduced by picking them up from the environment, and while you are steepping that tea there is plenty of time for additional local contamination.

I don't see how the microbe angle would be useful to land managed well for a long time, but if you recently had an overuse of chemicals or poor soil chemistry, it might help, and it is cheap to try. (Use whatever manure you have instead of paying for zoo poo.)


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## AndyL

rjmoses said:


> In a lot of foreign countries, human wastes are use as fertilizer.
> 
> Just my thinking.
> 
> Ralph


 That's where those "Made in China" crawfish and tilapia are produced?


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## Mike120

When I was a kid my father made a contraption to make manure tea, It had an agitator and you didn't need to let it sit for a week. You did have to run it through a screen to get out the big pieces and apply it with pretty good sized nozzles (basically flattened pieces of copper tubing) but it worked fine. Smelled a bit, but that's just part of having critters on your place. Now I just use a chain drag and/or a manure spreader and let the rain make the tea.


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## haybaler101

Yeah, I had 100 cow dairy with liquid manure and I tell you, the liquid part is just water and no one ever got rich hauling water. Now, I have turkey's with dry litter. Very concentrated, just got an analysis back of 51-35-31 per ton applied. I spread another 150 ton yesterday and covered about 60 acres. Just spread the rabbit poo dry and the rain will take care of the rest.


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## clowers

They delivered my 100 tons of chicken litter today. What a pile.


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## candrcorp

Rabbit Manure
A Cold Manure. Unlike other manures, rabbit manure is a good source for phosphorus. It has a higher percentage of nitrogen than manure from cows, horses, sheep, goats, pigs or chickens. Yet, rabbit manure is classified as a cold manure. This is because the nitrogen in rabbit dung is a slow release nitrogen, making it less likely to burn tender roots. Tea made from rabbit manure is an excellent tea.

Manure tea is a great alternative to expensive chemical fertilizers. We have had great results using All Natural Liquid Rabbit Tea Fertilizer, we got a 16.5 crude potein back on our hay analysis and we won 11th place out of 86 entries in the hay show.

We encourge anyone who has manure to try this type of fertilizing, do your research, make manure tea and see the results you will get.

If you don't want to make your own find someone who is making it and buy it from them.


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## vhaby

Aw c__p!

Rabbit manure tea for hay fields??? There's not enough rabbits raised to supply the plant nutrients for hay production in any reputable farming or ranching operation. For those who think that the microbe population in a barrel of water and rabbit manure with air bubbled through it might be beneficial, read these excerpts from an Introductory Soil Microbiology text.

Soils contain five major groups of microorganisms: bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae, and protozoa...The bacteria are especially prominent because of the many populations in a given soil and the fact that they are the most abundant group, usually more numerous than the other four combined...The bacteria isolated from soil can be placed in two broad divisions: the indigenous or autochthonous species that are true residents, and the invader or allochthonous organisms. Indigenous populations may have resistant stages and endure for long periods without being active metabolically, but at some time these natives proliferate and participate in the biochemical functions of the soil community. By contrast, allochthonous species do not participate in a significant way in community activities. They enter with precipitation, diseased tissues, animal manure, or sewage sludge, and they may persist for some time in a resting form and sometimes even grow for short periods but never do they contribute in a significant way to the various ecologically significant transformations or interactions (in soils).

Away from the text- manures provide organic materials that serve as nutrient sources for indigenous bacteria to break down (mineralize) into plant nutrients. Best to stay with manures that are in adequate supply and reasonably priced. Leave the manure teas for the organic gardening groups- perhaps there might be enough available for their limited use...My 2 cts worth.


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## hay wilson in TX

Here all this time I thought rabbits recycled their solid waste, aeveral times, Unless the hutch is on a screen and raised above the ground. When a rabbit gets through with his smart pills the is little value left.

City kid visiting saw a pile of rabbit pellits under the hutch. Asks the country Cousin what they are.

Country Cousin says smart pills. City kid expressed wonder and doubt. Country Cousin invited him to t ry a few. City Kid said that taste like Skat, See he became a lot smarter,

If there was anything to the teas our friend vhaby would have 50 of his extension friends cooking a brew to prove him right or wrong.

Around here we have a few who think way out side of the box and swear they have a magic potion.

Just pile forage clippings on a cement slab and water. Collect the juice and spray on your pastures.

That or do your own self financed forage nutrition and plant duely replicated grass plots, clip it with a very ecpensive grass catcher mower and measure the results. Publish your results and have your friendx in TN, IN, PA. NC, AR, and OK for their opinions.

Remember, Nothing is Simple, Nothing is for Free, & nothing is accomplished with out hard work.

Now if more produers would manage their grazing, Truely Manage their harvested feeds, They would not be looking for a magic potion.


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## German Farmer

small world. We have a little in common. We do Turkeys, Dairy, and Dairy Beef with row cropping.


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