How acidic is rabbit manure?

My neighbor offered me all the rabbit manure his rabbits have...uh....manufactured (?) this winter. But he warned me that it's very "acidic"; he said the last time he had a load, he put it in his pickup truck bed and left it overnight before delivering it to another gardener. It ate the paint off the truck bed. (Yikes!)

I've also read on one of the threads here that rabbit manure can be tilled directly into beds, and doesn't need composting. So now I'm confused. I know there are some rabbit growers and expert composters out there, so can you guys please help me sort this out????

If it's acidic, I'd like to use some of it when I plant my blueberry bushes this weekend, and use the rest in a new bed that will have azaleas and some other acid-loving plants.

If it's not acidic, then I'll just till it in to some flower beds I'll be preparing this weekend. Any help you can provide would be appreciated - I just want to put this "gift" to the best use possible!

I picked up a truckload of it myself a week ago, go-vols. Didn't finish emptying it until yesterday. Had absolutely no problems with it eating the finish off the truck---and that includes it having gotten rained on.

My understanding is that you can till it right in, without curing it first like you do cow and horse manure. Several other manures are like that. Llama, for instance, can go right into the soil.

Manures, in general, tend to be basic rather than acidic. What do you think that ammonia smell is all about?

Thanks, Brook. About that "aroma".....I thought the ammonia was from the urine that winds mixed in.....not the manure itself? Not that you can separate the two, LOL!

I looked up Rabbit Waste in The American Rabbit Breeders Assn. guide book. Here's what it says;
Rabbit droppings are called a "cold" manure because it has a high nitrogen content when the rabbits are fed a well-balanced diet. It will not burn lawns or plants and is easy to incorporate in the soil. It is satisfactory on gardens and lawns and about flowering plants, shrubbery, and trees. There is no danger in using it for fertilizing soil on which crops are to be raised.
Nitrogen in manure comes from dietary protein that the animal didn't utilize. If you have a very high nitrogen content, then there is usually something wrong with the feeding program causing the rabbit to excrete amounts of nitrogen. Rabbit manure is very high in potassium, because alfalfa, the major ingredient in rabbit rations, is very high in potasium. Rabbit droppings are the most potent fertilizers of all animal manures.
The value of rabbit manure depends on how it is cared for and used. There will be less loss of fertilizing elements if the material is immediately incorporated into the soil.

Hope this helps.
I know from experience that I can till 6 inches of rabbit manure right into my soil a month before I plant and have never had any problems with burning the plants.
Heidi

Thanks, Heidi! I have some new beds that I'll be tilling this weekend, and setting out plants in them toward the end of the month, after our last frost date. Sounds like a good place for the rabbit "stuff" to go!

I raise Angora and Jersey wooly rabbits for near 20 years now. I use this manure all the time without problems. Besides digging into the soil, I make a "tea" and use to water/fertilize my plants. This stuff works great!

Yee-haww...rabbit berries. I've also raised a lot of rabbits and the poop is a great product...so easy to incorporate into the soil or, as Abutilon mentioned, make tea. (Yrs ago I used to make rabbit manure tea, bottle it in gal milk jugs and sold it for $2/jug...when made very strong it can be diluted to make from 5 to 15 gallons).
I have found out over the yrs that the poop from an older rabbit is considered more nutritious than that from a cage of young ones. Apparently the young ones utilize more of the nutrients of the food to build strong bodies as opposed to an older one who is maily eating to sustain the body. So, Brook, next time you go shovel 'smart pills' get the ones from under the older rabbits! More for your money!

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Patty,

I don't know about goat----that is, whether it has to be aged or not---but Llama is like rabbit; you can use it right away.

I think you'll be able to sell the tea, if you market it right. Put it up, and sell it as an organic fertilizer.

ROFL, Patty!!!

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Maybe if she wasn't fooling around with the sheep, her back wouldn't ache, and she wouldn't need the chiropractor? ;>)

Patty, I recently saw a new product - compost tea bags. That's right - very dry composted manure, put in "flow-thru" tea bags, and boxed up just like Lipton's.

Might be easier to sell than jugs of the "brewed" stuff, and a lot easier to lug around.

Do you think it would be okay to add the rabbit droppings to the top of the soil on established plants?

Dene

Hi all. I am new to Dave's Garden and I have been lurking in the shadows for a week or so, thought I needed to respond to this thread. Gad! Can you imagine your suprise if you grabbed the wrong teabag for your sun tea? I also have used rabbit, goat, sheep and llama manure directly in the garden for flowers and vegetables. Must compost the horse and cow manure though if you are going to put it on heavily. Chicken will burn some things but we used to spread the manure of 10,000 hens directly on the alfalfa fields and it,(the alfalfa), did just wonderfully. I still am thinking about those tea bags though. Is that a new way to get back at people who do you wrong? I wonder ;) Watch out you spouse or child abusers Manure tea is on your menu!

Ok, so what I'm getting from this is: I can just dig all of the lovely rabbit poop that the little darlings left while they were eating my roses and apple trees right into the garden and take some comfort in the fact that my plant sacrifice wasn't a total loss!!

I saw those "tea" bags and thought that that would be a most unpleasant way to start a morning!!!

Hey Patty - it's all good _____ , some of us just have learned more patience!

Thanks for all the advice and the chuckles! Yes, I do believe I'd want to keep my tea bags far far apart, and never let my compost tea steep in the sun in ANYTHING that resembles my sun tea jar! Although surely the smell would alert before you actually took a swig!!!!

Just to let you know, we filled our lawn tractor trailer heaping with manure, and my very sweet 15 year old pulled up yards and yards of landscape fabric, spread the manure, and ran the tiller to get it mixed in. (Bless his heart, it was over 80 degrees the whole time, and he never stopped until he was done!!!)

Go_vols, you've got a good kid there. Care to rent him out?