Rabbits offer many benefits to a small homestead or garden.
Many people raise rabbits for meat, but they also make some of the best manure for your garden.
If you've ever over fertilized your lawn or vegetable garden, you know that sinking feeling you get when you watch your beautiful plants shrivel up, burnt to a crisp.
Rabbit manures, although higher in nitrogen than poultry manures, won't burn your plants and it also contains large amounts of phosphorus, an important nutrient for flower and fruit formation.
Worms absolutely love it and will migrate to wherever you apply it, attracted by the organic matter. Chickens will scratch and spread the piles looking for worms and fly larva. Applied thick enough, it will act as a mulch and minimize the time a gardener spends weeding.
Return a few months later to where you added rabbit manure, dig under the pile and you'll see an explosion of soil life happening underneath.
New bunnies just 2 days old
Time released fertilizer pellets
Rabbit manure is natures own time released fertilizer and won't hurt your plants. You can literally plant right into it and your plants will thrive. I use it as fertilizer, sprinkling it on the surface of the soil and watering it in.
I find that no other fertilizer is needed throughout the entire season if I apply it in the spring, even for nutrient demanding crops like tomatoes and squashes.
I've used it on lettuce, potatoes, artichokes, peppers, cucumbers, squash; you name it. Every plant I've tried it with absolutely loves it.
Over time, the soil will change into a rich loam that allows more water to soak in and retains moisture longer, requiring less frequent watering, and it's full of micronutrients that support health plant growth.
N-P-K ofrabbit manure compared to other animals
Rabbit manure doesn't have much of a smell to it, making it more pleasant to work with and it loaded with trace minerals needed for healthy plants. Fewer pathogens it rabbit manure make it safe to use.
It can also be made into a tea and sprayed onto a larger area so it's a very efficient way to add fertility to your garden.
Rabbits need little space and are quiet
You can raise a herd of rabbits in a small backyard in the city and no one would even know they are there, making it an ideal livestock choice for people with small yards or urban landscapes.
They take so little room and you won't here a peep out of them unless something attacks them or scares them, like a dog. Then they will cry a short, blood-curling scream that will raise the hair up on the back of your neck. I swear, it sounds like a human baby screaming for it's life, but that rarely happens. For the most part they are very quiet animals.
Rabbits are sustainable
Rabbit meat is delicious and tastes very much like chicken, only it's much more sustainable. (Sorry vegetarians)
It's still considered a boutique product in the U.S. and processed rabbit meat can be prohibitively expensive so consumers are increasingly turning to rabbit farming as an alternative.
My family are first generation immigrants and eating rabbit meat was as popular as chicken when I was growing up and can be a substitute for any recipe requiring chicken, but the taste is where the similarities part ways.
For starters, you don't have to pluck them like a chicken eliminating the need to boil water to remove feathers. They make a nice hide that you can tan and make things from.
If you eat meat, it's good to know where it comes from and that it's not impregnated with antibiotics and hormones. Homegrown ensure you're eating safe, chemical-free meat.
Rabbit meat is more sustainable than eating beef and more productive. 3 does (females) and 1 buck (male) can produce in one year, the same amount of protein as one cow useing 20% of the food and water resources of a cow, on a fraction of the land a cow needs.
Rabbits and chickens stack well
Raising your cages up at least 18 inches off the ground accomplishes two things. First, it prevents fleas from infesting your rabbits. It seems that fleas can't jump that high so they stay off your rabbits. They'll love you for that. And secondly, it makes it easier to collect the manure dropping that fall from the cages.
As the manure collect under the cages, worms will begin accumulating in the manure piles. As you gather up and spread it on your garden, you'll be spreading worms everywhere at the same time. All good things, but there's and added benefit for chickens.
Chickens will soon discover that there's a feast under those cages waiting for them. From a distance you'll think your chickens are eating rabbit poop, gross! But a closer look and you'll see what they're really after, worms, and lots of them.
If you have a chicken run, it makes good sense to keep your rabbits inside the run so you can stack the two together. Not only will the chickens help spread the manure around, they will keep the fly count down by eating fly larva and worms will increase the omega-3 count in their eggs.
A quick shout out to @papa-pepper who did a great post on Steemit about chickens and rabbit tractors that you can click through to read about.
Do you raise rabbits?
Do you raise rabbits? Feel free to post pictures of your rabbits below and share your rabbit stories and thanks for reading my post.