Composting Rabbit Litter?

[snoopdoug1]

My wife has two rabbits that live in the basement. I was wanting to start a composting pile, and thought that the litter might be a good idea. The litter consists of oak pellets (the kind you buy to burn in a fireplace), rabbit droppings, hay, and the occasional newspaper. My fear is that the wood (oak pellets) wouldn't work so well.

Any idea if that would compost well? There are multiple links online that talk about it, but it doesn't look like they use the wood pellets as the litter (and they use newspaper).

 

[spaceman]

we did it with ours b4 they passed
works perfect

 

[lxskllr]

Wood takes longer to break down, but it should work fine.

 

[snoopdoug1]

sorry to hear the loss of a pet Always hard

Great to hear it worked - did you just put in it a trash can or did you throw it into a pile on the ground?

 

[snoopdoug1]

Wood takes longer to break down, but it should work fine.

over the winter long enough?

 

[spaceman]

sorry to hear the loss of a pet Always hard

Great to hear it worked - did you just put in it a trash can or did you throw it into a pile on the ground?

in a general yard pile on ground
worms work thru it, with leaves and etc, just turned it ever so often
nice black earth

 

[lxskllr]

over the winter long enough?

I don't have first hand experience, but probably not. To pull a number out of my ass, I'd say it would take a year to break down. What you put on the ground today will be ready this time next year. An open pile on the ground would work best if you have the room. It should be turned every so often, so the newer stuff is at the bottom of the pile, or nearly so.

 

[snoopdoug1]

Great - thanks to both of you!

 

[wwswimming]

i learned from a facility that processes 350 tons a day of yard waste, manure, chicken feathers, etc.

they use hot composting - the right mixture and it heats up to 160 degrees F. takes about 10 weeks for each batch to finish.

their filter screen for the input is about 1 1/2" square - they filter all their "incoming" through that. so your wood pellets would pass that criteria.

unless you get a pile about 4 cubic yards, it won't heat up much, and it will decompose slower. if you put it on the ground (in which case worms will find it naturally) or introduce redworms to it (similar to earthworms, but if you are using a closed container earthworms put all their energy into trying to escape & won't reproduce), the redworms will help "break it up".

water is also a "must". basically, completely sopping wet - but with drainage. the drainage is a must. if the drainage isn't so great, then back off on the water so it doesn't stink. what stinks is when it goes "anaerobic" (not enough oxygen.)

it would also help if you put vegetable & fruit food scraps in the pile.

the basic idea is to build a premium meal for the bacteria & worms that do the heavy lifting of turning the input ingredients into high-quality dirt.

 

[0roo0roo]

2 rabbits worth of poo a month is a lot to clean up, but not that big a pile for compost

 

[DrPizza]

Switch your cages to the kind with a 1" high area to capture the rabbit droppings, and hardware cloth (wire mesh) for the rabbits to walk on. No wood shavings required. Rabbit droppings can be used directly on your flower beds, etc. No composting time required.

That will cut your costs on bedding, cut the amount of waste, and cut your effort. You can go ahead and google it to verify that rabbit waste can be directly applied to your flower beds without composting.

Also, wood shavings aren't going to compost very quickly, unless they make up a small percentage of the compost. In your case, I'm going to guess that the wood shavings are going to be the majority - you're wasting your time trying, unless you put forth a shitload of extra effort to turn it, etc. (Or buy one of those retarded giant barrels that you load with composting stuff & spin around every so often.)

 

[chusteczka]

My brother has a plastic swimming pool filled with dirt and worms. He feeds the rabbit droppings to the worms. The worms and worm dirt fertilize the garden vegetables. The worms are also used to feed the chickens and for fishing.

He started with three female rabbits that he named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. He now breeds and eats the rabbits. Rabbit pâté with horseradish for Easter is delicious. mmmmmm.

 

[Spikesoldier]

so by litter you mean the rabbits' feces and composting it, or do you imply taking all their babies and burying them alive zombie style to enrich your compost?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Switch your cages to the kind with a 1" high area to capture the rabbit droppings, and hardware cloth (wire mesh) for the rabbits to walk on. No wood shavings required. Rabbit droppings can be used directly on your flower beds, etc. No composting time required.

That will cut your costs on bedding, cut the amount of waste, and cut your effort. You can go ahead and google it to verify that rabbit waste can be directly applied to your flower beds without composting.

Also, wood shavings aren't going to compost very quickly, unless they make up a small percentage of the compost. In your case, I'm going to guess that the wood shavings are going to be the majority - you're wasting your time trying, unless you put forth a shitload of extra effort to turn it, etc. (Or buy one of those retarded giant barrels that you load with composting stuff & spin around every so often.)

Yeah but wire mesh is bad for rabbits. I have a rabbit and I say the best way is to give them a litter pan like a cat has. 99% of the business is done there and my rabbit never misses for peeing.

But my concern is would rabbit waste attract other animals? My parents are pretty paranoid about cats ans racoons raiding our garden in search for yummy rabbit. Hahaha. Our bunny is indoor though so it's no problem.

 

[DrPizza]

I didn't even think of that. One of my old rabbit hutches was all wood, except for one end where a 12x16 bin went for a little box. (the plastic bins that you would use in a kitchen sink.) That bin simply slid in and out. Pull it out, dump it, and replace it every couple of days - or twice a day if you really wanted to. The rabbit used that 99% of the time.

 

[seepy83]

I have nothing to contribute to this thread other than to say I have a friend who does landscaping and owns rabbits, and he says that rabbit shit is one of the best fertalizers for lawn/garden. Carry on.

 

[Eli]

You have to have a pretty big and/or well designed pile/setup for it to keep composting at any appreciable rate into winter, unless you live in a fairly temperate climate.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea the poo build up will be too gradual, esp with wood added unless you heaps on the food and yard waste.

 

[snoopdoug1]

ok, so you all are starting to convince me that instead of composting, maybe I should just gather some poo and toss it straight into the garden. Sounds like composting will take a lot of time, and those tumblers are freaking expensive. I can buy a lot of compost for 100 bucks! Maybe I'll gather a bunch of poo up over the summer, then till it into the garden after everything is grown. That way it will break down and be all ready for next year.

Thanks again for the replies! For the record, my wife uses some rubbermaid containers for the litter... works pretty well - and I'm not going to sort out the wood pellets so we'll just continue to toss it!

 

[snoopdoug1]

You have to have a pretty big and/or well designed pile/setup for it to keep composting at any appreciable rate into winter, unless you live in a fairly temperate climate.

That's what I was afraid of. I thought it might just sit there over the winter. We live in Missouri, so it does get cold in the winter.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea that is what i did, i just sprinkled the poo in the garden and let it takes its natural course. anything else is just too much effort.