There’s literally no manure better for the garden than rabbit poop and they have a distinct advantage over other animal manures. Manures such as horse, pig, cow, and chicken require many months to compost properly until they can be added to the garden bed; rabbit poop is the only manure that can be added directly to the garden without fear of burning your plants. All other animal manures require many months to compost properly until they can be added to the garden bed. Another plus is that red wiggler worms gravitate to rabbit manure immediately, bringing with them their own positive influence on the soil and garden.

Rabbit pellets’ positive effects on the garden bed are extensive. As they break down, they build soil structure, improve soil porosity, soil stability, and hold nutrients for not only plants, but other soil organisms. As far as how the manure is applied, there are two different schools of thought on this:

1. Some gardeners apply the pellets directly to the soil, and swear by this system.

2. Others are more cautious about possible pathogens, and prefer to add it to the compost heap as a precaution as far as adding it to food plants such as tomatoes.

Gardeners everywhere sing the virtues of rabbit manure added to their flowers and vegetables, or compost. They have tagged it, ‘God’s gift to the gardener’ and “magic pellets’, ‘garden gold’, ‘rabbit gold’ other glorifying labels.

Suburban rabbits are easy to keep, don’t need “land” to be kept on, and also double as 4H projects, family pets, and can be used for fiber spinning (in the case of angora rabbits).

Just spreading the bunny gospel.

I started this pile long before I gave any thought to containing it. It’s already beginning to mulch down beautifully, getting ready to fortify our garden this coming season.

Between the composting materials coming out of our kitchen, not to mention the rabbitry, the pile is creeping outward; becoming a threat to our blossoming cherry tree and largely obvious to our neighbors next door.

So, this weekend we’re having a bin-raising and building sides around our compost pile. As a direct result of our rabbits’ generosity, we’re going to do a little pay-back by actually fixing the rabbitry roof. Hey, they scratch our backs – we keep the rain off theirs.

If we’re lucky, some of our neighbors will see our little industrious asses hauling lumber, working away and ask us what we’re doing. At that point, I will attempt to hypnotize them with my riveting lecture on the virtues of composting and convince them to start one of their own.

It’s all a part of my personal quest to turn suburbia into little farms.

When it’s straw that’s been used in rabbit cages and it’s soaked with bunny pee and poop. Ta-da! Your “brown” (carbon) straw is now a green (nitrogen) when you toss it onto your compost pile. This is why I keep telling everyone not to attempt to measure greens and browns – it gets all mixed up anyway. Like when you eat a salami and swiss cheese sandwich then chase it with a Heineken; it’s all one big concoction in your stomach. Who can tell what’s what anymore, am I right?

Just do your best to add either a little carbon and a little nitrogen when you’re adding to the compost pile. Maybe switch off materials every other day. Whatevah. But please don’t over-think the process. Composting at home just isn’t that complicated.

Put it this way, if you meet someone at a party and they say, “Hi, I’m Joe Exceptional, I’m a brain surgeon. What is it do you do?”

With a little hair toss, you come back at them with, “Oh well, I make my own compost”. Know that there’s going to be a really uncomfortable silence. (It’s just not the same thing at all.)