Fertilizer Galore!

So we try to "homestead" as much as possible. Kinda hard living in a basement apartment... but we do have a yard and garden. Yippy! So I read up on rabbit poo fertilizer and it sounds amazinngggggg. We started saving the poos. But we have 4 rabbits and in a month we almost have a garbage container full! With it being almost winter in the snowy mountains no one is planting anything. What am I to do with all the poo!? Any ideas?! I don't want to throw it away I feel it's a waste... but I also don't want garbages full of it on the patio all winter. Should I go ahead and throw it in the garden to freeze and thaw for next year?
Poo-mergency....ahhh

Thanks everyone! :tonguewiggle

Haha the breeder I got my two from always has bags of free fertilizer sitting outside her house! Do you think that might be an option?

YES!!! Fall is a great time to add compost to your garden. It is actually better than adding it in the spring. If possible, it will break down better if you can dig it in. Rabbit poop can be used cold (without composting) and can be used as a top dressing throughout the growing season, but it will break down much more efficiently if it is dug into the soil. If dug into the garden in the fall, it will break down beautifully over the winter and you should have some terrific soil come spring. So, yes, go ahead and get it in there!

Maybe I could put some in the local classifieds... people love free poo

And thanks for the advise gardenspots! I'm excited for next years garden. I was traveling around spring this year so I didn't get to plant much so dill and strawberrys took over everything ugh.

Before I got Barry, my son would save Jovi's poos for me. Mostly he would just put them in a cup, but they would end up moldy before the cup got full, so I saved the cups by the half full and would just toss them into my existing garden plot whether it was growing anything in it or not. Come next spring's planting season, I'll bet that I get the biggest tomatoes on the block!

Now that I have Barry, the poops are more multiple and much larger! I've been cleaning his litterbox with the broken down wood pellets and dumping them in a compost area. Now every time that I plant something, a big scoop of that compost goes in. Pot or plot.

And as Channahs said, you could also just compost it over the winter. A free standing pile works just fine, although sometimes dogs and other critters might dig into it. You could include the used litter too if it is wood or paper based.

Channahs, the secret to stockpiling poops is to let them air dry before adding them to the bag or storage bin so that they don't mold (although the mold helps break them down, the smell gets unpleasant). I have a big bag I am stockpiling to add to my winter garden. I am waiting another couple of weeks to pull out the rest of the summer garden, and then all those poops are going in! I will then start stockpiling over the winter to add them in the spring. The used litter goes on the compost pile to add nitrogen to help break down the leaves and things. I also add the used litter to areas of the garden where I plan to grow crops that love nitrogen (corn and such).

I am actually contemplating a third, larger bunny so I get more poops faster. onder:

@ gardenspots- I swear my large bunny poops smaller than my small one lol I was wondering about including the litter too. Right now i just hold the litter box over the garbage and the loose poos fall out so the litter doesn't go in it. If i use pine chips that would be okay to compost with it? Also if there is hay in it is that alright too? I've never composted before all of our table scraps and stuff goes to our friends pig Also! winter gardening sounds awesome! Is that possible at all in Utah? The ground freezes pretty good...

Lexi. This is Barry's poo pile. It's right on the edge of the woods. There is a lot of dark, worm rich dirt underneath. Occasionally I come out with my Garden claw and stir it up. Sometimes I bring dirt back to it. I just toss all of the urine soaked and broken down wood pellets and poo from his litter box daily and toss it on this pile. I only scoop the really dirty stuff from his box and add wood pellets as needed.

Lexi01, pretty much anything that was once alive can be composted. You do have to pay some attention to the mix of browns (dead leaves, paper, dry grass, etc) to greens (fresh grass, kitchen trimmings, etc.). If you get too many greens and not enough browns it will start to smell. Just search composting and you will find a ton of info. It is not nearly as hard as it sometimes sounds. It does not have to be mixed or "stirred", but it will break bown faster if you do. You also want some moisture in there, but not too much. If you maintain a good balance it will never smell. I have a couple of forums I lurk on just to get ideas on things to compost. There are all kinds of thing sout there that I would never have thought to compost otherwise.

Yes, wood or paper based litter, hay, poops, pee - they can all go in the pile or directly in the garden to compost. I found when I added the entire contents of the litterbox to the garden I ended up with too much nitrogen in the garden. That left me with really nice plants and almost no fruit. So, now I put the poops in the garden and the hay and litter/pee go in the compost pile which helps to even out the nitrogen content in the finished compost. However, there are exceptions to that. Corn needs lots of nitrogen, so for a few weeks prior to planting last spring I added the litter/pee mix to the area I wanted to grow corn and mixed it into the soil. I had the best corn! For tomatoes though, too much nitrogen gives you huge plants and no tomatoes.

As far as winter gardening in Utah, with protection (mini greenhouse) you probably can. I know there are folks in Maine that have fresh salad greens way into winter if they protect the plants.

I've looked into those winter green house boxes you can make out of old windows. It looks cool but where in the world are you supposed to get old windows haha thanks for the advise!

Just a side note--someone did a study and on average a bunny poops 300 to 500 times a day. I need about 3 acres!

So glad humans don't poop that much..... haha Speaking of poo on a side side note! I saw someone selling bunny diapers the other day? I want to let my buns run around the house but I can't because they spray and poo under things that I can not lift...... Do you think bunny diapers would work so they could run around a little longer? Right now they play and exercise outside but soon it's going to be snowy and colddddd.