# Drying rabbit manure for sale??



## steve-in-kville

So if a grower wanted to sell dried rabbit manure for rose gardeners, how would one go about drying it out? I'm thinking about a few ideas, but was hoping someone ventured down this road already and could offer some good suggestions.


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## MaggieJ

I think some trays made of scrap wood with hardware cloth bottoms would do the trick. You'd have to prop them up on something, maybe cinder blocks, and protect them from rain. 

Personally, I'd just shovel the stuff into old feed bags or the like and not worry about drying it. The roses won't care!


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## Truckinguy

I rinse my poo trays off into a plastic tote covered with a fine wire mesh which catches the poo and lets the urine and water drain through. Then I just spread it around on the mesh as best I can and let it sit for a day or so. The urine is really all that smells bad and drying the poo makes it a lot easier to handle from a smell standpoint. When it's dry it's also easier to handle because it doesn't stick together like little mud balls. I also think that it if someone was transporting it in their car (hopefully in the trunk!!) it would be better dry as it would smell a lot less.


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## MaggieJ

Sigh. You're probably right, Truckinguy. I've been in the country long enough now that I forget that not everyone has the same appreciation for poop.  Of course, by rinsing off the bunny berries to remove urine, you are also removing a lot of nitrogen. I hope you pour the rinsings, diluted, on your garden or in your compost pile.


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## Truckinguy

Hmmm, yes, you're right, Maggie! I"ve just been pouring it outside in one spot as I bought the bunnies at the end of Feb and the weather was bad but, yes, it should be going on the garden. Any poo that is going straight from my bunnies to the garden can go as is but if I was selling it or storing it for any length of time (winter?) I think I would dry it out pretty good. I've only been in the country for three and a half years now but I always loved the country smells, the barns, hay, manure, I love it out here! Hopefully I can Homestead one day, need more land, though. Hoping...


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## naturewoman

If smell is the problem, why not just compost it and sell it as compost? Or use it in your own gardens after you compost it. You don't have to turn it to be effective, you just need time. And once a compost pile starts composting you can add an amazing amount of material to it (if you do it right, no smell) as it sinks while it's breaking down. It only takes the area of 4'x4' to build a pallet compost pile. You should have three rotational piles going. One to add to for a year, one to age for a year, and one to take compost from (which means a 4'x12' area to do three connected piles). You just need to layer your manure with dry carbon material like leaves, straw, hay, wood shaving, grass clippings (dry)...etc.

I don't understand why everyone isn't turning all their animal poo into compost (for herbivores at least).


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## moonkitten

naturewoman said:


> I don't understand why everyone isn't turning all their animal poo into compost (for herbivores at least).


Well, in part it's because I have more poo than room to compost  I have an 8 x 20 compost area and it is FULL, FULL, FULL! Once the garden is planted with seeds we don't spread any more compost, so it just piles up until the fall when we bed the garden down for the winter. By selling (actually giving away since no one seems willing to pay $$) bagged rabbit manure, I can cut down the amount going into the compost pile to something that is more reasonable. I still compost any rabbit poo that is mixed with hay, straw, nest box shavings, etc... but the clean round poops go into bags for other people.

And incidentally, just to stick to the topic, I have two old screen doors from when we redid the windows/patio doors. I lay them out on cinder blocks and pour the poo onto them. About 24 hours later I sweep it into feed bags with a dustpan. I find the patio screen is fine enough that the dried berries just sweep right up. I tried hardware cloth, but it was so rough a lot of the poo just disintegrated when I tried to sweep it across the surface.


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## Truckinguy

I have a worm bin that, at present, takes all my kitchen scraps and works quite well. I'm going to start adding rabbit poo and as my herd grows I'll probably have to divide it into more bins and add on. Worm poo is actually better than rabbit poo and probably more valuable to sell.


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## Kyah

I've tried the 1/2" hardware cloth for rinsing/drying, but found the holes were too big. There's a smaller size wire - 1/4 " that works well though. DH made me a nice one with a frame to use for screening my vc, and it works equally well for the rabbit turds. It was a blueberry crate, and he cut the bottom out of it, and attached the wire. 

I'm thinking that if someone wanted to buy it for their roses/garden, they might be turned off by a strong ammonia smell. 



> Worm poo is actually better than rabbit poo and probably more valuable to sell.


VC can be lower in N than bunny poop, but it's extremely rich in microlife, and the combination of the bunny poo/vc is _the perfect storm for plants. _ Yes, it is more valuable to sell - I sell mine for $1 per liter, and I'm hoping to try my hand at aerated vc tea summer. 

Kyah


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## stranger

A 10 ft hunk of snow fence with 6 steel posts to make a circle, toss the manure in the compost pile and let it cook..


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## notasnowballs

I'm experimenting this year, with an eye toward a future in selling either compost or rabbit poo, or using the material as a way to cut down the feed bill. The chickens free range most of the time, so they spend most of their time digging underneath the rabbit cages, picking out and spreading out every scrap of stray hay, and stray grain that gets dropped, as well as poking through all the rabbit pellets. I notice they dig up a lot of red worms, and their eggs are awesome, and they have a lot of fat on their carcasses. Between that and the grass they eat out in the yard... that's all they get to eat. Must be workin'. 

Now I have to pen up the chickens in Spring to keep the garden safe. So this year the "chicken tractor", which is actually about the size of a chicken hutch, but made in wire... is getting filled full of the stuff I rake out from underneath the rabbit cages. It's a covered wire rectangle about 10 feet long by 8 feet wide, and five or six feet tall in two inch fencing wire. I have a door in it and I just chuck all the rabbit cleanings in there. It's mostly hay and not so much poo, but I try to dig up the stuff underneath, because I'm trying to get red worms in there. In this area where the chickens are, I had a little pig in there first, but he has moved to a bigger pen now. I'm am thinking there are plenty of red worms in that place. I don't know that the chickens get many of them in this place, because they pack it down on top. I try to go in there once a week or so and turn the whole place over with a pitch fork, both to feed the chickens worms because they seem too stupid to dig very deep, and to turn the compost pile.

So I was thinking at the very least the chickens could help me create a very large compost pile and maybe get some red worms in the bargain. I throw them some grain, too. They just don't do as well cooped up as they do running free, sadly. 

I figure maybe next year I will have some heckuva good compost pile that I can bag up and sell, or use for potting soil or something. Poop's gotta go somewhere!


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## Bluefirephoenix

I raise mine on stove pellets that are compressed hardwood. It absorbs the urine and breaks down nicely. I'll see how the garden does on it this year but it's not as acidic as the shavings. you might try that and then sell it as rabbit pill mulch or something like that. I'm mildly allergic to the pine shavings so I try to avoid them whenever possible.


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## Fire-Man

I collect the rabbit poop on window screens as soom of you know, that way the urine goes through the screen. I dump the screens about twice a week into a plastic tote. If the weather is calling for a Sunny day-- I dump the poop onto a 6ft x 12ft thing I got made out of tin. Its 3 pieces of 5V tin, 12ft x 2ft wide nailed to a wooden frame. I like the 5V because it gives me alot of flat surface and the raised part gives me a gauge/guide to spread it out with. If its a pretty sunny day and I put it out early and have it spread out good----it will be dry late that evening, If its not dry and no rain is expected I just leave it till the next day. If rain is expected I collect it back into the same tote and spread it back out the next Sunny day. It only takes minutes because I got a light weight tool to spread it out with----its 3 ft wide with a aluminum handle. I use a push broom to sweep it back into the tote. I been doing this for several years and it works good. I have many bags stored now to use when I plant my garden in a couple weeks. There is no smell doing it this way. I also do the chicken poop the same way and bag it seperate.


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## notasnowballs

How do you get all the hay out of it? My bunnies waste a lot of hay onto the ground, but I scoop it up and throw it in with the chickens. This will be a first, not having the chickens break up all the pellets for me into dirt.


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## Fire-Man

notasnowballs said:


> How do you get all the hay out of it? My bunnies waste a lot of hay onto the ground, but I scoop it up and throw it in with the chickens. This will be a first, not having the chickens break up all the pellets for me into dirt.


I do not have alot of hay in with the poop-a little but not alot so I do not try to get it out. I have "Winded" the poop before to get most of the hay out, but keep in mind that all mine is caught on screens so the poop and hay is dry.
To wind it I scoop it up and pour it in front of a fan over a container----(the fan is about 2ft higher than the container and I hold the scoop higher than the fan and slowly shake/tilt the scoop so a smaller amount will be falling)the poop will fall into the container and the wind will blow the loose hay farther away. 
If you have alot of hay that the rabbits are wasting I would make some hay feeders to hang on the outside of the cages or change something so alot is not wasted. My rabbits usually get one piece of hay out the feeder, eat it then get another. Even when I just lay it on top of some of the cages they do not waste alot.(After typing this I got to thinking-you might be using chopped hay instead of longer strand hay--I have used this before and I place a little of the hay in crocks so they do not waste it as bad. If you just put piles of hay in their cages for beds Etc, I do not do that so I have no experience in getting that much hay and poop seperated--LOL)


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## Mickey328

Where are you located, Truckinguy? If you're where it's not too humid, come spring you can spread the manure out and let the sun dry it for you. We're in "high desert" so spreading it on our driveway for a few days works well for us...though the neighbors aren't thrilled with it, LOL. You're right...dried bunny berries have pretty much no smell at all. You could make frames with any sort of small mesh...like window screen, and prop them up off the ground so the air gets around them...just have to tarp them during rain.

It might be easier to just leave it in a pile and advertise it. Most folks who know how wonderful it is for the garden probably won't care. We got our first batch from a local lady who advertises on Craig's List periodically...she's amended her entire property and now gives away the excess. We just headed over with some big buckets and a couple of shovels and scooped it up. It was just a tad ripe in the van on the way back but it cleared out quickly and we took the buckets and dumped it right on the garden and compost pile. It's awesome stuff!


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## Catsdogschickensrabbits

steve-in-kville said:


> So if a grower wanted to sell dried rabbit manure for rose gardeners, how would one go about drying it out? I'm thinking about a few ideas, but was hoping someone ventured down this road already and could offer some good suggestions.


Harvest Right freeze drying is idea I just duscussed in a group.
Do you have updates?
I see people sell rabbit poop on eBay.
I inherited rescue chickens and rabbits living out their life on a farmette.


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## Danaus29

GAG! GROSS! DISGUSTING! Why on earth would you use a *FOOD *freeze dryer to dry *POOP*?????

The op hasn't logged on in over 4 years. I doubt they will come back now to give updates.


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