# Not letting rabbit poop run your life... Tips??



## GreenMomma (Jun 3, 2008)

I would LOVE to know how those of you with rabbits in stationary cages *do* manure. I'd love to have a tractor set up, but right now don't. Won't be able to pull it off any time soon.

We have hanging cages and I would love to live in a world where I could spend a minimal amount of time cleaning up and have no smell problems, fly issues or unhealthy conditions! Having this many rabbits is new to me and I have a sneaking suspicion I'm making it harder/more time consuming than it needs to be but could really, REALLY use some experienced folks' tips. I'm trying worm composting bins and just this morning set them up to catch everything on their own (only under one bank of cages for now.)

The other side is a tarp catch system that funnels into a muck bucket and I still have one grow out cage that drops directly onto the ground for raking. 

Maybe I should just hang trays under them for dumping??


----------



## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

You will get lots of replies with different ways of to do poo! Are your hanging cages outside or in a building? That will make a difference. I am guessing they are outside. 

I thought containers of some sort for worm composting was the way to go. I quickly found that the bins collected the urine too and wound up with a stinking soggy mess. I tried drilling holes in the bottom and that helped. But when it came time to empty them they were really heavy.

Hubby later made me a guttering system out of vinyl house guttering. There is vinyl corrugated sheeting under the cages and the poo and urine runn off into the gutter. I keep a small bucket at the end of the gutter where there is a downspout. Most of the urine runs on its own into the small bucket and I just dump it. Then I push the poo that doesnt all run off the corragted sheets off into the gutter and push it all down to the end and down into the empty bucket and dump it into my compost bins. Before I switch to the small buckets I used a 5 gal bucket w holes in the bottom that sat inside another 5 gal bucket. This allowed the pee to run into the bottom bucket and I just left it under the downspout until the 5 gal bucket was full. This actually worked pretty good except a 5 gallon bucket of poo was still a little heavy for me. And one set of buckets had a suction that stuck the two buckets together and it was soo hard to wrestle them apart. 

The gutter system was pretty cheap to make and it can all be hosed off every day. I like what I'm doing the best of what I've tried so far. I have a double row of cages and if I'd known I would eventually have the gutter system instead of tubs underneath I would have built my little pole barn higher so I had room under the bottom row for another gutter system. But its too low to the ground and no way to change it.

Good luck and I hope you find something you like. Many people will give you suggestions here and it will be up to you to pick the one you can best manage.


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

GreenMomma
I just posted to your worm composting thread what I do with my worm poop. If you want to see some pictures how my set-up is done. I will post some. My set-up is so simple/easy it almost like there is nothing much to do. I use to have the angled/gutter set-up and with 30 to 80 rabbits I spent alot of time Cleaning, trying to not have any urine smell to mount to anything. Was alot of work.


----------



## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

You might advertise free rabbit poo and have people who come take it away, doing your clean up for you often. I know at least 3 people who have complained how they want rabbit or chicken poo but don't want to own the rabbits or chickens(or it's illegal).


----------



## Nate_in_IN (Apr 5, 2013)

We have a rose bed. Rabbit poo can go directly onto the bed. We use shovels and a wheel-barrow to move it. No problems with smells and the best roses you have ever seen.

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Homesteading Today mobile app


----------



## countryfied2011 (Jul 5, 2011)

I just have containers/totes that I got at the dollar store....I have hutches and they each have their own favorite spot they like to go so i sit the tote under there. I put horse pellet bedding in the totes and depending how hot it is I sometimes sprinkle sweet PDZ in there under the pellets. The pellets soak up the urine and swell. Both pellets and PDZ don't hurt the garden. Once or twice a week unless it has rained I empty the totes(they are not real big) into the wheel barrel and dump it next to the garden. I also have free range chickens that keep the fly population in tack, they scratch through the tote and eat whatever bugs are in there. It takes me about 30 minutes to dump and rake at the most and I have 12 rabbits.


----------



## paradox (Nov 19, 2012)

We have a shop vac bought only for this purpose. It only takes a few minutes to walk around and vacuum the poo off the ground. Dump that in a large plastic drum to be picked up later by gardeners.


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

paradox said:


> We have a shop vac bought only for this purpose. It only takes a few minutes to walk around and vacuum the poo off the ground. Dump that in a large plastic drum to be picked up later by gardeners.


Well I think I will advertise in my area to see if anyone has free poop I can pick up. If I had 100 rabbits I do not think that would give me the Poop I want.


----------



## redneckswife (May 2, 2013)

I have 5-55 gallon heavy duty barrels of poop right now, what people don't want for free;we put on my 75 yr old father's 2 acre garden and we put on our fruit trees.

If one of the 5 kids left at home is in trouble:nono:...I know who isn't shoveling poop into barrels this week..MEound:!


----------



## GreenMomma (Jun 3, 2008)

I'm going to go look at the composting thread now... Thanks for replying- yes I'd love to see pictures! 

The worm composting idea seems to fit the best with our overall self sustaining plan. Lots of worms to supplement the chickens in the summer when things get dry. They eat through and compost everything and we can use the worm poop in the garden (and trade it for honey and produce locally).

BUT- I'm getting nervous about my system already, lol.

We have a 12 x 12 horse shelter for our rabbitry. There are hanging cages down 2 walls and 2 free standing cages on the other 2 walls. I found a stacker today at a yard sale and the gal is not quite done with it, but in a month or so I'll buy that from her and replace one of my free standing cages with it.

We have 9 rabbits right now and 2, maybe 3 does (one is her first breeding and just barely old enough so we shall see if she took or not) bred. 

For experiments sake, I am trying something different with each cage. I've got one that is just poop and pee falling on the bare dirt ground. One cage has the composting bins under it, they are moved to spots that catch most of the poop and let most of the pee fall on the bare dirt ground. There are misc. poop pellets on the ground, but I think I can rake that in very little time, probably a couple times a month and stay on top of it. It's really very little. I also moved the bins so that the water bottles can't drip into them to help keep the moisture down.

On the other set of hanging cages is a tarp hung under to funnel the manure and pee into a muck bucket. This is the easiest of the systems, however, also the most disgusting. Very wet, I found maggots the last time I dumped it. The chickens loved that part, but I don't love the increase in fly population. Or the smell.

For sanitation I like just raking it off the ground once a day. Smells good in there, the manure buckets are dry, so very lightweight. I like a trash can on wheels for the dry manure like that, it takes forever to fill up and is easy to move around.

The ONLY thing I don't like is spending time every day raking it up. I tried skipping a day in between and it turned out that there was pretty much no additional time to clean, but it grossed me out to see turds all over the entire floor. (I know, I just can't get past it though.)

I have been using the pelleted bedding on the tarp system to soak up urine, hoping that would help with the smell and such. Not so much. It does soak it up, but I think it's just wasted money for me so far. And adding to the mass that I have to dump. 

I love the Sweet PDZ on the urine spots on the dry dirty though!! And I add a litttle DE to the ground as well. Can't add that to the worm bins, though.

I'm thinking that the plastic worm bins might be what I *want* to work, but it could be one of those things that really only works correctly if I fully commit and jump in with both feet, constructing an actual, permanent bin under the entire length of the cages.

Yikes. I'm not quite brave enough for that yet.

SherryB- I think my tarp system sounds a lot like your gutter system. Do you mind if I ask how much time you spend on the manure clean up each day?


----------



## GreenMomma (Jun 3, 2008)

I LOVE the shop vac idea! 

redneckswife- how do you collect the manure? And how the heck do you move those around when they are full?


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

GreenMomma said:


> I'm going to go look at the composting thread now... Thanks for replying- yes I'd love to see pictures!


 
GreenMomma, Look at the first picture close and you will see white window screens directly under the cages. These collect the poop and the urine goes to the dirt. My rabbitery is on wheels (second picture) so if their is even a slight smell of urine---I hook to the trailer and move it to another spot. This Rabbitery only takes a few minutes per week to keep clean. Really!!

The third picture was my old set-up that required alot more time cleaning---I still caught the poop on screens and the urine went into drains that went under ground to a makeshift septic tank out back. This kept the urine smell down but the amount of time it took to keep the angled tin and drains washed down was more than I wanted. Keep in mine that it was a 22 hole rabbitery(you can see only part of it in this picture)

The poop on the screens is dumped into a plastic tote, some is added to the worm beds, the rest either dried and stored or used directly in the garden if needed at that time.


----------



## redneckswife (May 2, 2013)

Fire-man I'm still so envious! Those are some lucky rabbits and a smart owner.

I looked at this thread for ideas, hubby has wanted to implement some kind of "catch-system" we tried with the sides of one of those old vinyl stand-up pools(my friend was chunking his old school pool so we modified it) to funnel it. I didn't care for it. It attracted a lot of flies.

That's how we found the hanging fly-jugs at TSC. They were reusable and all we had to get was the vials of replacement fluid. The top even had a hole in the lid, so we hung them under the rabbit cages. Just wished they had worked on Mosquitos.

I love hearing all of your ideas for how to make rabbit clean-up less time consuming:rock:.

Green Mama, our rabbits have been under a very large,old pecan tree for awhile so it's just dirt under the cages. The hay they kick out also seems to keep the grass down as well. So directly under each pod is (yep, unfortunately) just poop & hay. Twice a week I go thru the "walkways" with a rake to keep the paths cleared and I rake it under the hutches. Once a week, it gets shoveled into the barrels the tiring old fashioned way. My dad is a beekeeper so he always has a great dolly available(for stacking a couple of 5 gallon buckets of honey onto move-he's 75) and we just slide the barrels onto the dolly and move.Thankfully, Hubby is a big man so I take advantage of the "muscle":grin:.

When my daughter decided to run off to college she had bought an indoor cage from TSC with one of those removable trays, we thought-great idea and tried that, unfortunately it caused quit a few splash backs on the boys, so we scratched that.

I love the idea of the window screens:bow:.

Homesteaders are some creative people:thumb:


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

redneckswife said:


> Fire-man I'm still so envious! Those are some lucky rabbits and a smart owner.
> 
> I looked at this thread for ideas,
> 
> ...


 
Thanks Redneckswife!
The screens were given to me several years back and when I took them I had no idea what I was going to do with them---LOL.

Cleaning the screens when needed is made easier by soaking them. I found a plastic laundry cart(like motels use with the wheels) for $5 at a auction. I got it buried almost up to the top and these screens will stand up perfect in it. I buried it for a aquaponic fish holding tank, but I have not been doing the aquaponics this year so I put the tank to work as a screen soak! I do have a big garden tub that I got for free that I used before with my older set-up and it works great too to soak the screens in(its just farther away which is why I use the aquaponic tank). Once the screens soak and I have a few minutes I spray them off with the water hose and let them dry--then store them in the top(overhead) of the Meals-On-Wheels trailer because I have alot of extra ones.

I have been to auctions and yardsales since I started using these screens and have found free to almost free screens that I got stored. You can go to Lowes and get the stuff to make these screens any size you want---which only takes a few minutes per screen once you get set-up. You can take used ones that are to big and cut them down in minutes to fit your appilication. With my old set-up the squirrels would get between the angled tin and the screens and tear a hole in the nylon screen to get to spilled food----which can be patched or the screen can be replaced easy. I do not have that problem in the new set-up.

Redneckswife and others, I know it took some time and some money to build my new set-up, but my plans are to stay in the rabbit raising for years to come----I set down and thought this out---trying to figure a way to cut my time(mainly cleaning) down so Raising rabbits was Not a burden. This Meals On Wheels was the Best Thing I have ever done when it comes to rabbit raising. 

I know my set-up is to big for alot of you, but you can make movable rabbit pens by using a old boat trailer frame, a old discarded childs wagon wheels/handle. I have even used the plastic tires off a discarded battery operated childs toy(they go in the dump every day) to make a movable tractor etc.

You can take a old boat trailer frame---say 16ft long. Remove the rollers/guides and set-up alot of your already built cages back to back, add a light weight top and you are in business. 

If I was in a really cold winter area. I would fix my cages where I could roll them inside/under sheds during the winter then roll them out side the rest of the year. 

I know this would not work for some like Sherry, but It would for alot of you.


Make rabbit raising Fun and as easy as you can!!


----------



## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

We let poo drop to the ground in our buildings currently. We clean underneath maybe 3-4x per year. It smells like rabbits in our barn but the smell is NOT offensive nor does it smell like ammonia. NOT a strong smell - I always hear of people with pans complaining of the odor and it's usually because the pans don't allow drainage so the poo/urine just sits there wet and smelly - ew. That is NOT a problem with our setup. If your poo is falling in the ground and there is a smell you need to improve drainage or ventilation or both. 

Our new setup will not allow poo buildup under the cages. Instead, we plan on having a gutter system. It will be swept daily (angle will not be enough to get all the poo to go into the gutter, we're fine with that - the urine should go on it's own) and then pushed down to a bucket or bin at the end of the gutter system. For both the upper and lower levels - the lower level is too low to the ground, and we'd otehrwise have to clean it more often than we want too.  Hard to know for sure but we're expecting the system to need sweeping/pushing be done at least every day or every other day. We'll take the full buckets/bins and replace them with empty ones. That chore in itself should take about 5-10 mins, not that big of a chore.  I think I'm going to make it a 'thing' that the system gets flushed whenever we fill the auto waterer we will also have going - which should be a couple times per month.


----------



## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Greenmamma, I dont think the guttering sys sounds at all like the tarp!  I knew the minute I read you used that it would be too yucky for me! Ive never timed myself and I never get in a rush to do it as I fiddle around with the rabbits as I go. If I guessed at the time and didnt fiddle around I dont think it would take me more than 10 minutes and this includes taking some clorox wipes and wiping down the coragted sheets after I hose them off. Its a 12 ft long space if that helps you compare to your set up.


----------



## GreenMomma (Jun 3, 2008)

I LOVE the idea of making my own Meals on Wheels with a boat trailer!!! That's my new ******* wish (an old boat trailer). I could turn the current rabbitry into another goat barn  I hadn't thought of putting my hanging cages back to back on a system like that. Love it!

I think if the worm bins don't pan out (which I'm still hoping they will), I'll just go back to letting everything drop to the ground and rake it up. I haven't been through a winter with this many rabbits, so I was hoping to have a new plan in place and working before everything is wet. But so far, I think I'd rather deal with a few extra minutes of raking than the smell and moisture of the muck bucket that catches all the urine.

I wonder if I could "hybrid" the screen idea with my tarp system... Hang the screen material under the cages to catch and funnel the manure into the bucket but allow the urine to drain through to the ground. I'll have to find some screen material to experiment with


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

GreenMomma said:


> I wonder if I could "hybrid" the screen idea with my tarp system... Hang the screen material under the cages to catch and funnel the manure into the bucket but allow the urine to drain through to the ground. I'll have to find some screen material to experiment with


 
You can do that, but some of the hay pieces will get caught in the screen wire and can be a pain in the butt to keep it clean.


----------



## redneckswife (May 2, 2013)

GreenMomma said:


> I LOVE the idea of making my own Meals on Wheels with a boat trailer!!! That's my new ******* wish (an old boat trailer).


It's funny you say that, I have an 16' boat trailer outside that just has lumber piled up on it:grin:.

I wish I had know before, I gave 2 other old 16' boat trailers to a guy who wanted them for scrap:hammerone had a flat tire and the other's pulley weld was broke).

Hubby had wanted to keep them, but I said they were just taking up space in the yard. After him seeing this last night, he looks at me and gives me "that look" and I immediately admit he was right-He could of used them for some project:hammer:


----------



## familyfarmer (Jan 26, 2013)

Fireman, do you have plans you used for your Meals on Wheels rabbit set-up? My husband can build just about anything if he has plans. We might not be able to do it immediately, but having a plan is half the battle. Thanks!


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

familyfarmer said:


> Fireman, do you have plans you used for your Meals on Wheels rabbit set-up? My husband can build just about anything if he has plans. We might not be able to do it immediately, but having a plan is half the battle. Thanks!


No Plans, but I can show you a few more pictures as it was being built if you want to see them.

I never been one to build by plans---I sketch it out on paper like how long/wide/tall and get to work.


----------



## 1sttimemom (Mar 1, 2005)

I really like the Meal on Wheels trailer. If I had that I could just pull it around the pasture and not do any clean-up. I would let the poo and pee just drop through. It would be awesome!!!:spinsmiley: Sadly, here in North Eastern Colorado our winters can be nasty and we have BRUTAL cold winds. This open type system would probably be too cold for young bunnies and the water system would freeze for sure!

Right now we have our 9 rabbits in the "Bunny wagon" as I call it. I've talked about it before but it the gutted out small camper trailer that we bought as a ready to go rabbit barn. The gal who sold to us built it when she went to college so she could continue her dwarf rabbit breeding/showing hobby. It has the gutter type system in it. It uses plastic corrugated roof type panels cut to size. the slope under the cages and are supposed to run into a rain gutter system along the front of cages and out holes cut in floor of trailer. The prob is the poo doesn't all run out and end up building up and clogging the gutters. We just clean as needed & hose the entire thing out every couple months or so. The camper has some insulation value and we keep it from freezing with a tiny elec space heater on very low setting. We could put an air conditioner in summer but so far haven't done that. We just park in shade with windows open and fan inside.


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

1sttimemom, I know the Meals on Wheels will not work for some area's, but if you run across a deal on a frame, some cages----maybe you and others could switch to something similiar during the warmer months. 

Let me say this---if you could switch to screens to catch the poop it would probably save you alot of time and aggrivation of unclogging drains.


----------



## 1sttimemom (Mar 1, 2005)

Yes, I've thought about it for the summer months. You do have a very cool set-up there!! My dad and uncle are the ultimate scroungers...sooner or later they will find me a free or very cheap old trailer.


----------



## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Hey now Fire-man! I sure couldnt have a camper or boat trailer but when you mention childrens wagons or garden carts then I can sure envision a cute little grow out meals on wheels pen. Can I hire you to build it?!


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

SherryB said:


> Hey now Fire-man! I sure couldnt have a camper or boat trailer but when you mention childrens wagons or garden carts then I can sure envision a cute little grow out meals on wheels pen. Can I hire you to build it?!


 
Sure---let me know the size you want it, I will get it ready and you can run "UP" and pick it up----LOL.

Something similiar to this----would put you in business. 

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/sto...den-utility-cart-800-lb-capacity?cm_vc=-10005


----------

