Rabbits produce manure that is arguably the BEST for the
gardeners' purposes. It is ready for use with absolutely no
composting: no building bins, no heavy work turning the piles,
no trucking in loads of manure from animals who may be heavily
medicated. Just park an old wheelbarrow under the cage if you
like, wheel to the garden, and dump. If you want to water
houseplants or tender seedlings, make a manure tea using a quart
or more of rabbit droppings soaked in five gallons of water. Let
it sit for a day or two, stir a few times, then strain the tea
into your watering can to avoid clogging with the fine fibers.
You can dump the fibrous remainder around your berry bushes or
other shrubs as mulch.
When the whole of the manure is mixed into soil for growing
vegetables, its combination of available nutrients and well
broken-down fiber mulch gives incredible results. I've gardened
in large plastic pots using intensive polyculture methods
(basically a major plant and a few smaller ones), and have
produced lots of food more reliably than most family gardeners
in gopher and deer country like California.
So what's the cost? Well, wherever you live, there are probably
discarded "pet" rabbits at local animal shelters, many of which
may be nearly impossible to handle. These animals could be
rescued from "euthanasia" and allowed to finish their lives in a
cool shady corner of a garden or in- a cage hanging from the
north side of an outbuilding, or maybe inside an old horse stall
or garage if the winters are harsh. Rabbits die from heat and
wind, rarely just from cold temperatures. Choose the large
rabbits, as the tiny ones cannot live outside even in milder
climates. With some used cages and less than $25 in watering
equipment, rabbit manure can be produced right in your own
garden.
What does this splendid organic manure cost? Rabbit pellets sell
for about $9 per 50-pound bag. Growing your own fodder will be
cheaper. You can cut costs by feeding the rabbits organic waste
from tree prunings and vegetables, but you must first learn
which plants are okay for general use, which for a small portion
of diet, and which are deadly, like swiss chard and other oxalic
acid plants.
And there would be double satisfaction: at first, saving some
small animal lives that would otherwise be wasted. Then later,
the great joy of raising top-notch vegetables and fruits, and
using less water too!
Meat Production
Rabbits are the most economical, labor efficient, and practical
way to produce protein. This protein production also has some
terrific by-products. I've always been very interested in
feeding the hungry"it was my motivation from the beginning. It
was why I started out as a vegan, and how I've become a rabbit
raiser. I nearly cried for relief when I did my own conversion
rates and realized that with rabbits as clean and resilient as
they are, that is, needing no antibiotics, and as well as the
manure works, that THIS was the way we could feed everyone a
nonchemical diet without chemical "fertilizers," especially in
remote areas where nothing grows but brush, and the soil is dry
and depleted. I can grow veggies in almost any soil using rabbit
manure, and it holds moisture about as well as those little
"water pellet" granules made of cross-linked polyacrylamides,
which look like jello.
Rabbit, chicken, and turkey all have similar protein percentages
by weight, with beef, lamb, and pork being from 49% less. Rabbit
meat has nearly one gram more protein per ounce than chicken,
and nearly one gram less fat. It has 15 calories less per pound,
and here's the important one for lots of people: the cholesterol
is much lower, even than chicken white meat. AH other meats
range from 220-259 mg/lOOg, while rabbit has 164 mg/lOOg. Also
noteworthy, rabbit is the richest source of zinc except for
oysters, which are bottom feeders, difficult to farm, and very
slow growers.