What is the difference between rabbit and horse poo?

A thought struck me yesterday and got me going. What is the difference between rabbit and horse poo. Besides the size I mean. They both have the same digestive system and thereby the same product. And they eat about the same things. Alfalfa is the primary diet and maybe some grain when its cold outside. So what is the difference in the poo? Now the question is when did this strike me. Yesterday I was shifting out some well aged roadapples and while breaking them down I noticed that all I was seeing was small pieces of alfalfa that had been cycled through our four legged therapist so I was getting aged plant material which I am planning to add to my MM as one of the five ingredients on the compost side. Well if its the same thing as rabbit poo, why not add it to the garden as a dressing? Let the discussion begin.

Rabbit poop has the highest nitrogen content of all compost-worthy poops. Horse poop is high as well, and obviously much easier to obtain in volume.

I read this week that rabbit poop can actually be placed directly in your garden without being composted, but you won't find me doing that.

If you have access to free horse, cow, or hen feces, you should consider yourself very fortunate. My only access to free horse manure is to go to the horse trails in our park and bag it myself, again something you won't find me doing.

Gunny wrote:A thought struck me yesterday and got me going. What is the difference between rabbit and horse poo. Besides the size I mean. They both have the same digestive system and thereby the same product. And they eat about the same things. Alfalfa is the primary diet and maybe some grain when its cold outside. So what is the difference in the poo? Now the question is when did this strike me. Yesterday I was shifting out some well aged roadapples and while breaking them down I noticed that all I was seeing was small pieces of alfalfa that had been cycled through our four legged therapist so I was getting aged plant material which I am planning to add to my MM as one of the five ingredients on the compost side. Well if its the same thing as rabbit poo, why not add it to the garden as a dressing? Let the discussion begin.

Gunny, if you use the search feature over on the left side of your screen, right above the latest topics, you can enter a search for rabbit manure and get lots of results. You can do the same for horse.
However, this link will give you the breakdown of manures by animal.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm

Good article
SO I am curious why rabbit poo is safe in the garden before composting with the high nitrogen levels? I know that chicken manure is too hot unless composted. It can be lightly sprinkled and watered in (I do this on the flower beds), used like fertilizer granules, but that is not what people seem to be doing with rabbit.

Turan wrote:Good article
SO I am curious why rabbit poo is safe in the garden before composting with the high nitrogen levels? I know that chicken manure is too hot unless composted. It can be lightly sprinkled and watered in (I do this on the flower beds), used like fertilizer granules, but that is not what people seem to be doing with rabbit.

Good question. I thought all manures should be composted. I don't think I would be one to add "raw" manure to my garden, but perhaps I'm missing something. If nothing else, I would think you would want manure composted for safety sake.

I think the organic standard is that all manures have to be composted a certain length of time. Somewhere we have a thread that went over this. However, it is pretty commonly stated that rabbit and llama do not need to be composted first though most people do. So I am wondering where lies the reality versus conservative caution versus gardeners tales.

Has anyone really mixed 1/3 fresh rabbit poo or llama poo into MM and grown a variety of stuff successfully? A friend of mine in California used to mix her rabbitry cleanings direct into her soil for gardening. But I think she let the beds rest a bit before planting and the droppings had already sat a bit between cleanings. Certainly she did not go through the level of composting we talk about here. Her garden did fine.

Thanks ROoster for the link, here is what it says...

How common manures measure up:

Manure Source
N-P-K

Chicken
1.1 .80 .50

Diary cow
.25 .15 .25

Horse
.70 .30 .60

Steer
.70 .30 .40

Rabbit
2.4 1.4 .60

Sheep
.70 .30 .90

Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An Illustrated Guide to
Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the Rodale Guide to Composting.

Note: Nutrient values of manures vary greatly, depending on the diet and
age of the animals, and the nature and quantity of bedding in the mix.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm

Llama manure

1.7
.69
.67

But remember any analysis for any manure can change depending on a variety of factors

Lama mamma there are days, after reading you, that I wish you were my neighbor!

I did not see where anyone else mentioned this so....
Horse poo (or at least the pony poo I used to shovel) is large and course. You can break it up with a shovel. A grass fed horse has lots of semi digested roughage. Bunny poo is small and comes in two types. Finished and cud. Bunnies are said to chew cud but, having only one stomach it goes through them and is delivered as pellets (I KNOW!) It all looks about the same with hutch bunnies who generally sit on a wire floor so that it drops down before they can chew it.

Having both raised bunnies and gardens, I have tried using bunny pellets directly in the garden. They don't seem to break down too well. I've tossed them into compost rich with chicken bedding. After about 6 to 8 weeks it was still in pellet form. BUT the bunny poo that sat too long under the hutch because some child of mine fibbed about cleaning out the hutches (and some lazy momma didn't check up on him), that poo broke down into nice, crumbly "stuff" that was great in the garden. Worms love it!

This probably doesn't help much.

Lavender Debs wrote:Lama mamma there are days, after reading you, that I wish you were my neighbor!

Thanks Lavender Debs, No it's not me, it's the llama poo, I know it! just teasing
Speaking of which, I've wondered for a long time if there was a "real" market for llama manure. I entertained the selling process with Alan but then I dropped the ball so to speak. On one hand it seems cool, on the other hand selling manure strikes me as a very oddball thing to do at this stage of life, hmm no worse than my worms I guess

llama momma wrote:I've wondered for a long time if there was a "real" market for llama manure. I entertained the selling process, On one hand it seems cool.

I knew it! I just knew you were "weird"

what? me weird?

careful Bob or your nice new tabletops (overnight) may become ground boxes..

llama momma wrote:
Speaking of which, I've wondered for a long time if there was a "real" market for llama manure. I entertained the selling process with Alan but then I dropped the ball so to speak. On one hand it seems cool, on the other hand selling manure strikes me as a very oddball thing to do at this stage of life, hmm no worse than my worms I guess

Its been done~ Alpaca Compost, Potting Soil & Fertilizer
I did a lot of spinning for these folks. At one point the manure was paying the bills.

Gunny wrote:A thought struck me yesterday and got me going. What is the difference between rabbit and horse poo. Besides the size I mean. They both have the same digestive system and thereby the same product. And they eat about the same things. Alfalfa is the primary diet and maybe some grain when its cold outside. So what is the difference in the poo? Now the question is when did this strike me. Yesterday I was shifting out some well aged roadapples and while breaking them down I noticed that all I was seeing was small pieces of alfalfa that had been cycled through our four legged therapist so I was getting aged plant material which I am planning to add to my MM as one of the five ingredients on the compost side. Well if its the same thing as rabbit poo, why not add it to the garden as a dressing? Let the discussion begin.

I was going to say it's preferable to fall on some rabbit droppings and not horse droppings if your playing on a rough countryside village football field .


Rabbits eat bark and dried grasses more than horses . They also eat small saplings up to about 1/2" in diameter to get at the sweet sap in spring and as a source of food in harsh winters . in the wild rabbits rarely drink , in a farmed situation they do need to drink due the dryer / concentrated diets but their urine is still quite concentrates wrt that of a horse . horse need gallons of water each day their urine is quite differen in chemical content apparently
Rabbits take several fecal pellets covered in a whitish slime from their anus ( cocotrophy ( SP ) ) , usually at night and eat, it thus re infecting their gut with bacteria that helps break down the cellulose of their diet, far better than that of a horse. it is also much more finely masticated / chewed up .

They eat their own hair as a result of grooming them selves ... I don't think horses do . The proteins in the hair convert to all sorts of trace elements that are not usually found in field raised horses and vice versa. Rabbits will also usually eat their young if they die in the nest if under three weeks old , they also fairly often nibble off kit ears when grooming the baby kits .

Stabled fed horses have a different diet to field raised horses that graze and browse all waking hours , the droppings are of a different quality and have varing levels of nutrients and trace elements . Stabled horses usually have some urine content in the droppings even though some it may have evaporated .

I'm not an expert on " dung & urine " ( Honest ) though I did have to do a heck of a lot of research on what went in and came out of animals because of my line in small mammal farming on a large scale.




From my little note book some figures for your consideration.

Horse muck % neat N 0.6 , P 0.1 , K0.5
Rabbit muck & neat N 2.4 , P 0.5 , K 0.05


As a general rule :-
The rabbit muck can be used neat & fresh to give a big quick nitrogen feed to leafy plants for big green leaves and flowers but will be outpaced by the horse muck in the ( P ) Phosphorous and ( K) Potassium stakes in the root development and fruits .

There will be a risk of the plants getting what is referred to as burnt if you try and use uncomposted horse muck ( this applies to several other uncomposted dungs as well )
The burning is I suspect the depletion of nitrogen as the horse muck takes all it can find to get the composting action going , thus depleting the nitrogen readily available to the plants. After a few months of being in the damp ground the horse muck stops taking nitrogen and starts producing it once the intiial decay of composting has taken place.
The symptoms of burn are usually floppy yellow leaves a few days after planting and watering a health plant.

Turan -
Interesting, and yes I've thought about it but manure salesperson is not something I've dreamed of becoming, y'know? and yet I still wonder...

plantoid wrote: Rabbits take a fecal pellet from their anus , usually at night and eat it thus reinfecting ther gut with bacteria that helps break down the cellulose of their diet .

It's true and it's called coprophagy for those who like greek terminology.

llama momma wrote:Turan -
Interesting, and yes I've thought about it but manure salesperson is not something I've dreamed of becoming, y'know? and yet I still wonder...

I used to sell most of the stuff out the small mammal farm .
Perhaps
Get round / comply with the laws for the compilation and storage , get a big enough pile of well turned aged mixed muck and see if you can sell it to people in your area who make up ready bagged compost & garden topping soils if there are any .
Other wise bag it & seal it yourself and sell mail order in lots of ten bags .

PS
Thanks for the correct spelling of the rabbits natural dung eating .

..and thanks to you for the speed course in the manure business

NPK aside, two identical digestive tracks, same diet, what is the difference in the poo besides size. I am seeing only NPK values. That is not the question. What makes the difference in the poo if all the factors in making the poo are identical? Now that is the question.

One's from a rabbit and the other is from a horse...they are both manure, but obviously from different animals. I guess I'm missing your point here.

BUT, one can be used without composting and one has to be composted. WHY ! Is it the difference in pathogens in the horse manure maybe.

Gunny wrote:NPK aside, two identical digestive tracks, same diet, what is the difference in the poo besides size. I am seeing only NPK values. That is not the question. What makes the difference in the poo if all the factors in making the poo are identical? Now that is the question.

Because of the digestion systems being quite different.
The rabbit poo is broken down so that the nitrogen is readily available .

Horse muck requires you to give it a bit of composting before there will be useable nitrogen available.

yolos wrote:BUT, one can be used without composting and one has to be composted.

That's a matter of opinion/personal choice. I wouldn't add rabbit manure to my garden without being composted. Others might.

Years ago when I studied animal science, I remember a diagram in one of the texts that compared a rabbit gut to that of a horse gut and there was no difference. What distinguishes these two is the seacome (sp) that is what prompted my original question because all I was seeing while shifting was once through the mill alfalfa only in tiny pieces.

There is yards more intestine in a horses guts than that of a rabbit . Perhaps it's more to do with how long it stays in the intestines and how much goodness is extracted from the volume of input stuff.

I've got a sneaky feeling that the digestive juices are different ( much stronger for the horse ) as well so the final pH of the fresh dung matter will perhaps be different .

I googled horse digestive system and also rabbit digestive system for a quick comparison . I suppose we can say almost all animals have similar digestive systems except for the cow & other ruminents which have multiple stomachs