Is This Safe To Use In Compost or As Fertilizer?

[virginiadear]

Let me say right off the bat I feel completely foolish asking this question.

My garden is enclosed with livestock 2" x4" welded mesh about 4.5' high to keep out two-footed varmints with opposable thumbs, if you get my drift.
The neighborhood cats no longer bother trying to get in to use any soft, bare earth as their...convenience.

But I've just

Comments

[trickofthedark]

I use my pet rabbits' droppings in the garden. It's not 'hot' like other manures (cow, chicken), so you can use fresh rabbit droppings without composting, just sprinkled around your plants. I also sometimes put it in the compost bin along with peed-upon rabbit litterbox hay and that works very well. However, just because your garden has not been mowed by wild rabbits yet, don't assume the explorer who visited your garden won't bring her kids for lunch a little later, when you've got something fresh and tender on offer.

If you had your own pet rabbits and were getting visited by wild rabbits, I would suggest your pet rabbits get vaccines for myxomatosis. Otherwise I don't think there is much disease worry between rabbits and humans.

[virginiadear]

By the time there is something fresh and tender on offer, we may have managed to get additional, smaller mesh wire (like two-inch poultry wire, perhaps?) around the bottom of the enclosure. Or, not. I have to admit I've been way, way behind on the gardening tasks this year! They're getting done, just not as soon as I'd planned on having got them done.

No; I don't have pet rabbits.

You've touched on my main concern, though: disease. Essentially disease or diseases spread through contaminating the ground (or the compost) with the droppings I'd like to use either in the compost bin (just to add more organic matter to it) or as a manure tea.

I'm in Zone 6a and for the most part our veggie gardens in this region have been put to sleep for the winter weather. I was thinking perhaps saving the rabbit droppings and then using them for manure tea next season, or putting them in the compost bin and then applying them to the soil in the form of compost, but only if the droppings of wild rabbits are safe to use...?

[ioanna_ioannina]

Zoonoses; rabbits: http://www.boingonline.com/zoonoses.html
Maybe it will help you a bit.

[virginiadear]

Thanks! :-)

[kitszoo]

Rabbit pellets are round berries, about the size of the berries out of captain crunch.

If you are being visited by wild rabbits and they're leaving their black gold behind, score! :D Like what trickofthedark says, just till them in if its that season, or just let them stay on top. You can also rake them up and "brew" them in water to make a "tea" and then water your garden with it.

[virginiadear]

I'm not up on all the cold breakfast cereals, so [*grins*] I'll have to check with a friend's kid, I think.

It's the tea I was thinking of, but didn't know if this is a a safe thing to do with *wild* rabbit droppings.
My big concern is health and safety, whether there is, or are, any disease/s which might be transmitted to humans in the rabbit or squirrel droppings?
I'm figuring those droppings are a source of nutrients and shouldn't be ignored if they're beneficial.

[swampfaye]

I could be squirrels if you aren't finding your veggies pilfered or nibbled. THey like to use that nice soft area (cleared out or raised beds, etc) for burying their winter storage. They do this a lot when the mulch is put down with the trees, or fresh soil is composted, etc. This actually happens to me a lot, though my garden is all containers. But their droppings should be just as good as rabbit.

If you get up early enough, at first light, you may be able to catch them in the act. If your cats aren't using the area, and it's fenced off, or harder for other animals to get to, it's yet another reason I'd suspect squirrels.

[virginiadear]

Oh, I ought to have said! The piles are actually on the lawn! (The paths between the bed are lawn. I'd had this kind of medieval design in mind when I laid out the beds, y'see.... So I have grass pathways.)
My big concern is whether or not rabbit (or, now that you mention it, squirrel) droppings contain anything that might be transmitted to humans. This garden is all vegetables, fruits, berries and herbs with some foxglove in the beds as a "general benefactor (the French swear by it as a universal companion plant, I've read.)

[rhiannon_s]

probably a silly question, but are you sure they aren't rat droppings? A lot of people seem to get them mixed up for some reason. Can you provide us with a photo?

[virginiadear]

Not a silly question at all.

I will try to provide a photo before Monday, otherwise by or rather on Monday.
I had thought, though, that rats didn't use the same spot consistently? That they just sort of "made" whenever and wherever they happened to be when the "making" was needed as long as it wasn't in their own nest?

[bailey36]

rat droppings are not round, they are elongated like mouse droppings only much bigger. Do not ask me how I know....

[virginiadear]

*Smpfflpgh!!!*
Rat droppings do look like mouse droppings on steroids, and I'm acquainted with the appearance of mouse droppings.
At the moment I'm away from home, but I did get a couple of photos earlier today and can upload them tomorrow or by Monday at the latest, depending on how the next couple of days shape up weather-wise and outdoor work-wise.

[squid_ink]

are you sure it's not deer droppings? Deer can EASILY scale a 4 foot fence (you have to go as high as 6-8 feet to keep them out)

they're poo is compostable too if you don't have Chronic wasting disease in your area, so go for it!

[virginiadear]

Good point. We discussed it, a friend and I. Neither of us is of the opinion that these droppings are made by deer and, again, *nothing's* been touched---and that's sooooo not like deer! There's a lush row of parsley (which I ought to harvest and use for...something. But I admit *I'm* not sure it's not deer