Will hay compost along with rabbit poop?

so what do i do with the hay already in my compost and when i clean the hutch which is every 2 days how do i get the poop seperated from the hay - and should i go for good with straw <br /><br /> -- Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:55 pm -- <br /><br /> what if i just stop using hay - what could i use so they would be warm in the cold nights

bubba man":34armf6v said:

so what do i do with the hay already in my compost and when i clean the hutch which is every 2 days how do i get the poop seperated from the hay - and should i go for good with straw

-- Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:55 pm --

what if i just stop using hay - what could i use so they would be warm in the cold nights

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If you are feeding rabbit pellets [I didn't see where you said what you were feeding] then... using straw, or pine shavings for bedding is fine.

will the straw break down cause it`s goin into my raised beds

bubba man":2y98jmfx said:

will the straw break down cause it`s goin into my raised beds

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yes...

will straw give me the weeds i sooo don`t want in my garden ?

Think about it . . . straw is the stems of grain plants. The seeds are harvested as grain and the straw is what's left. There could be a few seeds left in it, but not enough to matter.

Bubba man, you have a bunch of threads on the go, some of which are more or less on the same topic. This is counter-productive.

As a rule of thumb, if it's organic material it will eventually break down. And while I understand the desire to minimize extra weeds, there will always be some weeds popping up in the garden sooner or later. There's really very little that can be done to completely prevent a weed here or there.

As Maggie, Michael, and others have mentioned, straw will be less likely to introduce abundant weeds into your gardens compared to hay, and it is a generally safe bedding for rabbits. As feed, straw doesn't provide much other than maybe long-stem fibers, but as long as you are providing a balanced diet your rabbits should be fine. Good luck!

Straw is often better for bedding, hides, or nest boxes than hay because of the reasons it doesn't break down as quickly as hay. It is more resistant to moisture and doesn't mold as easy if it's been harvested mature enough and dried properly. Moldy hay (or straw but less likely to occur) can certainly kill your rabbits. I lost a guinea pig to some that got peed on under the hay rack. With less mold or bacteria growing on the straw that also means it can take a bit longer to turn into soil but it all does eventually. Certainly still faster than shavings do. It also insulates better than hay. It's less absorbent so even more useless to soak up pee but hay is not so great for that either.

The fact it has so little nutrients left in it though makes it of limited use as feed and rabbits are far less likely to even bother eating it. If it still has grain heads they will eat those and leave most of the straw. They also get very little from straw when they do eat it. It's pretty much only a source of fiber and they may or may not eat enough to make much of a difference if they are getting nothing else from it. Sometimes they won't even bother to eat much hay if it's not fresh enough or a good enough quality. Most people feeding a rabbit pellet don't even bother with hay or straw except to have something to fill nest boxes or occasionally hide boxes if their rabbits are caged outside a building. The rabbits eating it is only a secondary thing that happens because it's being used to insulate or cushion an area.

Wire cages don't need bedding and bulky hay or straw clogs trays to make it worse to clean. A thin layer of shavings or often just something like barn/ag lime or sweet pdz to neutralize urine smell is more commonly used. If you have solid bottom cages or hutches I'd definitely concentrate on something absorbent like shavings. Pine pellets will break down a bit faster than shavings while being far more absorbent and usually are my first choice. Overall straw is for warmth and hay is for food while other things make much more suitable bedding for cleanliness with less potential headaches. Certainly there are exceptions and reasons for them but that depends on the details of what you are doing already and what your goal is.

We heap all of our rabbits poop into a corner of our yard, as well as all the soiled hay, and from what I've seen, it's composted with the poop, so I would say yes, I guess.

Straw and rabbit poop will compliment each other in the compost pile, straw is the carbon component and the poop is the nitrogen. There are recommendations as to the proper percentages (70% carbon, 30% nitrogen if I recall correctly?) but I just pile everything from the property in the compost bins and it breaks down just fine. I have six compost bins about 48" cubed and they take dirty bedding (straw, shavings), chicken, duck, rabbit and turkey poop, butchering offal, kitchen scraps, dead animals, grass clippings and other yard debris, it all comes out as a nice black compost. it's about a two year process for each bin. My point is that everything organic will break down in a compost bin just fine over time.


My rabbits have been on straw bedding out in the colony for a few years now. Whenever I change the bedding out they will munch on the fresh stuff for a while. They have their general pee corner which needs to be cleaned out a bit more often but I find the poop pellets work their way down through the straw as the rabbits hop around on it so it keeps them pretty clean and not in much contact with it.

Google Ruth Stout garden method and learn all about hay in the garden.

I use a modified method as my sand is so devoid of anything for growing veg that mulch alone is not enough. One big round bale of cow hay - with mega weed and grass seeds - laid down about a foot thick onto my garden area. Then mushroom compost is rowed out on top of the hay.

Any weeds that show up through that lot get a new handful of hay tossed over them.

Dig free gardening that works great.

The hay/poo from under my rabbit cages gets heaped up around any of the fruit trees that need it. Banana plants ALWAYS need it here, they are such hungry plants.

Hay breaks down, if you use it for mulch you have to put it on regularly. Hay plus rabbit manure breaks down even quicker.

"If you buy in hay, you are buying someone else's fertility for your land!"

I compost my rabbit poo and hay and straw scatterings at the local community garden. That stuff breaks down so fast and the food and flowers coming from the compost is amazing! I have chutes under my rabbit cages so I'll scrape a bucket full of berries and then go flinging it on my front yard like some type of demented sower LOL!

I wash the rabbit chutes throughout most of the year in the back yard--I need to stop, do it it in the front yard. This spring I've had to mow the back yard 8 times compared to my 1x up front.