Rabbit manure control and lye

[Dewaine]

I have a question about rabbit manure, especially the ammonia related to it (and common to other animals' manure):

Can the smell and ammonia production be controlled with lye, or is there a better alternative for this, maybe some kind of enzymes?

Thank you for your help and suggestions!

 

[Citylife]

I think commercial rabbitries use lye type products. What I have done has worked very well for me. My cages are all hanging in a one sided shed. We dug a 3-4 inch trench under the cages so the waste has more room. The hay and straw debris also ends up in this trench area. I rake all access dead leaves into it also. If it gets a bit to stinky I have noticed fresh cut grass will help with that also. I purchased some 4000 red wigglers and they have seemed to help. To help keep flys down, I have hanging x-mas tree car fresheners in "vanilla" ONLY. I also will hang fresh spearmint or catnip in the area. The catnip helps keep the misquito's away. Even off of you!
I have nine hanging cages with 3 designated to grow out pens. I have had so far 35 at a time and have to say, the odor is not noticable. I need to dig it our about 3 times a year so far. I have not had that many animals continuosly, so may need to dig it out a bit more often.
The next thing that I believe helps this entire process, is I have 5 chickens that are allowed under the rabbits all day long. I think the combination of all of the above has done wonders for my back yard project. As you cant smell the chickens either. The rabbit/chicken area is 12x45 in a back corner of my property so they are not on top of each other.
Hope this helps

 

[Citylife]

I forgot something......... I also lined the trench with 1-2" river rock that I no longer needed.
I also, water it from time to time.

I have a doe having kits as we speak. Yeah!!!!