Rolling rabbits

[StuUSA]

Hello
Just discovered this forum a few weeks ago what a treasure!
I have a newbie question. I would like to raise rabbits for meat, but just as important, for garden fertilizer. I have this hare-brained (sorry, couldnt resist) scheme of making a kind of mobile rabbit hutch that can be moved from place to place. What I am visualizing in my mind is four hanging cages under a roof with legs long enough to have the cages about three feet off the ground. The legs would be splayed outward a bit for stability and to be able to straddle four foot by eight foot raised garden beds. I would have some sort of wheel mounted at each corner so that the whole thing can roll. In the spring I would roll the contraption out and start fertilizing, moving from one raised bed to the next over a period of several weeks, letting the rabbit droppings fall down through the bottom of the cage directly on to the soil.
I tried to do a search to see if anyone has ever done this but could find nothing. This kind of tells me that there is something inherently faulty with my idea. So looking for your comments and thanking you in advance.

 

[Legacy]

I dunno. I'm sure it would work. It just occurs to me that perhaps, moving a bucket of fertilizer when needed/wanted is a lot easier than building to specific design and then moving them often. It just seems like you would have to make provisions and address concerns while building to make it work for not-a-huge-reward. *shrug* maybe I am wrong.

I guess it would depend on your property too. We have to protect from neighbor dogs and predators in such a way that wouldn't allow for us to move our cages that easily.

 

[Bunnylady]

Well people make a million different kinds of "chicken tractors;" the idea isn't that different. I can see a few things to consider, though.

Rabbits don't usually deposit their "brown gold" evenly over the cage floor. Some do scatter droppings around, but the majority of the poop will wind up in "the dirty corner." This translates into piles in some spots, and nothing at all in others. You will still have to redistribute the droppings on a regular basis.

The rabbits would probably freak out from the bumpy ride while being moved from place to place. A cage this large would be clumsy to move, so it would probably involve at least two people to move it.


Unless the entire garden is fenced in, some kind of provision would have to be made to keep dogs and such from getting under the cages. If you haven't ever seen what can happen when a dog can get under a rabbit cage - trust me, you don't want to!

Gardens are usually sunny spots, which can get hot in the summer. Rabbits don't do well with heat. I usually recommend siting rabbit cages where they get as much shade as possible. If I had cages situated in my garden, I could just about count on losing rabbits to heatstroke at some time between May and September.

Those are difficulties that I see right off the bat. If you can work those things out, it could be do-able. The tinkerer in me is working on a similar design for some chicken cages and my pasture!

 

[Bossroo]

I dunno. I'm sure it would work. It just occurs to me that perhaps, moving a bucket of fertilizer when needed/wanted is a lot easier than building to specific design and then moving them often. It just seems like you would have to make provisions and address concerns while building to make it work for not-a-huge-reward. *shrug* maybe I am wrong.

I guess it would depend on your property too. We have to protect from neighbor dogs and predators in such a way that wouldn't allow for us to move our cages that easily.

So... what is your plan to avoid the poo poo and pee pee from comming in contact with the edible portions of the edible plants ??? The excriment cover on the produce is perfect environment for bacteria/ virus to infect YOUR intended consumption. Or have you not read/ heard about some of the illnesses caused by animal/ human fecal/ urine contamination in commercial food production fields resulting in severe illness/ death and resulting lawsuits ?

 

[secuono]

It would be easier to just place large rubber bins under each rabbit's potty spot and then use a shovel to spread it on the garden.
Rabbits do not poo evenly, they pee/poo in one special spot and it really can pile up.
Plus all the plants would be covered in urine and fecal matter....I wouldn't want to eat tomatoes which were peed on, would you?

 

[StuUSA]

Well thanks to all for your input!

Bossroo, you especially will be relieved to hear that the 'Rolling Rabbit' project has officially been put on hold. I certainly do not want a lawsuit on my hands, although the only people who would eat produce from our garden would be my wife and teenage children (each of whom has more money than I do anyway).

But in my defense (lawyer term), I think some of you folks failed to noticed the key word SPRING. I would only do this in the SPRING. So no plants yet. No summer heat yet.

Still, all in all, I see that it's going to make a lot more sense to just shovel, carry, dump, spread.

Thanks again to each of you for taking the time to answer. I feel like I have some new friends.

 

[Bossroo]

SPRING can mean different things in different parts of the country. IN S Cal. , Florida, Hawaii, and similar locals, one may only have SPRING and SUMMER, where one plants a garden year round then harvest when ready ! Some areas of the PNW , one may have spring, fall and winter. NE USA, one has 4 seasons... etc.. Of cource, 1,000 ft difference in elevation, proximity to mountains, desert and/or water will give one microclimates too.

 

[PinkFox]

wow this forum was not a place i expected to se people freeking out about some FERTILIZER possibly comming into contact with their veggies.
assuming your rabbits are kept worm free there it less risk from good rabbit poop touching your veggies than there is from comercial fertilizers that get sprayed on beds (including on fruits leafy greens ect) on a regular basis on most famrs/things being delivered to the grocery store...

a little rabbit poop falling on your lettuce is nothign to be freeked out over, just make sure you wash your greens just as you would if buying from a store. im less afraid of rabbit poop om my maters than i am of comercial fertilizers on EVERYTHING...lol.

in terms of your idea...while it could work i think it would be alot of work to figure out the right angles (and alot of wood to lol).
id love to see pics though if you did figure it out

 

[StuUSA]

Good point, Bossroo. I kind of forgot how big and varied the world is. I probably should have given myself the name StuLowerMichiganAndIDon'tTravelMuch.

PinkFox, yeah, I'm not really worried about poop on the petunias. But don't hold your breath for any pictures. This thing probably won't be built unless I can work out the several issues brought up here. The whole idea was this was going to be a labor-saving machine...but it's starting to look like it would be a Rube Goldberg machine.

 

[mama24]

No, I agree with Bossroo on the poo/pee issue. People who actually use manure as fertilizer on their gardens COMPOST it first. Throw your rabbit (and chicken, goat, etc) manure onto a compost pile and collect composted matter from the bottom when you want to fertilize your garden! Or plough it into the soil in the fall and spring before/after the growing season. This is the way I was always taught to do it. I have never had to fertilize anything other than tomatoes during the actual growing season. Fertilizer is usually applied before or during planting.