Bunny poo: a soil saviour?

As I have mentioned before, the soil at our new house is in trouble. It’s dry, sandy and devoid of life. I’m impressed that anything grows out of it at all! The existing plant life consists of small trees and shrubs that evidently got established before it became something of a desert wasteland. If I want to take advantage of these raised, dappled-sunlight, protected-from-wind retaining beds, I need to put some serious work into amending the soil! Enter: the bunny poo.

Free Soil Food!

The key to good soil is good compost. What is compost? It’s basically recycling the nutrients that came from the soil in the first place – that is, the plants that grew up out of it. Composting breaks those plants back down into useable soil, chock full of nutrients and enriched with micro-organisms that are equally essential to soil health and plant growth.

While you can just let plants break down on their own, it takes a really long time, and may not be as nutrient-dense as you require for your garden. To speed the process along and really pack your compost with good stuff, the best thing you can do is add manure: poop from animals that eat things that come from the ground. (For chickens, this typically includes insects, and may also include small amounts of meat.) A good compost will contain brown material (dry plant matter such as straw) and green material (including fresh grass, fruit and veg, and fresh manure) layered up to spread these elements.

Rabbit bedding comprises a mix of herbivore poo, straw, and in some cases, other materials such as litter made from wood pulp. Mixed as it is, you don’t have to worry about layering it. The mix contains an ideal blend of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ material, with plenty of bacteria and other micro-organisms present to begin the breakdown process right away. Because rabbits eat a varied diet filled with fruit and vegetables, as well as grasses, it has a good mix of nutrients. The whole mix tends to break down quite quickly.

The best part about bunny poo? If you collect it – as I have – from a rabbit sanctuary or shelter, it’s completely free! This is super important if you’re working on a budget and have a large area to cover, as is our case. We can collect as much of the stuff as we’re able to cart away!

Building the heap

I’m making a hot compost. Heat is another key ingredient for fast breakdown of compost materials. There is definitely a science to it, and in the past my attempts have failed dismally (because I had no idea what I was doing). I’ve since been involved in helping someone else build one, and the hands-on experience was fantastic for learning.
My heap is still only a week or so old so I can’t quite claim victory yet, but here has been my process so far:

1. Find a big branch to stick in the middle. This helps to let air and water down into the middle of the heap. You want your compost to be properly aerated, as anaerobic bacteria are typically not great health-wise for you or your garden. A dry heap, on the other hand, won’t properly foster bacteria growth, slowing the decomposition process.
2. Spread some green material. I used a heap of grass and weeds (free from seeds) that were growing around my chosen compost site.
3. Put some straw down. Throw a jug of water over it.
4. Add a bag of manure (in hindsight I could have skipped this altogether, but on the other hand I like the idea of having a bit of variety). I used cow and sheep manure bought from Bunnings.
5. More straw! More water!
6. More manure! Including some chicken poop I collected from around the yard. Chook poo is high in nitrogen, which plants rather enjoy.
7. Collect the bunny straw, pile it on! Water it!
8. Collect MORE BUNNY STRAW!
9. Build up the heap until it is at least a metre wide and a metre high. This part is key to getting it nice and toasty hot inside.
10. The next stage (which I’ll do pending borrowing a compost thermometer) is to take an internal temperature. We want to aim for between 32-60 degrees celsius; when it reaches this temperature and holds for a few days, it’s time to basically invert the thing so the inside materials become the outside, and vice versa.