Compost manure from sick rabbit

[Gardening with Rabbits]

DH cleaned some rabbit manure out from underneath the hutch where the sick rabbit was that I put to sleep. There also was another rabbit that died early spring. Should we just haul all this to the dump or will it be okay to compost down and use in a year or so?

 

[canesisters]

What did they die from? I would think that if it wasn't something that people can catch, the manure will be fine as compost.
Did they get any medication while sick? Depending on how strict you are about such things, that might be something to consider.

 

[Nyboy]

Sorry about your rabbits, I have become very attached to mine. Even put up with being neighborhood joke, about rabbit having own fan this summer.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

The one I put to sleep was in April 2015 and the vet said it was Pasteurella and that rabbits can have it in their system and if stressed become sick and be carriers of it and most rabbits are carriers of it. None of these rabbits have had any respiratory problems, but this rabbit had an abscess and it went septic into his bloodstream and I put him to sleep. The other rabbit had the same but did not go septic and he lived and then the year after, which was this spring he died. He did not have an abscess, so I am not sure. There is another rabbit that gets the lesions and gets over it and I may put her to sleep before winter. The rest of the rabbits have never been sick and even in hutch next to the sick ones they have not ever been sick. They have not been given medication. I am composting all manure before going on garden, except this fall I am going to put cow manure down and then the rabbit manure and bedding, coffee grounds, kitchen scraps and things all be composted with leaves and used next spring if ready or maybe not until next fall.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Sorry about your rabbits, I have become very attached to mine. Even put up with being neighborhood joke, about rabbit having own fan this summer.

I am with you. I am attached to mine. I did not want rabbits, but they were being chased by dogs, people and dodging cars, eating my garden, so I gave them a place to live and it is a lot of work and I am not a rabbit expert. Most are about 4 years old now. One is probably 5-1/2 and then somebody dumped a new one and it looks around 1 or 2 years old. This is a picture of him in June. He just showed up and started running around the hutch trying to see the rabbits. He is sitting under a hutch and one day the neighbor caught him and gave him to DH and thought it was our rabbit that got loose.

 

[Nyboy]

Bless you for saving them, can never understand how people can just dump animals.