Rabbits as Garden Helpers

Kwantu Grown up and keeping house.

Rabbits do not seem to be garden helpers – in fact rabbits most often seem to drive gardeners to distraction creeping under fences and helping themselves to the best, most tender, and most vulnerable produce in the garden plot. Even charming rabbits like Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter turned the genial Mr. McGregor into a raving, hoe wielding lunatic.

But at the Quarter Acre Farm, rabbits are our friends. They are our composters, our fertilizers.
We first got rabbits years and years ago as pets that fell in the category, "small caged animals" which were allowed in our apartment, but could run around, be cuddled, petted, and fed like a cat or a dog. Our first rabbit, Tato (short for potato because, six year old Jesse said, he was brown and lived underground) was with us for a long time, galumping around apartments from New Haven Connecticut to Albuquerque to California. It wasn't until we had a house of our own that we found that rabbits could not only fulfill cuddling requirements, but they could pull their own weight as well.
Rabbit manure is magic manure. The number one quality of rabbit manure is that, unlike other kinds of manure, rabbit berries are so mild (I know this is sounding uncomfortably as though I was describing a good cup of coffee) that I have raised earthworms directly under the cage.  (I used to package the worms up and sell them to fisherman.  Another life.) It can be top dressed right on your beds straight from the rabbit, and builds soil as well as provides nutrients.  It is high in nitrogen and phosphorous, is delivered in dry, round pellets we call "bunny berries", it is odorless, and exceedingly good for your plants. Further, a rabbit produces prodigious amounts of the fantastic stuff. In dry weight 2 rabbits produce as much manure as one steer.  One STEER.  That's a lot of poop, but even so, you can never have enough of the stuff.

On top of all that, aren't they lovely? We treat our rabbits very well. They are in a protected pen outside, (hawks, skunks, raccoons, possums all appreciate rabbit for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the odd snack) and the pen has an upstairs so they can exercise by running up the ramp to sit and eat their dinners with a penthouse view. They have shade all day, VERY important, as is constantly available water.

One might want to line an outside pen with chicken wire, as rabbits love to dig. We don't do that as our rabbits have dug nice cool burrows and I think it makes them happier. (Whenever the burrow threatens to extend to freedom, I can usually spot the first breakthrough, or the first break out with a wild rabbit on the loose) I put a stone over the hole. There is seldom a break out, interestingly enough. Hopefully that means they love their home.

The other thing to make sure of is that you have the right sex of rabbits. We have always liked the two girls option. Females tend to get along very well. (duh). Two males tend to fight. (double duh)  And a male and a female tend to multiply. (triple duh-oh)  Getting your females fixed will not only ensure they don't provide you with way too many bunnies, but will also extend their lives. The same goes for males. Apparently those over-active reproductive organs have a tendency to go wrong later in life and curtail rabbit years.
And get your rabbits from a respectable source.

A cautionary tale – years ago we got two rabbits from an iffy breeder we found in the want ads. We went to his yard and found the rabbits crammed into cages. It was so sad, but we were glad to give two of them a better life. We took the pair that the breeder swore were both females. Weeks later one of the rabbits had kits. Eleven of them. We thought the breeder had sold us a male and female after all until a few days later the other rabbit had thirteen kits of her own.
We eventually sold our extra rabbits.  Sold them, for though we were willing to give them to people who would provide them with good homes the woman at the feed store in San Diego cautioned us that some (horrible rotten evil) fisherman will take free young rabbits and use them for deep sea fishing.  Ug.  Humans.

Rabbits are so charming. Complex, not wholly sweet, but so much fun to watch.  Ours stand up on their hind legs to be scratched (and to take treats from our hands) They cuddle up together, do fantastic happy rabbit leaps into the air when happy, and, of course, poop like crazy.  What's not to love?

 

Kwantu as a youngster.