Someone told me that rabbit manure is good for your flower and vegetable gardens. Is this true? Also is horse manure better that cow manure for your vegetables and flowers? And better than rabbit manure?

Both of these manures can be an excellent addition to your beds, Cheryl. Potency depends a great deal on what kind of diet the animal is fed. A rich diet heavy in alfalfa forage and grains can burn plants and roots if used in excess, so these manures should be used with caution until you become accustomed to their performance. Additionally, the same can be said for urea-soaked manures; a little bit can go a long way.

I've used both, but I haven't determined which is best. My horse is older and doesn't work, so she's fed timothy forage with just a handful of grain-based feed. I've found that I can safely use a great deal of this manure in my beds since it's fairly lean, but I do make certain that the urea is mixed in well before application.

Composting either manure first can ensure safety, but a lean-diet type manure will leach out a lot of its helpful properties if composted too long. Depending on diet, horse manure can have more weed seeds than rabbit, so if this is of special concern for you, opt for rabbit, or hot compost your horse manure to kill some of these seeds before use.

gardenglassgems said:Someone told me that rabbit manure is good for your flower and vegetable gardens. Is this true? Also is horse manure better that cow manure for your vegetables and flowers? And better than rabbit manure?

In my experience...
The best manure for the garden... is whatever I can get.

There have been some recent issues over spreading poop from those factory productions...
http://nocafos.org/news.htm

Apparently... Using the poop from those large operations on a home plot... exposes our garden to various toxins, plus antibiotics and other scary meds...
http://www.sustainabletable.or...

Rabbit poop is good stuff... if you have rabbits.

The question about horses vs cattle...
Usually revolves around diet... as was previously stated.

Horses are usually treated a lot better, now that they're mostly high dollar pets, and cattle are fed very poorly...
http://extension.missouri.edu/...

How do you feel about eating meat from a cow that's been fed chicken poop?

They say that we are what we eat...

In general, horses poop is .05 N And cow poop is .05 N... Very little practical difference.

Because there are stables nearby... I use horse poop on my gardens.

From a safety point of view, there are people who refuse to use anything that isn't produced on their own property...

Incidentally...
I permit my cats free rein in my garden, to do battle with my rodent problem... That isn't safe either...
http://jezebel.com/5883939/has...

I use several types of manure, usually mixed, on my plants. Horse manure is much easier to handle than cow but, due to their less efficient digestion, will often contain viable seeds - so will pig manure. I agree with Stone: any manure is an improvement. Unless it is composted, I only spread manure on top of the soil where it acts as mulch and decomposes to feed the plants with time. I have never had a problem with it burning anything.

Thank you, Chelle, Stone, and Porkpal,
I found your information very useful. A friend of ours raises rabbits so my DH took the manure spreader over to his place to have him fill it with the rabbit poop and then my DH will bring it here and put it in a pile. We have 5 horses and a mule so I will try some horse manure in some beds and rabbit manure in other beds and compare the two. I may also use some good aged cow manure on a couple beds and compare the three. Of coarse, they will all probably have different plants in them so am not sure if I will get a try comparison.

Thanks for your help.

It sounds like you're well-set for manure, Cheryl!

I have rabbit poop thats around 10 years -15 years old, is it still good to use in my garden?

Hi Karoline93 and welcome to NGA. I am the one who originally posted this thread, and I am sorry but I do not know the answer to your questions. I still have a pile of rabbit manure that is aging that I will probably some day use. But I have a large access to cow and horse manure so that is what I use mostly. I hope someone else will answer your question. Hope to see you around some of the other forums. Everyone is very friendly and very helpful. There is an abundance of knowledge here.

@Karoline93
That's some well aged manure.
Use it, use it ! 👍👍👍
😎😎😎