Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rabbit poo and urine is worth almost as much as the meat. Unlike chichen poop, rabbit droppings can go directly on the the garden without burning it. collect the urine and dilute it when you rinse the pans to pour on nitrogen hungry plants like corn, tomatoes. I vary the rabbits feed by giving them bermuda grass that I also use to line nest boxes. Some of that ends up in the pans as well. But you need more greens to make a perfect compost pile unless your pans catch the urine.
My problem is what to do with the skins and guts from a nest of 8 or 9 young rabbits. If just one or two I would cover with dirt and forget it. But when butchering several or a larger animal I put the skin and guts in a drum and cover with spilled hay and take to the landfill on the next trip. In the compost pile skin and guts attract dogs or cayottes which will make a mess of the pile. I tried putting those parts in a bin and covering with dirt and red worms but I couldnt keep the other bugs out and now all the worms are gone and the bin is full of mush, bugs and dirt.

You could always cure the skins. They make damn good fur lining.
When I have my rabbits set up, I'm planning on making a fur lines sleeping bag. hmmm cosy.
Also a skin folded in half and left in a coyote proof area will grow big fat maggots with little smell, just open the skin and scrape them into your fish tank. - admittedly this is probably easier with larger game.
Otherwise, put them on the clothes line. they will dry hard as a board and be less attractive to the wildlife.
As for guts, there's not much for it, I've always binned them.
You could put them through a meat mincer and spread it like blood and bone. But I don't know how this would work.

My fishing heads/guts I have been freezing in gallon bags and every once and a while I take one out and give the frozen block to the chickens. They peck it down as it melts. I imagine you could do the same in a bsf composter one every few days based on how established it is. When my birds were dying they cleaned up quite well, only got overloaded for a few days when I added a grown hen and a half dozen quail, and got blow flys. The blowfly larva evacuated the composter and all's normal again. I should have added some high water content green ditch weeds overtop.

hmm I was just thinking :

use aquaponic system to grow rabbit food-> feed rabbits
rabbit poo -> BSF
BSF -> feed fish
fish poo feed plants ...

Im sure there's some way I could fit quail or partridge in that cycle but I think I'd need to input alot of feed for them, then I guess the poo just goes to the BSF aswell, thus more fish food, thus more plant food, thus more rabbit food

hmmm. looking for acres now

It makes better sense to me to put the rabbit poo on the dirt garden or orchard or at least in compost. Like goat poo it can go on the plant soil without aging, like side dressing or mulch. Rabbit innards after buthcering have no other use and will serve to feed BSF.
On another note, I had two bull snakes in the rabbit barn yesterday. One was five foot long the other about four. They had swallowed all but one of a litter of bunnies. One was so fat he was stuck in the cage. They dont bother any over about four inches long. This has happened before and I keep plugging possible entry holes.
I just catch the bull snakes and toss them out to eat rattle snakes and mice. The dogs do not bark at them, but go bonkers over rattlers.

wow... venemous?

No KAt bullsnakes are not vemonous. But their bite is nasty and can get infected from their digetioive tract. Any snake five foot long is intimidating if hostile. These are called bull snakes because they are hostile. They are also very fast.

Cool.
I want one.

my brother inlaw had a "pet" snake. One night they woke up to the baby screaming and found the snake about to eat her.

Snakes are not pets and I cannot think of one good reason to keep them unless you are raising them for food...even then - there ate better choices.

Snakes are awesome pets for lots of reasons, I have three my self.

but each to there own I guess.

Any snake big enough to eat a baby, is like having a tigre for a pet - inviting danger.
However little (2m long) snakes are fun as pets.
But anyhow, this was about bunnies, and all mine are dead

what happened ??

What happened???

This group of does don't seem to be getting the parenting stuff. I dont know whats up with them I guess youth but this was this doe's third litter.

As for snakes - ya each to their own. I kept dobermanns for years and most people thought I was crazy.

Back to bunnies - sorry about your loss! What happened. Mine managed to knock out the feeder yesterday which left a big hole in the cage. And then today they knocked off the water bottle. Three in one cage - I really need to move them out. The new hutch is close to complete.

All survive, form both litters.
1 is a runt with twisted legs
All ween OK
then one by one, they die, slowly, some weeks in between each death. I have NFI what it is.
It takes them abotu 3 days from showing symptoms, to dying.

The only symptom is lethargy - ie not moving much when you pick them up and handle them - Sitting happily in your hand, when bunnies usually jump off and ran about when they're young.

I'm confused and lost