Everything on the farm has a at least two jobs to do.  Sometimes it’s as simple as: provide protection and company, like our dog and cat.  Sometimes it’s more complex: provide fruit, shelter for birds, attract beneficial insects, produce bio mass and shade, like the apple trees in our orchard.

Rabbits happily grazing in their mobile cage.

Even the rabbits have more than one job. Our rabbits are meat rabbits, breed to feed my family, but that isn’t the job I love them the most for.  They are quite efficient at turning grass into fertilizer. One of the benefits of rabbit manure is that it’s is what’s termed “cold”, meaning it’s not so high in nitrogen, like poultry or cow manure that it needs to be composted first, it can go directly on the garden and planted in.  I have some rabbits in cages and when their trays are cleaned I do put it directly in the garden, but this year we experimented with “pasturing” our grow outs. I’ve been so happy with the results.

The path of grazed meadow, this is what it looks like as we move it.

We simply built large, open changes with wire bottoms, to keep the rabbits digging out and predators from digging in.  Everyday their cage is moved to a different patch of ground in the Orchard Meadow, they keep the grass clipped and leave their fertilizer behind.  I’ve been so happy with the results, the meadow has never been as lush and our feed bill is much lower than normal.  We do still give them pellets, the grass isn’t quite enough, but it’s a great, healthy supplement.

Meadow that had the rabbits on it about two weeks ago, you can still see the grass is shorter, but growing in nicely.