Chickens, Rabbits and worms

traildad

In the Brooder
9 Years
Jan 11, 2011
59
0
39
My wife and I are interested in raising some chickens for eggs. We have a suburban yard with a decent amount of room. We are hoping to do as much as possible for home made feed to keep the costs down. Does anyone have any experience with combining Chickens, Meat Rabbits and Worm bins. It is our understanding that Rabbit poop is great for worms and worms are great for Chickens. Does this make for a good combination? Thanks
 
I do chickens, meat rabbits, and compost. It works pretty well together, but my setup could be better. I just added the meat rabbits recently, and I'm still reconfiguring things.

I have 3 chickens in a 4x4 coop, and the coop inside a 7x15 run. Rabbit hutches are stacked two high along one side. I have spaces about three inches tall underneath each hutch, to allow droppings to fall, and I rake them out regularly. The ground of the run is dirt, and when I raked the yard this fall I put the leaves in it and let the chickens have fun scratching in them and breaking them down. When I rake out the rabbit droppings, I rake them right into the leaves in the run.

The leaves, rabbit droppings, chicken droppings, and spilled food do start to compost in there. It attracts bugs and worms. But I can't add water in the chicken run, so it stops at some point. (I'm in Colorado, there's no rain.) When I feel the mix is about right except for the water, then I rake it all out and put it in my "official" compost bin to finish up. I use that finished compost in my garden. And the cycle starts again when the chickens and rabbits get to eat all the parts of the garden that I don't eat - carrot tops, radishes, corn stalks, cucumber vines, etc.

It works well for me. I'd like to set it up so I don't have to rake the rabbit droppings, but rather have a "sewer" system that does the moving of the droppings for me. And it would work better with more chickens, my run is rather large for just three (THEY like having so much room, they're just not very efficient at keeping the leaves stirred up).

I also give the chickens a fair amount of kitchen leftovers. Chickens are omnivores, though, so I keep an eye on meat that I give them to make sure not too much ends up in the compost. (They usually eat everything, but its not a guarantee.)

I hope that's some good information that will help you. Post back with questions if you have any!
 

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