is rabbit poo okay for chickens to eat

[ladybuglives]

I have six 12 week old chicks who are beginning to forage in the yard. They love the pile of hay that I use as mulch around plants. It's hay from my houserabbit's litterbox -- oat, wheat, barley mix. Every now and then I see one of the girls gulping down a round brown thing -- I finally figured out it was Geordie's poo! He is a healthy bunny with a strictly veggie/hay/Oxbow Timothy pellet diet. I have his litterboxes mulching my entire garden. In order to keep the girls away I would have to restrict them to a very few areas (probably with an electric fence). Anyone know about bunny poo and it's safety for chickies?????

 

[dsqard]

I don't know for sure but I do know that our neighbor's chickens used to scratch and pick in my horse manuer piles all day long and they seemed fine and healthy. Even got to eat any of their eggs that they laid in our barn. They were yummy!

 

[NanoByte]

I never knew chickens ate poo...
maybe its not the poo, maybe its something in the poo.

 

[mickistoy]

 

[Amyh]

I have heard of people using a system where they place rabbits in the same space as the chickens. In cages above where the chickens live and having the chickens further compost the rabbit manure, so I'm sure it's fine. I think I read it on the Polyface farm blogs...

 

[they'reHISchickens]

Chickens frequently peck through the remnants of manure for undigested grains ( corn, wheat, whatever). In the 1900s it was customary to run pigs in with corn fed beef cattle to do the same thing, according to Grandpa.

 

[mgw]

Our niehbors dog eats our rabbit poop ang it seems real healthy I dont think theres any worries. Stupid niehbor dog stealing all my fertilizer!

 

[dieselgrl48]

Well if rabbit poo hurt chicken's half of my old flock would have been long dead.I free ranged a lot of my bird's in the last few year's and We had rabbit's only a few though.They had standard nice open bottom hutches allowing the dropping's to fall through.Numerous bird's pecked around the area.Chicken's eat their own poo's!I cleaned one coop today and they were all like flie's around the wheelbarrow and in the dropped hay and shavin'g I lost.They will be just fine.Taking a break tomm. they may be waiting a day on the next coop until Thur.Chickens are gonna eat anything basicaly that catche's their eye.Cattle and ponie's graze our field too and they just go around pecking pecking.I don't give them goodnight kisse's anymore just hugzzzz lol

 

[Mrs. Feathers]

Our chickens love to get in the bunny run so they can a) see if she has better treats and b) eat her poop...ewwww. However, the amount bunnies eats and poops I don`t even know if it is digested....

looks pretty much the same coming out as the pellets do going in...only bigger.

 

[DragonEggs]

Should be just fine. Many critters like bunnys, hamsters, gerbils, etc, eat their own poop to re-digest what they missed the first time around. Chickens are really good at getting the goodies out of horse poop too.