Alright guys so I've thought about this for a while. I have a guinea pig, cute little thing she is! Anyway the little rascal east hay, hay pellets, grass and well more hay, with the occasional fruit and veggie SO after doing some research on the pigs digestive system it turns out they break down very little in their poop and it would make a great fertilizer! Has anyone had experiences with this before maybe rabbit poop? I know their urine is very acidic so I'm looking for a good method of collecting these little black dream drops lol I'm using a pine bedding atm so its too acidic to break down and use that way, maybe i could switch bedings or something and add lime when putting it in the pile?
You have just the one 'pig' ? I would toss all of the bedding at once into the compost heap. Can't hurt, and it will only help.
If you want to use it directly in your mix, you can sift through the bedding and try to get mostly poop. A little bit of pine bedding is not going to acidify your mix to any quantifiable degree. If you plan on composting it, do like sam says and just toss it all in the pile. HTH
Unfortunatly I only have the one atm Shes a female, which we didnt know when we bought her so shes had be separated from the start(Not looking to start a farm lol) We had 3 but two recently kicked it, one was just over hyper and had congestive heart failure like my first that died and then a couple weeks our second died, we assume of a broken heart (not literally, He was having a few health issues and after the second died he just gave up) cause that was his second companion. We had them in highschool when it was much easier to take care of them and i had alot more time, being in college three pigs was getting to be kind of a handful. But popper is well over 4 now and still healthy and happy, we moved the bird into the same room as her so those two are always chirping back and forth now lol
I am a fairly long time cavy owner and when Im in a better position, trust me I'll have quite a few more lol they are awesome happy little animals that can always brighten up a day!
FYI= If you are feeding her a diet with alfalfa in it, the poop will be even better for your plants! Alfalfa has a good dose of plant growth hormones that passes through herbivore stomachs almost unchanged! Your plants will grow a bit faster with an alfalfa poop based fertilizer! Granny
Thanks granny! That's actually what sparked my thinking on this, I considered putting down paper and changing it every day or so just to help collect poops lol at least till I have a whole bunch, I have been picking some out here and there to add to my garden, I also discovered that the alfalfa they sell in cubes for animals works wonderful when you soak it in water
The great thing is with herbivore poop it doesn't have to go through a long phase of decomposition like guanos or raw poultry manure in order to use it for teas. I've used horse, donkey, and rabbit poo(which I'm assuming is similar to guinea pigs) only a few weeks old in teas. No burning, robbing of N from the soil or anything.
It's pretty close to rabbit poops, Guinea pigs digestive system is kinda weird, some of their poop they have to eat again to help absorb all the nutrients, they some how know the difference between good and not good lol but it breaks down really awesome, I've picked out a couple hand full so far just to top my spots and pots lol
If you look at them closely enough, they actually have a different shape and texture than their regular poops. Their regular poops are called fecal pellets, the food ones are cecal.
DO NOT FEED GUINEA PIGS ALFALFA BASED FOOD OR HAY Sorry, this might be good for your plants, but it's very bad for guinea pigs. Unless your guinea pig is a juvenile or nursing mother, alfalfa-based diet is a big no no. Guinea pigs need a timothy hay based diet for most of their lives or they risk bladder stones from the wrong ratio of nutrients in their diets. Bladder stones are very common in guinea pigs and can result in undue pain and death.