QUESTION: Guinea Pig Poop as Garden Fertilizer?

JadaE, member

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Guinea pig poop...Good compost?  or just poop??  :)

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Hello fellow gardeners!  We all know how wonderful rabbit manure can be, but how about guinea pig poop?  My kids got a guinea pig for Christmas, and its diet is essentially the same as rabbits.  (Hay, pellets, and fresh veggies.)  They also have the same digestive process of eating their cecal pellets, and producing a final "poop pellet" just like rabbits.

So...Can I compost guinea pig poop?  Does it have the same black gold value? :)

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

Jada

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Comments (11)

Justagrrl writes: This is great news! We have five pigs and that does equal alot of poop. I'm going to try raised beds this year, and a layer of piggie poop is definitely going into the mix!


Posted: 3:17 pm on March 28th

lsn833 writes: I don't use our Guinea pig waste in the garden. She is getting older, and there is way too much urine in her bedding! Plus, with a rabbit the poop falls through, but a GP should not be kept in a cage with an open mesh bottom, so their poop would be mixed with whatever bedding you use. More bedding than poop in ours. We use the paper bedding.

I also don't use our rat's bedding. Smelly. They are not strictly vegetarians.
Posted: 6:39 pm on November 16th

grannybird writes: Okay, so if guinea pig bedding is safe for compost, what about the bedding my granddaughters use for their pet mice?
Posted: 6:29 pm on April 17th

FarrellFamily writes: !That's our old pig, Congo!!We HAD TO GIVE HIM A WAY A MONTH AGO!!!!!!!, is the other one black with a white crown!!
Posted: 3:55 pm on February 8th

JadaE writes: Thanks so much everyone! Since I posted this, we've adopted 2 guinea pigs. Blaster and Obi are quite the prolific poopers, and I'm using their poo and bedding in a "lasagna composting" project in the front yard! Very sweet little fellows who live to eat! :)
Posted: 7:49 pm on March 19th

Solay writes: Many years ago, we had a guinea pig named Fred. His box was in the kitchen as it was the warmest place in the 100+ yr old house in which we lived. So whenever I opened the frig, he would
whistle in hopes of getting a treat. Most days he got lucky.
His poop was definitely black/brown gold! I would dump his leavings/bedding (usually shredded newspaper)in the garden. One year these large tomatoes plants started growing where none had ever grown before (under the shade of a large pecan tree). My dad (the best gardener I have every known) asked what kind they were...I told him that they were Fred's Tomatoes, he told me there weren't any tomatoes called that (he kept up with all the new varieties coming out of Tx A&M). So, I explained what happened. Needless to say, as long as we had Fred (about 3 years), each year, we had great, big, red tasty tomatoes!
Posted: 12:13 pm on March 2nd

ChrisMcLaughlin writes: lunita1: That's true unless the bedding had a lot of urine. Then it truly balances itself out. Piggys don't seem to urinate as much as rabbits. But just to clarify, when I toss my straw that's been soaked with rabbit urine (as well as the poop) into the compost pile, it's more of a nitrogen source at that point.
Posted: 3:09 pm on February 28th

lunita1 writes: Absolutely. Used Paper or wood pellet bedding from your guinea pig cages is a great addition to a compost bin. If you change your cages regularly, it actually works more as a "brown" or neutral addition to the pile, rather than a "green" nitrogen source since it is way more bedding than poop.
Posted: 10:21 am on February 28th

LillianInIowa writes: I have used guinea pig doo in my compost heap, and tossed the layers of newspaper from the very bottom of the cage down to hold back weeds (all that nitrogen-soaked paper actually worked very well as a weed-deterent). The poo is great. Be sure you're not using a tough-to-break-down bedding like wood chips or sawdust. That can acidify your compost heap (and garden), plus the woody parts don't break down fast and all the while they take to deteriorate, they are stealing nitrogen.
Posted: 5:57 pm on February 26th

JadaE writes: Thanks Chris! I had a feeling it would be OK, but had to ask! :) Spent a COLD rainy Sunday dreaming about my 2011 garden today...the best way to spend a day like today! :)
Posted: 6:59 pm on December 12th

ChrisMcLaughlin writes: JadaE: Guinea Piggy poop is perfect for the compost bin! It doesn't have the same ooomph as the rabbit manure - it can definitely go in.
Posted: 11:33 pm on December 11th

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