How Farmer Earns Living From Selling Rabbit Urine

Charles Owiti, rabbit farmer, during a past interview. : CGTN
Charles Owiti, rabbit farmer, during a past interview. : CGTN

Many people rear rabbits as pets or for their high-value meat without considering the urine waste from the gentle animal could earn them over Ksh 60,000 in a month.

Charles Owiti is one of the few farmers in Kenya who have found value in the trade of rabbit waste and is now earning a living from it.

The use of rabbit urine to enrich soils is slowly but surely gaining popularity among crop farmers who use it to better their farm yields.

Owiti, a rabbit keeper, narrates that he traps urine through a wire-mesh when the rabbit pee flows through iron sheets below the rabbit structure.

Charles Owiti
Some of the rabbits that Charles Owiti rears.:CGTN

"I have a trough at the end of the iron sheets where I rear my rabbits to avoid urine spillage and lead it to a collecting jerrycan," he commented.

He charges Ksh 100 per litres at the moment, and he can collect 20 litres using his jerrycans, earning him Ksh 2000 a day.

The rabbit urine is an organic pesticide that repels insects pests such as mites, aphids because of the pungent smell. 

"The urine is fancied by crop farmers and many say they get high-quality yields because the urine helps in enriching the soil," he states.

He says, in maintaining the steady supply of waste, the production has to start first in the feeding stage.

Something Owiti ensures by feeding the rabbits with leafy vegetables to produce more urine.

“Rabbit urine depends on what it is feeding on. I feed my rabbits on leafy cabbages, so with that, they can produce more urine because it has a lot of water content,” he notes.

He adds that rabbit adults produce more urine and urges farmers to consider using rabbit urine for high yields.

Charles Owiti
One of Charles Owiti’s workers packaging the urine in 20 liters of Jerry can be sold.: CGTN.