# calf manna?



## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

what do I need to know about using calf manna?
I am interested in feeding with prepared rabbit pellets or in a ration using grain, hay, greens and veggies.
The rabbit pellets I use just went up to $13.50 for 50 pounds. ($2 price hike in 2 weeks) I am not sure i want to or can pay that for pellets any more.
Right now I am transitioning a few at a time to less and less pellets and a tablespoon of calf manna. Along with this they are getting lots of grass hay and weeds.
For each dry adult I am giving 1/4 cup COB grains. The bag i have has some mollasses on it. 1 tablespoon Calf manna and all they can eat green feed. Does this sound like a good place to start?


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## Guest (Aug 5, 2009)

What exactly is "les and less pellets"? 1 tablespoon per rabbit is TOO MUCH. 1 teaspoon is adequate.

I'm confused. Are they getting grain and pellets and calf manna and greens? How were you feeding before the price hike?


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Calf manna is fairly expensive. I feed a tablespoon to lactating does, and ocassionaly give a teaspoon to my other rabbits, if they are eating lots of greens and little pellets. One usualy does not want to mix it with the pellets as some animals will paw pellets out of the feeder to get to the calf manna.

I mainly keep it around as a supplement for kits whose moms are not seeming to produce enough milk. I also like to have it handy, in case for some reason I would loose a doe with, lets say 2 or 3 week old kits, who are already eating and drinking. The can usually survive on the manna pellets, which in the past I have feed free choice in this situation.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

Lyndseyrk said:


> What exactly is "les and less pellets"? 1 tablespoon per rabbit is TOO MUCH. 1 teaspoon is adequate.
> 
> I'm confused. Are they getting grain and pellets and calf manna and greens? How were you feeding before the price hike?


Before the price hike i was feedng pellets, hay, and greens.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

o&itw said:


> Calf manna is fairly expensive. I feed a tablespoon to lactating does, and ocassionaly give a teaspoon to my other rabbits, if they are eating lots of greens and little pellets. One usualy does not want to mix it with the pellets as some animals will paw pellets out of the feeder to get to the calf manna.
> 
> I mainly keep it around as a supplement for kits whose moms are not seeming to produce enough milk. I also like to have it handy, in case for some reason I would loose a doe with, lets say 2 or 3 week old kits, who are already eating and drinking. The can usually survive on the manna pellets, which in the past I have feed free choice in this situation.


There is a brand of Calf manna made by Purina that is only $12.50 for 25 pounds.
Before now I was only able to find a brand by some other company that was a $1 plus a pound.


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## Guest (Aug 5, 2009)

Is your goal to totally eliminate the pellets and just use the grain/animax/hay/greens mixture? What is the protein % on the COB?


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

Yes, i want to eliminate the pellets as much as possible. At this point i don't see them getting any cheaper. Hay prices are going down here, and I have a good sized garden.
the cob is 12.5 percent protien.
The animax is 28 percent protien.
Hay will be a mix of grass and oat hay.
Then what ever weeds, and veggies I have extra. 
I also have available whole peas that I can get cheap and the rabbits love them. They have 24 percent protien. they would act as part of the hay ration. I do have to soak them over night though.


I know some on this forum have done a feed program like this with out the Calf Manna. It does have the minerals and vitamins that just a grain and hay diet lacks.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

I thought you were speaking of Calf Manna, which is the trade name of a specific product. Do you have a tag off of the generic Purina variety so that we can get some idea of its make up? I can buy the Purina "green" pellets for $12 a 50lb bag. It goes up and down somewhat with the price of grain and alfalfa, and last year was running higher. If you could give us the nutritional information off the tag, and the weight (postage scale?) of a tablespoon, we might be able to make a better evaluation. Also, I need to know what kind of hay you would be feeding. It would be helpful to know the percentage of each grain in your COB mixture, and what form the oats are in: hulled or not, crimped, rolled etc.

One more thing, I would need to know, for reference, how much pellets (by weight) you were feeding an adult rabbit back when you were feeding mostly pellets.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

this is a short cut to the ingredince list for Animax.
http://www.lumber2.com/Animax_Supplement_p/pm0001179.htm

I was feeding a cup by measure or about 6 oz. of pellets per dry rabbit. Plus hay or greens daily. A good handfull each.
The Animax weighs 8 oz per cup and is about 22 tablespoons to the cup.
The COB weighs 8 oz per cup and I've been feeding 1/4 cup per dry animal per day. it's about 9.95 for 50 pounds.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

In order to do a reasonable analysis of what you wish to feed, I will need the type of hay, and the approximate amount of each grain in the COB. (if the COB has an analysis tag, that would work as well)


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

There is no tag on either bag of Cob that I have. i am guessing the protien to be 12.5 percent according to a web site I found on feeding chickens.
The hay I am feeding will be grass hay. which from what I understand will be 10 percent protien. The oat hay I have now is simalar in protein.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Give me a little time to work out the mixture analysis. I am guessing it would work OK, especially if you continue greens in the winter for the necessary vitamins.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Sorry it took me so long. The mixture seems a little short on protein, otherwise OK, especially with the greens as the concentrates are short on Vitamin A. If you can get it easily, the easiest way to safely increase your protein level is to switch to alalfa hay. It would take about three tablespoons of the Animax to give you sufficient protein, and that would not only be expensive, but probably too rich in that amount, and your mix would then be short on fiber. The same is true of peas, they are a good protein supplement, but are a little short on fiber. Adding some to the diet would be helpful though, especially if they were cooked. (some say the pea hulls are a problem like whole kernel corn hulls)

Thus a good mix would be: (a)1/4 cup cob [providing they can digest the corn OK] (b) a heaping tablespon of Animax (c) fresh greens, weeds, etc for the extra vitamins (d) alfalfa hay (as much as they want)

I am not saying they would not do okay on the grass hay, just that your mixture falls a few percentage points short of 16% protein.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

Thanks, that gives me a good starting point. I'll look into adding some better hay. I think Dh had ordered grass hay. But I could work out some thing different.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

One thing worries me a bit about the Animax. Brand name Calf Manna is specified on the label for rabbits. Animax is not. That wouldn't normally concern me except for this "animal fate preserved with iron oxide," included in the ingredients list. I am assuming that "fate" is a mispelling of "fat".


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## MaggieJ (Feb 6, 2006)

What's with Purina, putting *animal fat* in products for herbivores? This was one of the reasons I quit feeding pellets. Locally I could only get Purina, which had animal tallow, or Shur-Gain, which the rabbits disliked.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

MaggieJ said:


> What's with Purina, putting *animal fat* in products for herbivores? This was one of the reasons I quit feeding pellets. Locally I could only get Purina, which had animal tallow, or Shur-Gain, which the rabbits disliked.


I feed Purina. It is overall the most consistant and best pellets I have ever found. The Purina rabbit pellets that I feed have no animal products or by-products in them. They do use meat and bone meal or fish meal in some of their other animal feeds. This had been done for years for almost all cattle feeds. Rabbits are much more sensitive to certain things than most animals.
I think horses may be the same way, but I have never raised them.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

The label from the bag I have has iron oxide but does not mention any animal fat products. 
I have one other option. There is a different brand of supplement by a different company that i am waiting to get the price and ingredients on.


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## MaggieJ (Feb 6, 2006)

The ingredients list for Purina pellets may be different in Canada. Animal tallow was definitely an ingredient in the pellets I was buying, according to the ingredients list that Purina sent me. They may have taken it out by now... I haven't kept up with their products in the past couple of years.


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## Guest (Aug 8, 2009)

I used to supplement with Animax regularly back in the late 90's. I KNOW then, there were specific directions for feeding rabbits on the bag. Animax and Calf Manna were very similar then, basically the same product made by 2 different brands. Animax is almost always cheaper, so that's what I bought. It's great as long as you don't over-do it, as it's high in protein.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Indgredients tag from my feed reads:

processed grain by-products, forage products, roughage products, plant protein products, molassas products, grain products, calcium carbonate, salt, DL methionine,iron oxide, ferrous sufalte, vitamin E, vitamin A, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, vitamin B12, cobalt carbonate, vitamin D3, manganese sulfate, ethlenediamine dihydriodide, zinc sulfate, copper chloride, sodium selenite. MEAT AND BONEMEAL FREE. 

By law in the US the ingredients must be listed in decreasing order of amounts. Before Nestle' bought Purina out, the ingredients used to be listed specifically, such as "dehydrated alfalfa meal, wheat middlings" , etc, but I guess Nestle' wanted the latitude to vary the ingredients some. I am not saying these are the best pellets available, but they have always been good pellets for me and I have found them to be consistant in several different states, unlike some of the other pellet brands I have tried.

I have never used Animax, I was simply going by the tag information from the link that was presented.


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