# Cost of rabbit pellets and alternatives



## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

The cost of rabbit feed just keeps going up and up. I remember when I raised rabbits back in the mid 90's rabbit chow was around $5 a bag. Anyway, at the end of 2011 to the beginning of 2012 our local rabbit chow was $12 a bag. Now it's just shy of $19. If it keeps going this way we're going to have to get rid of our rabbits as it's costing more to produce them than they're worth to sell or butcher. So, I'm wondering, of those of you that have found alternatives to rabbit chow, what do you use, how do you use it and how well does it work? I have rabbits that flat out refuse to eat hay. Some refuse to eat anything but their pellets, even avoiding grains. I know trying to make a diet out of grains can be just as expensive, if not more so than pellets. But if I don't figure something out, we may have to get rid of all but only a couple of rabbits. Ideas and thoughts?


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## SFM in KY (May 11, 2002)

6e said:


> But if I don't figure something out, we may have to get rid of all but only a couple of rabbits. Ideas and thoughts?


I am dealing with the same thing here. When I started with the rabbits about 5 years ago, I was paying $10 a bag for pellets. I'm now paying $17 a bag. 

I'm cutting way back on the number of rabbits I'm keeping ... I was 'playing' with a couple of different types of rabbits ... and the hobby part of it is going to have to go. I'm doing some experimenting with alternative feeds but not finding anything that really works well.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

IMO it's getting ridiculous what they're asking for feed.


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## bowbuild (Aug 2, 2008)

Yep, the price of feed has made me quit selling meat rabbits, and I am getting $16-20 per rabbit, BUT after I added up the feed prices, bringing them to the buyer....and last the hassle facter of raising enough rabbits it's just not worth it.

The only way I could see making a REASONABLE profit was to get my own pellet maker. They can be found, but the cost would have to be figured in over the long haul. With rabbits they really got ya by the pellets, and when they jerk the prices...well it don't feel so good!

Bowbuild


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## BroodCoop (Feb 20, 2012)

2011 was $10/bag, mid way through 2012 some places approaching $20/bag. Best I can do is $13.25 now.

I want to learn to grow my own rabbit food.

Florida must have funded the perennial peanut project. I see it advertised there but not here. That shows promise. Closest I've seen yet is still about $100 drive with pickup and trailer.

I got some smaller rabbits and I think they are my new direction. Florida White and Dutch, maybe. Smaller rabbits and smaller herd.

Too bad, I am breeding beautiful NZ and Cals.


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## dragontamer56 (Nov 16, 2012)

does anyone know of a small scale machine to make pellets? I think we should be able to grow or buy small amounts of grains alfalfa and other ingredients to make our own pellets for convenience and simplicity.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

They told me at the co-op that a lot of rabbit people are feeding their rabbits straight alfalfa pellets. They're almost $10 a bag now and my rabbits won't touch them. Sometimes they'll eat alfalfa hay, but not enough to maintain weight. They love cheerios, BOSS and calf manna pellets. They like oatmeal too. But those things really are just as high, if not higher, than rabbit chow.
We tried to switch to a cheaper brand last summer and we ended up having several litters born with birth defects and lost a bunch of rabbits despite switching them over very gradually. Haven't had any more trouble since we switched back, but it's becoming very cost prohibitive.


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

Feed is up here 2-3 dollars per bag. Around 18$ per bag now for rabbits and poultry feed. The feed store told me they wont have any sales all winter. They know they hold a captive audience with us Northerners who have less forage in the winter - and are forced to buy more feed.

I started rationing pellets, feeding mostly hay, and will be keeping young fryers in a long grow out pen on grass in the spring - I won't risk the health of my breeding adults by keeping them in ground pens.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

why do people think rabbits need to eat pellets? they are from spain and south europe and eat grasses and herbs naturally. if you can get cheap grains, which i can't, try sprouting them. 

here's what mine eat - 
straight alfalfa pellets (not too much per rabbit) they need the protein
bidens alba, ryegrass/bahia grass/nutsedge, banana leaves, cowpea plants, peanut plants, canna leaves, pear leaves and twigs, hibiscus leaves and flowers, sweet potato greens, sycamore leaves, bamboo leaves, veggie scraps from kitchen, potentially iffy leftover herbs from kitchen. 
and i'm gardening more and more for them all the time. it takes some time to harvest the stuff, but makes it cheaper to keep my small flock. 
check out the weeds for feed thread, there is probably something that grows where you live that you can use to supplement. is there a place that sycamore doesn't grow in the us?  what about honey locust, mimosa, kudzu, mesquite, etc...


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

Tentance, I don't know where you're at, but you have an interesting array of stuff you feed. We actually don't have any of that in the winter......or summer for that matter. We're on the plains and there's nothing but grass, grass and more grass and all that is brown right now. We have fed hay, but I have some that would sooner starve to death than eat hay and I am very serious when I say that. Mine won't touch alfalfa pellets either. We've tried that route as they are a tad cheaper than pellets. We try to supplement with hay just to cut down on the amount of pellets, but some just won't touch it and they start to lose weight quick.
On another post someone had mentioned a pellet machine. That might be a good idea. I'm not sure what we're going to do in the long run. Right now we're giving away a whole bunch of rabbits just to cut down on mouths to feed. Sad deciding who goes, but that's what it's come down to.


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

Well, personally I work and have other obligations so feeding pellets is a choice I make. Just don't have the time to grow and forgage feed each day. I think most of us do feed hay and greens. I am one state away from Canada and most of the stuff Tent mentioned sounds semi tropical - most vegetation here is dead 6 months of the year. Once I retire, I might decide to grow everything and store more over winter.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

It's that way here too. Our pastures die after the first frost which could be October or could be November and doesn't come back till it starts getting really warm in May. So, I understand how you feel. And even when it's warm, things to feed are semi limited. I have a choice.....grass or hedge. LOL That's about all that grows here.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

Our rabbits were a profitable venture last year. This year due to illnesses I'm seeing that may not be the case... but not because of feed costs IMO.

I offset feed costs by selling quality pedigreed breeding stock. I raise Silver Fox and New Zealands. The SF start at 45.00 apeice. Even the NZ's, which until recently weren't great quality, were at 15.00 apeice - still way more than what it costs to raise them out which is about 5-6 dollars per bunny last I loosely calculated it. 

Our feed is 18% pen pals, its right around 16.00-17.00/bag I think. 50lbs.


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

if mine refused hay, forage, weeds, etc.......id cull the whole herd and get rabbits that will eat this type of feeding. 
feeding this way is the best route, healthier, and cheaper. 

with that said, i still feed pellets. this summer i fed ALOT of alfalfa hay, wire grass and other weeds pulled from the garden. and fed much less pellets. they grew slower, but im not trying to sell to a processor any longer. i sell to individuals and for my own consumption. and ive cut my breeding herd down to one buck and 4 does. for the winter. next spring i will add additional does.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

The rabbit market here has been really poor. Mostly due to the fact that we are way out in the middle of nowhere and no one wants to drive out this far and partially due to economics I suppose. I see other people's ads run for the same rabbits for weeks and I think they're having the same problem. It used to be that I could sell a rabbit for $40 or more and people wouldn't bat an eye. Now people are super careful about what they spend their money on. All of ours are show rabbits. We have Satins. I guess they count as meat rabbits. All the others are small breeds. With the way the economy is going it may be wise to go into just meat rabbits. Might need them to survive. LOL


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## bowbuild (Aug 2, 2008)

Here are some pellet machines not cheap.. http://www.makeyourownpellets.com/pelletmilld.html

You can also see a ton of these pellet machines on ALIBABA.COM they are chinese made machines, and the machines that are in the link are chinese as well I am pretty sure.


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

nothing but NZ and a few crosses for meat production here. i decided a couple yrs back everything had to have a purpose. a got rid of alot of dead weight. that includes certain breeds of chickens too. everything i kept has to be the best at its trade. feed is to high, time to rare, building material to expensive for me to keep useless animals. thats why i stayed with meat breeds, true meat rabbit breeds and hybrid layer breeds of fowl. 

course i do have a horse i ride weekly............she and my little house yorkie is the only dead weight i allow myself. lol.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

i would have to agree that any buns that will starve to death rather than accept a reasonable change to their diet should probably be culled. that sounds harsh, but it's reality. didn't joel salatin say on an interview that his son bred dozens of generations of rabbits at a profit loss before they finally had a herd that could subsist and thrive on the poor nutrition of their local pasture? its really about snobby rabbits, and nutrition, and all. mine all switched from pellet to green stuff immediately, especially when i started rationing the pellets. 
if you live on the prairie then i sympathize, except i don't because there's probably half a dozen wonderful plants you could be encouraging/propagating to feed them. or at least supplement their diet. can you grow peas there? what about sunflowers? dandelions? flowers in the aster family? roses? apples? what do you grow for yourself? there's a ton of grains that can probably grow there too. i grow sorghum (very small scale, i don't have a lot to work with) and the rabbits can't get enough! 
maybe your land is too marginal for rabbits. that's a hard concept for me to understand, because it's like saying it's too marginal for mice, but i guess there are dry deserty areas like that. if i had land that was too marginal for mice i would move. that's harsh too, but i want to be able to garden and grow things for my family and rabbits. when i lived in michigan, i gardened like crazy and could have grown a ton of green stuff for the rabbits there too, had i had them then. and dead leaves were everywhere! leaves are like bunny potato chips! 

just have to know what you've got really.


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

Dead Rabbit said:


> and ive cut my breeding herd down to one buck and 4 does. for the winter. next spring i will add additional does.


Yea, I am just going to continue butchering mine all off before winter and just keep a few of the best ones for breeding in the spring. This is probably what people did in the winter, back before commercial feeds were around...with all livestock, I would imagine.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

sycamore does not grow up here, too cold! We have snow on the ground from thanksgiving to tax day minimum. Better store alot for over winter. I have colony rabbits and they always have hay and eat alot of it. I also feed them beets and carrots from the garden I saved and lots and lots and lots of weeds in the summer. They never make weight fed this way and are always a tad bony. Pellets are the only thing that make the meat weight.


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## Treewhisper (Nov 24, 2010)

I was experifmenting with duckweed during the summer. My chickens and ducks love the stuff so i thought why not try it on the rabbits. Its 40% protein. I could only do it during the summer because thats when it was warm enough to get them to grow. It covered my little pond so i kept skimming it off the top. It was kind of a sludge but i let it dry out to a "mash potato" consistency then borrowed by wife's meat grinder. My wife busted me raiding her kitchen for the meat grinder. :ashamed: She caught me last time stealing the meat thermometer to check the heat in the compost pile. :hysterical: Anyway, pushed through the mince meat plate the duckweed came out in long sphagetti like strings then i let it dry out in the sun in an open tupperware container. Once it was dry and brittle enough i put the lid on and shook the container to break the duckweed sphagetti up into pellets. I cut my rabbit pellets with my duckweed pellets and some buns seemed to eat it ok and some didnt like it. I found that if i start a litter on it as soon as they are jumping out of the box they will eat it and stick with it. I didnt produce very much. Most duckweed growers who raise it for fish (tilapia) say its growth doubles every 3 days but mine was every 2-3 weeks. I'm still working out the kinks. Its my winter reading project.


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## Treewhisper (Nov 24, 2010)

If you live in the South, kudzu is awesome for rabbits and it appears to be an inexhaustable supply.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

the us plants database says that sycamore and other maples grow everywhere east of the rocky mountains, including wisconsin. 
if all you can grow is grass and hedge, what's your hedge made from? willow and poplar i hope!


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

No, the hedge is actually a tree all it's own. Hedge trees. No Maples here. You have to go East into Missouri to find that. Here where I am at in the Flint Hills is grass and Hedge rows. Sometimes, on land other than our own, I can find Cottonwood, Elm and Black Walnut. That's about it though. Mostly Cottonwood if it's near a stream or something. Not much grows here. And western Kansas is even worse. Nothing there but dirt, dirt, cows and wheat.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

In fact, our Hedge row to the north is dead now. The rancher that owns the land to the north of us crop dusted all the trees last summer and killed them so he can bulldoze them all down to make room for more pasture. 
Oh, I forgot a tree. We have lots and lots of Eastern Red Cedars.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

The us plants database aint living it, lol! I wouldnt doubt sycamores grow in the very southern portion of wisconsin, especially southwest where its more humid, or in micro climate spots, but here in east central, Ive never seen but one or two and they were very old trees. Its just too cold, windy and dry.


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## TroutRiver (Nov 26, 2010)

Why buy a pellet machine? If you can source all of the ingredients that would go into your pellets, why not just feed that? Why does it need to be pelleted? 

Most animals that are fed exactly the same thing every single day of their lives will be a little hesitant to eat something completely new, but animals will not starve themselves literally to death when there is food readily available. Any animal with such poor survival skills should be culled anyway. However you may experience poor growth rates if you have picky eaters. There would need to be a transition period where you culled out the picky/poor eaters, and moved your herd toward accepting a more varied diet. You may very well end up losing money for the first year. I am working on this right now. Your animals' genetics need to fit your system. If you change your system, you can't expect to keep the same genetics and have it work just as well as it did before.


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## bowbuild (Aug 2, 2008)

Troutriver,

Simple...I hate messy cages. I have seen people that feed hay on the inside of their cages, and what a freakin mess...never! I can't see how a little hay rack is going to compete with a compressed pellet both for ease and cleanliness. I would really like to SEE the cages of people that free feed hay.....if it was easy, or more importantly CLEAN large operations would not use pellets would they?

Bowbuild


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

i hand make hay racks that attach to outside of cages. they pull the hay through the side wire walls of the cage. no mess at all.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

The main reason I can see for making pellets is that most rabbits will pick out their favorite ingredients and leave the rest. They'll pick out all the sunflower seeds and dig out the oats to find more sunflower seeds for example. Our rabbits would kill for Cheerios and would dig out all their feed to find that last Cheerio.


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## halcanada (Dec 20, 2012)

Hi folks. New here. Very interesting posts! Just a thought. Why not give the rabbits some layer crumbles? too expensive? Or hay and a portion of layer crumbles. Many years since I had rabbits back in the UK but those rabbits ate anything. As did other peoples. PS use layer crumbles 50% with grains for my racing pigeons.


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## FarmerStina (Nov 18, 2011)

I've been feeding my rabbits spent barley from brewers, at $.05/pound, in crocks. It does make for a messier cage, and they often use the crocks as a toilet, but they love the barley. They choose it over fresh greens and fresh fruit any day. 
I also feed hay from my pasture, weeds from the garden when I have them, and fresh fruits and vegetables from the dumpster at the local produce stand. I haven't fed pellets to these rabbits in 2+ years. I admit to having a small number of rabbits (5 does and 2 bucks plus all their kits) so it's easier for me to scrounge for food than it would be for a larger operation.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

No way on the layer crumbles! Those are meant for chickens who are omnivores. Also crumbles are primarily soy and corn and have a measure of preservative chemicals in them alot of times. You don't want to feed your rabbits that. Besides, the price isn't much different.


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## mystang89 (Oct 10, 2012)

I used to pay $32 per 50 lb bag of rabbit feed per month. I started growing my own fodder inside and now so far I've paid $15 for a month and still have seed in the bag that can be grown. It's saved me a lot. I have to buy the hay as well but that is only $4/5 and I've only had to buy that once a month as well. It's a bit more work but I don't really mind it.


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## FloridaHillbill (Dec 5, 2012)

This thread has me thinking, so today I spent 45 minutes looking at options available at the local Tractor Supply. It seems that _*any*_ 50 pound bag of feed, any animal, costs between $15 and $18, unless you go for the really high end stuff. And 50 pounds of BOSS was $26...on SALE!

So I've been looking at local weeds and grasses as a supplement. Thanks for this thread!


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

what are you growing in your garden to feed yourself? you would be surprised at how nutritionally dense the majority of vegetable plants are, for example, squash vines, sweet potato vines, bean plants, carrot tops, herbs...along with a high quality grass like perennial rye...
farmers used to feed their rabbits things like mulberry and mangel beet tops...also since rabbits have nutritional needs similar to horses, what are horses eating in your area? can you grow any grains at all? they can be stored and sprouted over the winter. it may be time consuming. i think old time farmers in the temperate climates did cull their herds in the fall so they were only feeding the very best breeding stock through the winter.

i realize it's winter, but think about next spring, please!


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

Right now we're just trying to get our bunnies through to spring. We went yesterday and got some grains at the co-op to mix with the rabbit feed. Grain here is half the price of rabbit chow. We got a 50# bag of rolled oats for $7. We can get BOSS here for $12. Beet pulp is about $10 a bag. 

As far as horses, most of the people around here the horses eat hay and that's it. They're not generally grained. We have two show miniature horses of which one is bred and they do get fed Miniature Horse feed, but a bag lasts the 2 of them a month whereas a 50# bag of rabbit chow lasts 2 days. LOL Although we did give away a whole bunch of rabbits yesterday just to lighten the load. We don't raise them to eat, although we do sometimes, as much as we raise them to show. But showing rabbits is a family event and everyone has some. Adds up quick.


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## BroodCoop (Feb 20, 2012)

I just read a mention of The Haiti Project and rabbit feeding. Universities in the US get grants to make raising rabbits affordable in other countries and here we discuss reducing our herds.


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## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Dead Rabbit, Any chance you could post a pic of the hay racks you made or describe then? I have thought and thought about how to really do this and haven't figured out a way that would seem to work. I finally found wire baskets used to gather eggs at Tractor Supply and zip tied them inside the cages suspended from the top. It seems to work pretty well and they hold a lot of hay.


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

i'll try and remeber to take a pic tomorrow.


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## Treewhisper (Nov 24, 2010)

MyStang
"I started growing my own fodder inside and now so far I've paid $15 for a month and still have seed in the bag that can be grown. It's saved me a lot." 

What did you grow? Can you describe me your set?


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

i made the hay racks outa the piece of wire i cut outa the front of the cages to make the door opening. it was just a wasted useless piece of wire that i was going to discard but decided to put to some type of use and i just started bending it different ways till i came up with a style that seems to work. ive used these now for 4 yrs. they hook to the the actual door. last yr i started latching them on with a long spring with hooks on each end just to keep them more securely latched to cage door. i can open the doors which swing up and in. and the hay racks stay attached. i used to just hang them when ever i fed hay. the rabbits pull the hay through the wire sides which is made of 1"X2" wire. there is never ever hay inside their cages. what they pull through they eat. some will fall out of the racks as they pull on the individual pieces outa the bundle stuffed in racks. but this falls in front on to the rabbitry floor. its never very much. but i let it build up and then use it to put in chicken coop floor or hens nest. i do wish the racks were bigger, but its all i could shape outa the wasted cut out wire. i feed twice a day and it holds enough for them to eat.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

Very nice set up. I might have to do that instead of letting them have hay to just play in.


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## boundarybunnyco (Sep 7, 2011)

I use a premium pellet, because switching to cheaper feed killed a lot of my stock. But I also feed a lot of hay. That seems to cut down on the amount of pellets. If I had time, I would go around with the hay first, and let them fill up on that. Then give them their pellets. In the summer we do pick a lot of grass and clover and dandelion and plantain for them. Also maple leaves. They love them even dried out. That could be a winter forage if well dried and stored. We have a hay field so we get our hay baled for 1.25 a bale. Compared to 24.75 for pellets. I can't cut out the pellets completely; my show rabbits need the extra nutrition in them. they also get a teaspoon of calf manna mixed with BOSS every day or so. feeding them is hugely expensive, but I make a bit back on sales.


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

Deadrabbit, I bought hay feeders just like that this year at a show. They were only 1.25 each, but I find that they are too small for meat rabbits. I don't like having to refill them every day.

I will probably just build large V shaped hay chutes on the fronts of the pen doors this year, out of wire.


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

boundarybunnyco said:


> I use a premium pellet, because switching to cheaper feed killed a lot of my stock. But I also feed a lot of hay. That seems to cut down on the amount of pellets. If I had time, I would go around with the hay first, and let them fill up on that. Then give them their pellets. In the summer we do pick a lot of grass and clover and dandelion and plantain for them. Also maple leaves. They love them even dried out. That could be a winter forage if well dried and stored. We have a hay field so we get our hay baled for 1.25 a bale. Compared to 24.75 for pellets. I can't cut out the pellets completely; my show rabbits need the extra nutrition in them. they also get a teaspoon of calf manna mixed with BOSS every day or so. feeding them is hugely expensive, but I make a bit back on sales.


We had the same problem when we tried to switch to a cheaper feed. Lost rabbits and had litters born with deformities. Cleared up after we went back to our original feed.


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## Honorine (Feb 27, 2006)

Problem with feeding grains I've found is feed digging, they each have their fav thing and will dig all the feed out just to find it. If its all pellets they don't do that. I have in the past put extra bowls with grains in the cages, separate from the feeders, but as someone mentioned those grains are very expensive now too. Boss was up to $35 a bag in my area at TSC, its finally gone back down the last 6 months. I feed a lot of hay, and I keep the mess down by one using only grass hay. Timothy and Alfalfa are stemmy and have more waste, the rabbits tend to stomp and poop on those hays. The grass hay however they eat all of it, every bit. If you have hanging single layer cages you can put a flake on the top of the cage and the rabbit will stand up and pull it in, if its a tall enough rabbit. I used to do that as well. I need to make some more hay racks.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

We rarely fed grain, most of the time it was ignored anyway.
As time went on decent alfalfa hay was the main feed and we only supplemented with a small amount of pellets for the breeding does.
Rabbits grown for meat were separated by sex and run on tractors out in the yard and pasture with no supplement unless we ran into fall after the grass stopped growing. We did not breed for late fall-early spring births once we started using tractors heavily....
Occasionally we would run the brood does on individual tractors with a small supplement of pellets as well to save on hay.
I hated buying pellets at 12 dollars a bag.


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## jolly rabbit (Apr 30, 2012)

i noticed at the pet and feed store that they sell alfalfa pellets and timothy pellets by the 50# bag, has anybody used these to supplement their feed? the bag was $2.50 cheaper than rabbit pellets. on another forum a gentleman was saying how he use 12% all-stock sweet feed especially in the grow out cages and for senior bucks. he just did a 50-50 mix with pellets.


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## gunslinger598 (Aug 23, 2006)

I feed my horses alfalfa pellets. 17% protien.

Exactly the same thing as "rabbit" pellets. Only quite a little bit cheaper.

Currently alfalfa pellets are $10.40 -50 lbs.
Rabbit pellets $18.99 -40 lbs

Maybe this will help someone


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## bowbuild (Aug 2, 2008)

I am the one that uses sweet feed 50/50


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## jolly rabbit (Apr 30, 2012)

gunslinger598 said:


> I feed my horses alfalfa pellets. 17% protien.
> 
> Exactly the same thing as "rabbit" pellets. Only quite a little bit cheaper.
> 
> ...


Thats what i thought, I might have to take a trip by the feed store and look at my options soon just trying to do the best i can without breaking the bank. i use to buy my pellets from walmart believe it or not and decided to buy better stuff locally. it was only $0.32 per # vs. $0.37#


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## 6e (Sep 10, 2005)

There are people around where I am that feed their rabbits alfalfa pellets. Unfortunately for us, we tried it and the pellets are so much bigger than rabbit pellets that they wouldn't eat them. Would probably work if you had the big rabbits, but our smaller breeds won't eat them. Standlee, I think it was, used to sell alfalfa pellets that were tiny like rabbit pellets, but they quit selling them that small.


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

Are you guys talking about actual tiny alfalfa pellets, or the small cubes? Are these in the horse section?

I still need to find a new feed store. TSC is such a rip off - they pretty much price all feeds with nothing under 15.00 per bag, so people can't substitute with cheaper feeds. Their rabbit and poultry feed here is up approaching 18.00 per bag now. Cracked corn is the cheapest, around 11.00.


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## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Dead Rabbit, I got your PM about posting a pick of your hay racks but I can't find your pics.


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

post #42


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## Dead Rabbit (Oct 30, 2010)

Haven said:


> Deadrabbit, I bought hay feeders just like that this year at a show. They were only 1.25 each, but I find that they are too small for meat rabbits. I don't like having to refill them every day.
> 
> I will probably just build large V shaped hay chutes on the fronts of the pen doors this year, out of wire.



yup i do wish they were bigger but thats as big as they got with just using scrap. 

as mentioned i feed twice a day. i ration the pellets out so they get just enough for a full days ration, but split in two feedings.
i dont mind feeding twice a day. im a firm believer that animals do better with more human interaction. so on my busiest days, they see me at least twice. on the days im around the house, im in and out the rabbitry many times a day. but still they get fed around the same times each day.

when giving them banannas or other treats, i may feed this type of thing between meals.

during summer months, i feed garden scraps, wire grass or other types of forage, in place of pellets or before pellets so they fill up the "free food" first. but ive found they will choose forage material over pellets. yet pellets are first choice over hay.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

gunslinger598 said:


> I feed my horses alfalfa pellets. 17% protien.
> 
> Exactly the same thing as "rabbit" pellets. Only quite a little bit cheaper.
> 
> ...


This is not true. Alfalfa pellets are NOT exactly the same as rabbit pellets. Alfalfa pellets, are exactly that dried and compressed alfalfa. Rabbit pellets have additional grains in them and added minerals formulated specifically for rabbits. Straight alfalfa pellets or cubes tend to taste comparatively bitter and many rabbits don't like them. Also the alfalfa pellets are large and you tend to end up with lots of waste.


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## jolly rabbit (Apr 30, 2012)

lonelyfarmgirl said:


> This is not true. Alfalfa pellets are NOT exactly the same as rabbit pellets. Alfalfa pellets, are exactly that dried and compressed alfalfa. Rabbit pellets have additional grains in them and added minerals formulated specifically for rabbits. Straight alfalfa pellets or cubes tend to taste comparatively bitter and many rabbits don't like them. Also the alfalfa pellets are large and you tend to end up with lots of waste.


I know they are not composed of the same things, but they are just pressed alfalfa right? and i did not know about the size difference in them. that could be of some concern. the whole point is to save money not waste it, i also saw that the feed store had timothy pellets which i assume is the same thing just with timothy, right?


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## SherryB (Oct 10, 2012)

Thanks for the pics Dead Rabbit


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## mildblue (Oct 15, 2012)

I likely am going to try to go to a sprouting system like this.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/growing-sprouted-fodder/72618

I am looking for a cheap source of barley currently... I have a good supply of BOSS and Oats that I am going to sprout..


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## a7736100 (Jun 4, 2009)

When Purina went over the $20 mark I switched to Country Acres. It's now $18 for 50 pounds. I've tried cheaper brands but their poops got soft.


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## Skip (Mar 13, 2008)

When we weaned the litters one rascal got loose. Been about 4 months and she is surviving. I only put a handful of rabbit pellets down for her, not sure where she gets her water, during the summer I had a dish out for her but don't anymore as it freezes. She's named Monty after the rabbit at the end of a Monty Python movie.

Alternative feed: All my rabbits will each the branches and leaves of poplar before kibble. I also bought an electric Stihl lawnmower with a thing to catch the cut grass, was feeding that to them when in season.

I did loose one kit a nice doe and suspect it was from some sort of fresh clover. Stopped feeding it to any of the rabbits.


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## icentropy (Jul 5, 2013)

Hi all, we're growing large rabbits (mostly flemish giant crosses) that we use for meat and I hope to start using for fur as well. we started out feeding alfalfa and grass hay but there was tons and tons of waste. seemed that half of it ended up on the floor under their cages. we switched to rabbit pellets and that's been extremely convenient with almost no waste but with prices the way they're going I'm looking for alternatives which led me to this thread. I have local farmers that sell triticale, oats and barely at very good prices (around $35 a 55g drum) but I'm guessing rabbits can't live off of grains alone. Is there some sort of combination of those grains that would help to stretch our pellets? alfalfa pellets don't seem to be that much cheaper than rabbit feed around here. I think they were 15 per bag vs the 19 per bag for rabbit feed last i saw but can rabbits live off of alfalfa pellets alone? Lastly I do have access to dry farmed grass hay but it's in large round bales and I don't really know how i would go about turning that into something i could feed easily to these rabbits without again ending up with a ton of grass under the cages and hungry rabbits. I've looked at those pellet machines but at $2k for a machine it would take a long time to make up my money in rabbit meat on an investment like that


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

First, we don't shop at TSC, they are very pricey when compared to other places around here.
Second we don't shop at feed stores that seem to cater to the urban homesteader or horse person, they are just as expensive as TSC.
Our local feed mill can get rabbit pellets cheaper and they do not require me to buy them by the pallet just a bag at a time like any other place.

We didn't totally stop pellet use but found ways to cut our consumption.
We only bred our rabbits in the spring-late summer and once the kits were old enough we tractored them on the lawn perhaps supplementing with pellets if we had an overabundance of kits and the tractors were crowded.
We kept the bucks in small tractors on the grass as well. The does got tractored some but were usually in cages and would get pellets with some hay they didn't seem to breed well in the tractors and we figured it might have been the constant moving bothered them. In the off season they got free choice hay.
Didn't seem to be a horrible mess of hay around the cages, and it really didn't matter as everything went into the garden anyway. Tried feeding whole shell corn and whole oats in feeders to supplement the hay but overall they didn't care for that and they didn't seem to lose any health on the hay. We fed alfalfa hay and a grassy clover mix depending on what we could source.


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## ETurbanfarmer (Jan 20, 2016)

Here locally I can get a 50#bag for 12.95. We also grow lots of kale and other greens and have a huge supply of clover all year round to help supplement.


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## KFhunter (Feb 21, 2010)

mildblue said:


> I likely am going to try to go to a sprouting system like this.
> 
> http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/growing-sprouted-fodder/72618
> 
> I am looking for a cheap source of barley currently... I have a good supply of BOSS and Oats that I am going to sprout..



I see sprouting systems on CL all the time
http://spokane.craigslist.org/grd/5376592711.html

Seems like a pain, have to keep it in the house or heated area and well lit and clean it out all the time. Might as well go with tilapia and hydroponics.

Would be nice in a heated green house though


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## ETurbanfarmer (Jan 20, 2016)

I have been thinking about doing something similar in my greenhouse. Take some of those cheap roasting pans from like dollar tree and putting about 1/2 inch of soil the planting alfalfa or something similar to feed the rabbits the shoots.


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## Ziptie (May 16, 2013)

I have been thinking about doing the fodder system, but from the research that I have seen it doesn't really increase the amount the nutrients. Though it does change the balance. Though I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. 

Saying that with whole oats I know that for cows and pigs(not sure about rabbits) I have to grind it up or they won't be able to digest a lot of it. If couldn't grind I would do this till the seed was just sprouting. From my reading I think is was day 3-4 was the best for TDN.

I am always looking out for alternative ways of feeding. What about squashes? Does anyone feed their rabbits those?


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## ETurbanfarmer (Jan 20, 2016)

I know they love squash leaves and small bits of pumpkin as well as small piece of cucumbers, I don't think I would give them a lot of either but could be an occasional supplement and change for them.


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## BamaHomestead (Jan 18, 2016)

Thats crazy. Feed down here in South Alabama is like 12-14$ a bag.


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