# Homemade rabbit feed??



## Treewhisper

Ever looking for more ways to be self sufficient....i would like to get away from buying bag after bag of rabbit pellets. I will start growing mangels in the Spring and perhaps make hay on an acre i have left on my hobby farm. I dont have much land so perhaps hay is not the best idea. What do you guys do? Any ideas for better productivity on a small amt of land?


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## Wisconsin Ann

If you're looking for fast growing with meat rabbits...pellets has been shown to be the best nutrition for the fastest growth. so....

During the growing season, you can gather all kinds of stuff for your rabbits. Dandelion greens are spectacular nutrition, mulberry (leaves and branches), plantain, grape leaves...so many things that we normally mow/weed out/throw away are great for rabbits. check out the sticky in this forum for natural feeding.

If you have a source of good alfalfa hay, you can easily cut costs by basing your feed on the hay, adding a handful of wheat/oats/barley and some greens. You'll need a mineral block/wheel for the rabbits, as well...to give them the needed salts and minerals. 

It's fairly time consuming, tho...depending on how many rabbits you're feeding

A good compromise: timothy/alfalfa or grass/alfalfa mix hay, and pellets. One day they get pellets, the next they get hay. Balance it as you watch what they eat and how they grow. One of my mentors does a 3 day rotation: she gives them all the hay they can eat on day 1; removes the hay and then all the greens/grasses/weeds they can eat on day 2; removes the greens and all the pellets they can eat on day 3. She has super healthy rabbits, ..both angoras and meat mutts. They grow fast, shiny, and healthy.


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## MaggieJ

I feed my rabbits free choice alfalfa/grass hay, plus some grain (wheat, oats, barley - about 1/4 cup daily for bucks or dry does, more for nursing does and fryers) and as many free gathered greens as the season allows. There is a ton of information in the sticky posts at the top - safe plants list, long thread on natural feeding etc. 

Ann is perfectly correct that fryers grow far faster on pellets. Mine take about 14-16 weeks to reach butchering weight instead of 10-12 weeks on pellets and it requires more thought and more work. But it is cheaper overall and more in keeping with the desire of self-sufficiency. And the flavour of the meat is much nicer.


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## laughaha

Sunflowers

Get a 20 or 50lb bag of Black Oil Sunflower seed and plant it where it can be seen from road or house. Looks really pretty and is GREAT for rabbits and chickens in the winter. For rabbits you can feed the leaves/stalks/flowers and seeds.


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## laughaha

Mini Pumpkins

Build a couple trellis's and plant mini pumpkins to climb them. Really pretty, don't need to put a sling under each pumpkin growing on the vine, really prolific and a decent winter keeper. Natural wormer in pumpkin seeds. Once ripe and dried, you can store in milk crates/whatever and give each bunny one whenever you want. 

Big pumpkins are great too, but a pain in the butt to take a hatchet too all the time. Or you could just put a pumpkin in each cage and replace as needed. My buns get pumpkin on an almost daily basis. 

Also great for chickens too- they have no problem devouring a whole pumpkin.


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## Danaus29

My spoiled brats won't eat pumpkin unless it's cooked. But they love those mini pumpkins! 

I found a study done in one of the countries in Africa where rabbit weight gain and growth was measured and different feeds were given. The plant studied the closest was mulberry since it grows like a weed there and was readily available. The study found that up to half the pellets could be eliminated if mulberry leaves and branches were fed in large quantities. Giving the rabbits any less than half the recommended pellets did slow growth and weight gain a little, 100% mulberry slowed growth and weight gain a lot (got to have variety to get all the nutrients they need). Personally, if I had the land I would grow the mangles and a good clover/grass mix to use as hay and cut the pellets back a bit while feeding as much hay as the rabbits wanted. You can and should still feed them pumpkin or at least pumpkin seeds and you could add oats, barley, sunflowers, dandelions and a whole range of other feeds. Before WWII pellets were not widely available and people still raised enough rabbit to put meat on the table. It can be done but pellets are less labor intensive and produce faster growth.


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## rabbitgeek

The other thing is that even if slow growing, you could still butcher at 10-12 weeks, the rabbits will be smaller, but still tender. If not growing for commercial market, don't feel like you HAVE to wait to butcher at 5 lbs. 

We used to harvest Dutch rabbits at 10-11 weeks, 2.5 lbs live weight. No problem.

At 14 weeks I found the pelts are a little tougher to pull off. The pelts at 14 weeks are usually better for tanning if you use the pelts.

If you save the fastest growing rabbits as breeders, you will be selecting rabbits that thrive on what you are feeding.

Have a good day!


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## rabbitgeek

Treewhisper said:


> Ever looking for more ways to be self sufficient....i would like to get away from buying bag after bag of rabbit pellets. I will start growing mangels in the Spring and perhaps make hay on an acre i have left on my hobby farm. I dont have much land so perhaps hay is not the best idea. What do you guys do? Any ideas for better productivity on a small amt of land?


I was just thinking that one could grow oat hay? Oat hay was always enjoyed by our rabbits.

Have a good day!


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## trinityoaks

I feed a grain mix of oats, barley, and wheat (and black-oil sunflower seed in the winter), along with alfalfa hay. I'm hoping to plant all of them this spring using the square-foot gardening method. I love the mini pumpkin idea!


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## Danaus29

If all goes as planned I can let you know what rabbits think of buckwheat straw this fall. I know it's not as nutritious as hay but we want the buckwheat grains for our use.


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## CaliannG

There is also....garden waste.

Corn leaves, carrot tops, radish tops, etc., etc. (Be careful, no tomato plants!) will provide variety and trace nutrients. Also, garden stuff that won't make it into the house...the peppers that were mostly eaten by caterpillars, the melons that the pill pugs disfigured horribly, lettuce that bolted and squash munched by what-have-you can all go to your critters.

Even that patch of wheat that a herd of something laid in last night need not go to waste...just cut the area that got bent and feed it to the bunnies...immature wheat berries are VERY sweet.

ETA: Just about anything that you have ever cursed, swore at, and yanked your hair from your head over your local cottontails sneaking into your garden and devouring is acceptable to feed to your domestic bun-buns when you get a nice bumper crop.


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## SquashNut

I tryed making my own feed and I am now back to feeding pellets to my breeders. The conception rate is too unpredictable with home made feed mixes. Does not lifting and looking pregnant till about 8 days before they should haven kindled.
I will continue to supplement my bucks and dry does with hay and grain mix, but my breeding does will get nothing but pellets from 1 week before breeding and a week after having babies. 
Since I just started this I will adjust it till my rabbitry starts working again. I put in 6 boxes last month and got nothing. Your not saving anything if your rabbitry stalls out on production.

i did get some kits during the summer using garden waste and grain/hay as feed.


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## luv2farm

What I was wondering is this: Can you dehydrate all this stuff and use it for winter feeding? 



CaliannG said:


> There is also....garden waste.
> 
> Corn leaves, carrot tops, radish tops, etc., etc. (Be careful, no tomato plants!) will provide variety and trace nutrients. Also, garden stuff that won't make it into the house...the peppers that were mostly eaten by caterpillars, the melons that the pill pugs disfigured horribly, lettuce that bolted and squash munched by what-have-you can all go to your critters.
> 
> ...immature wheat berries are VERY sweet.
> 
> ETA: Just about anything that you have ever cursed, swore at, and yanked your hair from your head over ...... is acceptable to feed to your domestic bun-buns when you get a nice bumper crop.


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## CaliannG

~ponders~ I cannot imagine why not. Pellets are basically a bunch of grass, legumes, fruits, veggies and grains that have been dehydrated, pounded into powder and pressed into convenient forms. Heck, the rabbit treats at the pet stores are basically non-powdered but dried forms of the same.


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## MaggieJ

You can dry most greens (especially weeds). I just posted a detailed answer in Kwing's thread about storing food for winter. See the stickies on Safe Plants and Natural Feeding for more ideas.


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## Treewhisper

Thanks for the ideas!! I can definitely put in alot of trellis from scrap wood pallets to grow things upwards like the mini pumpkins since space is limited.


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## may1802

trinityoaks said:


> I feed a grain mix of oats, barley, and wheat (and black-oil sunflower seed in the winter), along with alfalfa hay. I'm hoping to plant all of them this spring using the square-foot gardening method. I love the mini pumpkin idea!


Do you mind if I ask what ratio you use for your oats/barley/wheat? Thanks so much!


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## Pony

laughaha said:


> Sunflowers
> 
> Get a 20 or 50lb bag of Black Oil Sunflower seed and plant it where it can be seen from road or house. Looks really pretty and is GREAT for rabbits and chickens in the winter. For rabbits you can feed the leaves/stalks/flowers and seeds.


I was wondering if BOSS is hybrid or grows true, so I am glad I opened this thread. Yay!


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## Pony

Dang. Just realized this is a resurrected thread. Oh, well, glad you brought it up!


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## may1802

I'm glad you noticed it was an old thread, I had totally missed that, oops. Still interesting info!


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## Kentr

When she said "Mangels", did she mean Mangel Beets? I bought a bunch of seed last year but never got around to planting it... *Running off to check the sticky safe list for Mangel Beets* :bandwagon:


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