Alternatives to Commercial Feed

[Cindy in SD]

Hey, Folks

I'm fairly new to rabbits. We had them as pets when I was a kid. Not the kind of pets you have in your bedroom... they had hutches outside and liked running around in the lush Florida grass (or sometimes the living room, but I digress). Now I live in South Dakota, USA--not exactly year-round gardening country. It's less crowded here, though. I've been wanting to get started for a few years, but there just haven't been any meat breeds available. I finally put dibs on a trio of Rex mix when they're old enough, and I'll be looking for more to diversify genetics. I'm happy to provide them with commercial feed, but I'm not sure it will continue to be available and I would like to supplement heavily in any case, so...

I also have poultry. If you don't have too many of them, you can just feed them scraps--not ideal, but neither is starving. I'm wondering how realistic it would be to feed rabbits from the garden and pasture. I understand they need gentle acclimation to new (esp green) foods. I wonder what sorts of green and dried foods would be appropriate for home-feeding of rabbits. Surely people fed meat rabbits before pelleted feeds became available, but maybe not... Any advice?

 

[Mini Horses]

Appreciate your concerns. Of course they CAN forage and live but, caged and several breedings call for serious nutrition. I'm not a rabbit raiser but, know proper nutrition will be critical. Once that's known, work from there.

I'm sure rabbit people will respond!

@Ridgetop, @Baymule.....others???? Input please. 😊

 

[Baymule]

The domestic rabbit has been bred to thrive on bought feeds. Yes you can feed fresh garden veggies and grasses. Also willow trigs and leaves, blackberry leaves, mulberry and apple twigs and leaves. Winter feeding would be quite a challenge. Pumpkin and other winter squash would make good feed. It would take good storage where things wouldn’t freeze. It would take a lot to feed rabbits through the winter. I appreciate your wanting to not be dependent upon a feed store. It might be where you could cut down on pellets and supplement with the above mentioned foods.

 

[Hideaway Pines]

Hi there, we have raised meat rabbits for 5 years now. We have discussed the same thing, we dry Comfrey and keep a large stash on hand incase we find ourselves without any feed. If you had access to timothy Hay (and could store it through winter) you could feed that as the main food source, but do not mistake Alfalfa for a replacement. Rabbits cannot have large amounts of Alfalfa. You could grow some greens in a temp controlled greenhouse in the winter. Summer is easy, there is enough from my garden to keep them happy - but it would be a challenge to feed them 100% from things around our place. One more thing, consider doing sprouts, I have had several trays going at a time in the past - it is a great source of food, you can cut and keep growing as long as the seeds have a food sourced water but it does take a lot of attention to keep up with it all.

Also, when you put rabbits on the ground, they can pick up things that the domesticated rabbits are not accustom to and could cause issues. They can become accustom to it over time, but I would not put a nursing or pregnant doe on pasture - give them a while to adjust then you can do a rabbit tractor if you have good grass and the ability to keep them safe from predators.

and poultry, we feed them all kinds of things, like when we kill snakes I cut them into pieces and toss them in, they have a ball with them. When we butcher, they can have some of the organs and even the meat from the rabbits, as well as cooked eggs. If you can free range that is ideal, and if they have access to compost bins then all the better. Consider doing a black soldier fly larvae source, it would be a great protein for them. I do grow a lot of pumpkins and keep them in a cold room through the winter as well as squash. They love those as well. And consider growing Cucuzza squash, it produces large (baseball bat size) squash and I was picking 5-6 day in the peak time, but they do not last long, they are soft skin, so have to be eaten or frozen in a week or so. But you could freeze it and keep it for them in the winter. I only did one plant last year, but this year I am doing multiple plants - we also have added pigs to our place this year so we need more for them.
Well this gives you some ideas..

 

[Baymule]

I raised Giant Pink Banana Squash one year, it is a winter squash and will keep for months. Makes good pumpkin pie too. My sheep went bonkers for the young squash and the winter saved squash was a welcome treat. I had some on the porch that froze and was a mess. The sheep ate that too!

 

[LilTxFarmer]

I've been raising California White meat rabbits for about 3 1/2 years now and I do feed them commercial rabbit pellets. I just don't see any way around that. I do give them snacks of veggie and fruit when available, and put in some hay for them to chomp on, a couple of times a week but it's a lot cheaper to just buy pellets, in my case. I go thru about 50 lbs of pellets per week, at the moment, with my 20 adult and young rabbits. It cost me $17.75 a bag, it's gone up $1.00 from a couple of weeks ago. My garden, even though we have a long growing season, isnt big enough to supplement us and the rabbits, so that's out of the picture. If your a beginner, way the cost of raising rabbits. The more rabbits, of course, the more costly, especially if your doing a lot of breeding. I have a doe bred at least every month. I also have 11- 8 week old kits ready to be sold, so that'll cut down on some of the feed. However, the ones I keep to butcher, will be around for another 4 months. I hope the best for you!

 

[Grizzlyhackle]

You can sprout barley and other stuff but you still have to give them a grass hay, preferably timothy. The thing I found with barley sprouts not every rabbit eats it.
Check out this site it has a lot of good info on feeding them. https://riseandshinerabbitry.com/
He talks about drying comfrey and other plants for winter and is located in Maine.
Pellets have gone up now 19.50 for 50lbs, that cost 14.50 when I started in 2016.

 

[Thefarmofdreams]

I know this thread is a bit old... but there are some great resources on this- namely Beyond the Pellet (book, a good read and background. It doesn't give you a clear cut plan though), and rise and shine rabbitry has a whole booklist that is great too. (They helped write said book). As others mentioned, it may not be possible to completely replace pellets but you can definitely cut back a lot if you plan right. I'm starting a rabbit & chicken garden before I even start the human one, lol, and planning to reseed all available yard with clover and other rabbit friendly forage to feed them and make hay.