I've seen people on FB claim they feed their rabbits just corn, only sweet feed, horse feed, hog feed, so on....
So...In an effort to save some dough on winter culls, I decided to experiment.
I tried cracked corn on some culls the last two weeks. They ate it eventually and had no gas, no diarrhea. Excellent. But they did experience weight loss. Darn.
Corn only has 8% protein, if that. Without much of anything else. I knew it was futile, but had some left over to test with, so why not.
I then decided to look into other feeds that might be similar to rabbit feed, minus the high cost.
Horse is way too expensive, same with fowl. Straight hay pellets are also crazy expensive. Eventually, I found sweet feed, 12%, for a steal of a deal. $7.5 less per bag, plus 10lbs extra. It's only 6% less in protein, or 3% less if you feed a 15% rabbit feed, so, it's not nearly as useless as straight corn.
I do worry about the sugar content, but the other values seem decent enough to the rabbit feed I use.
I started this second experiment last night. We will see if they get diarrhea, gas or if they loose weight in the coming week.
During the warm seasons, I feed a ton of greens to reduce the bill. I wanted something for winter. Hay doesn't work out.
Anyone experiment as well?
