Meat rabbit feed

minibackyardfarmer

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We will be moving and buying my aunt and uncles 5acre small farm. We are moving this year but wont be introducing meat rabbits till later next year. So I am just doing my work at gathering the information needed to have a successful rabbit production.

I will create different threads for each of my questions just to keep my info gathering organized lol

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When we start doing meat rabbits we ideally are thinking of the approach of non fast grow out where they are on only pellets. We prefer a slower grow out (not too slow) where they are getting a more rounded out semi natural diet.

Where were going to come up with a 25% rabbit pellet diet maximum. Where they are getting pellets just to make sure the nutrients needed are being received for sure.

but were thinking of a mix like this:
steamed rolled barley
steamed rolled oats
pellets (prob by themselves in the evening)
grass
ground alfalfa (can get it from our feed store)
timothy hay and sunflower seeds as a treat like once a week or so

they would also have access to hay. Is there other grains that are good for meat rabbits that helps them to put on the weight/meat in a more natural way, other than the way of a 100% strict pellet only diet?

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I know you shouldn't be too friendly with your food source. but we want even our meat rabbits to have a healthy natural grow out as much as we can do that for them. in our mind it is allow us to give them a good life before we do the act and they feed us. They are rabbits so I don't see us not interacting with them.

I've told they kids even if they name them doesn't mean it stops them from being ate lol. I think we will make the rule that the names have to be the type of food you can make with them if they really feel like they need to name them. I know some think bad idea but they name our buff orps who we use as dual purpose birds and it has yet to bother them from eating greenie (color of the leg band lol) and they like to watch the process (we homeschool and they have learned a lot, plus it's helped them respect life and understand death better. no we never forced them to watch they got interested in watching the process when I processed our first deer by hand).
 

DutchBunny03

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Welcome to BYH!! Your meat rabbit diet looks great. The rabbits will really enjoy it. Just be careful with too many concentrates. They can make rabbits overweight, lowering production levels. Also, do not feed rabbits under 5 months old grass. It can give them digestive problems and diarrea, which can be fatal for smaller kits. Timothy hay is extremely healthy for rabbits. They need hay or other roughage for their digestive tract to function well, and to wear down their teeth. Good luck, and happy rabbiting!!
 

Bruce

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How about some nice free range forage? The wild rabbits around here seem to grow quite well on what they find on their own.

Um, just read @DutchBunny03 's response. No grass? Is there something special about domestic rabbits? Clearly no one is stopping the wild bunnies from eating whatever is in front of their whiskers. They would fit in a teacup when they first come out in the open without a parental unit to teach or watch over them.
 

NH homesteader

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Hi and welcome. I don't know much about rabbits (boy are they cute though!) I just wanted to say welcome from another homeschooling family who raises and processes their own meat. My daughter loves to watch my husband process chickens and turkeys. This year (as in, in the next week or two) she'll see how to process a pig. We name our pigs, but she knows they're for food. She's used to it, I guess. I think it's fantastic for kids to know where their food comes from. Good luck and I look forward to hearing about your journey!
 

DutchBunny03

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The domestic rabbit was brought about by excessive inbreeding. As you should know, too much inbreeding leads to major problems. In the development of the domestic rabbit, the inbreeding led to a more sensitive digestive system than its wild predecessors. Young rabbits simply cannot tolerate green foods. I learned this the hard way, and some of my rabbits got VERY sick because of being fed grass and other plants to early.
 

Bruce

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Maybe it is time to start over with wild rabbits ;)

Though I have to admit, I don't think there is a lot of meat on the adult rabbits around here.
 

DutchBunny03

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The domestic rabbit was developed from the European wild rabbit, not the North American wild rabbit. European wild rabbits are much bigger. Even if we were to "start over", the same thing would still happen. To isolate desired characteristics, such as fur types, coat patterns, size, feed-meat conversion ratio, and ear type, inbreeding is necessary.
 

Bunnylady

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Actually, the European wild rabbit (2 1/2 to 5 1/2 pounds) is not significantly larger than the Eastern cottontail (2 to 4 1/2 pounds). And as we all know, it is illegal to keep North American wild species in captivity unless you have a permit . . . but that is beside the point.

The problem with domestic rabbits has to do with how they are raised. Rabbits have been kept since Roman times, and unless the owner had a large walled garden like the ancient Romans had, the rabbits had to be fed something - plant material that was either gathered or raised by the owner . Pelleted rabbit diets only became available less than a century ago, and people found them so convenient they pretty much stopped feeding anything else. Rabbits that do well are the ones that get to parent the next generation, so the ones that could survive and even thrive on this very unnatural diet were the ones that got to contribute to the gene pool. The food was being engineered for the rabbits, and the rabbits engineered for the food - that's not inbreeding, it's artificial selection; it can be done regardless of the animals' ancestry.

A digestive system produces enzymes to digest the food that an animal eats. In many cases, the enzymes work in a lock-and-key relationship with the dietary item - one specific enzyme deals with one specific sugar, for example. It takes energy to produce enzymes; most organisms don't waste energy producing things they won't use. That is why most adult animals are, in effect, lactose intolerant - they made lactase to digest lactose as babies, but since they wouldn't normally be exposed to lactose (which is only found in milk) after weaning age, their bodies stopped producing the lactase. People from cultures that normally consume dairy products may continue to produce lactase their entire lives, while people whose ancestors' traditional diets don't include dairy usually don't produce lactose past childhood.

A digestive system needs time to adjust to new items. How many people have had horses get into real trouble by scarfing down large quantities of something the horse could eat safely in more measured doses? If you turn a horse that has had only hay for months into a lush pasture, you may wind up with a whopper of a vet bill; you might even kill it. Turn the horse out for a little while every day, and eventually, he can live out there; his digestive system will have had time to adjust the enzymes it produces to the change in diet (and the beneficial bacteria in the digestive system will have had time to adjust as well). The domestic rabbit can deal with green food, but it needs to be introduced slowly. Some people manage to keep rabbits in tractors or colonies with very little if any pelleted feed, but they had to work their way to that point. I've never tried it myself, so I can't comment on how that works . . . the nearest thing I've had to a rabbit on a "wild diet" was one that escaped at about 8 weeks old, and wandered loose on our acreage for a couple of months before it was recaptured. It was significantly smaller than its siblings, and remained stunted its entire life (this may be more of an indication of a lack of suitable forage than the rabbit's inability to use what it ate, I don't know. Heaven knows, we seldom see more than one or two wild rabbits around here).

As regards the OP's prospective diet for the rabbits - grains are not a normal part of a rabbit's diet, so they need to be fed with care. Also, rabbits need a certain amount of structure to be able to pick up a food item. They probably won't be able to eat ground alfalfa, and straight alfalfa pellets are very hard; alfalfa cubes might work better.
 

DutchBunny03

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Grains are very healthy for rabbits. I am a bit wary of too much grain(it can lead to obesity, which can result in the death of the dam during kindling) but I do use oats. There is a noticeable difference between rabbits fed oats and rabbits not fed oats, and the difference is in the fur. Oats give the coat extra sheen, which helps with show rabbits.
 

minibackyardfarmer

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Hi and welcome. I don't know much about rabbits (boy are they cute though!) I just wanted to say welcome from another homeschooling family who raises and processes their own meat. My daughter loves to watch my husband process chickens and turkeys. This year (as in, in the next week or two) she'll see how to process a pig. We name our pigs, but she knows they're for food. She's used to it, I guess. I think it's fantastic for kids to know where their food comes from. Good luck and I look forward to hearing about your journey!

Awesome to meet another homeschooling family who also does stuff similar and hows kids enjoy the process of that type of lifestyle, with processing your own meat.

You'll have to let me know how the pig thing goes... weve considered it but we haven't put it into the possibility pile until we learn how/how hard it is to do the initial kill on a pig that is the most human way you can do it.
 

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