Meat Rabbit feeding sugestions

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome to BYH @Jesse1983 Nice to have you here with us and it appears you've already met some of our Rabbitteers! Please make yourself at home and browse around. There's a wealth of info in the various threads and if you have Q's, well, you've already met some great folks and there are others, all very helpful!

 

[LocoYokel]

I am loving your thread @Jesse1983, have been having some of those same questions myself.
As for my own experience: providing grass hay daily has really helped my does. I was 'just a pellet feeder' for 40 some years.
Now, as soon as the kits can get to it, they are sampling and supplementing from it also. Very smalltime (breed for my own meat) here but since I have put up those hay feeders I haven't lost a kit at weaning. I also do not recommend any alfalfa hay or alfalfa/mix, I want my bunz to get the full nutritional value included in their pellets. Many areas lack certain trace minerals in locally grown hay which the pelleted feed provides.
Hay = bunny popcorn! Yeah, unsalted, unbuttered popcorn but a good munchie between bites of dinner.
Protein content? I feed 18% to all, bucks and does. Size and breeding stages come into effect here... and only my bred or lactating does get Calf Manna, amount depending on stages of motherhood.

Good luck with your bunnies!

 

[Jesse1983]

If it costs less, that is all the buck should need. It's just easier to scoop from one sack and hit em all.

Here is my doe that is ready to be bred for the first time. She is 6 mos old, and her name is "Cinnamon-Sugar".
View attachment 32286

This is our youngest doe If I remember right the mom was a New Zealand Red and the dad a New Zealand White. Her name is cinnamon.

 

[Jesse1983]

I am loving your thread @Jesse1983, have been having some of those same questions myself.
As for my own experience: providing grass hay daily has really helped my does. I was 'just a pellet feeder' for 40 some years.
Now, as soon as the kits can get to it, they are sampling and supplementing from it also. Very smalltime (breed for my own meat) here but since I have put up those hay feeders I haven't lost a kit at weaning. I also do not recommend any alfalfa hay or alfalfa/mix, I want my bunz to get the full nutritional value included in their pellets. Many areas lack certain trace minerals in locally grown hay which the pelleted feed provides.
Hay = bunny popcorn! Yeah, unsalted, unbuttered popcorn but a good munchie between bites of dinner.
Protein content? I feed 18% to all, bucks and does. Size and breeding stages come into effect here... and only my bred or lactating does get Calf Manna, amount depending on stages of motherhood.

Good luck with your bunnies!

We are completely new to the whole raising meat rabbits. I grew up as a city kid and now that I am getting older I can't stand to be in the city and have taken up alot of interest into trying to be more self suffiencient about 3 years ago or so. Started of with chickens for egg production and have been recently started with meat chickens and now on to meat rabbits. Everything is a learning experience for me and I am glad to have found this group. Have been finding alot of information on here. Thank you for advice. We started yesterday cutting the pellets down to 1/2 a cup and feed free choice timothy hay through out the day.

 

[Pastor Dave]

The feed store timothy hay is expensive.
Not sure if that's where you're getting it, but if so, do Craigslist or ads in the newspaper looking for grass hay or timothy hay. You would be surprised how cheap you can get a rectangle bale. Last year where I am, we were getting $5 or $6 per bale.