mysunwolf's Kindling Thread

[mysunwolf]

Pasturing the adolescents is going very well and certainly keeping them from getting cocci. Plus, they're too young to get overly infested with worms. They're 100% grass fed from 5 weeks to 12 weeks, so they don't get quite as big as they would being supplemented with grain.

Update on the momma bunnies, Evie had 8 this time and Snow had 10! I didn't get Snow's previous litter weaned in time, and she lost quite a bit of weight producing milk for all those babies. But both does are doing well now.

A (bad) photo of Evie with her litter.

4 lilacs
1 blue
1 black
1 steel
1 chestnut


And Snow with hers.

1 broken black
2 blue
3 black
4 REW

 

[P.O. in MO]

Thanks for keeping us informed on your pasturing experience. I raise in cages but have always intended to do some pasturing experiments of my own and hopefully will get to it this fall. I have not done a lot of research on the subject but my main concern was the problem with worms. I have read several times that if you don't want your rabbits to have worms, keep them off the ground. I thought the solution to this might be to add food grade diatomaceous earth to the feed, have you ever considered this. A 10 lb. bag is around $14.00 or 50 lb. bag is $28.00. I think the amount for a rabbit would be around a teaspoon a day so cost would be minimal and easily paid for by the amount of feed saved by pasturing. It's shelf life if forever, too.

 

[mysunwolf]

Thanks for keeping us informed on your pasturing experience. I raise in cages but have always intended to do some pasturing experiments of my own and hopefully will get to it this fall. I have not done a lot of research on the subject but my main concern was the problem with worms. I have read several times that if you don't want your rabbits to have worms, keep them off the ground. I thought the solution to this might be to add food grade diatomaceous earth to the feed, have you ever considered this. A 10 lb. bag is around $14.00 or 50 lb. bag is $28.00. I think the amount for a rabbit would be around a teaspoon a day so cost would be minimal and easily paid for by the amount of feed saved by pasturing. It's shelf life if forever, too.

I agree, I think the main problem is with worms--I have had people who raise on wire have kits and adults die of cocci. I know with poultry that an easy fix to cocci, even with bloody poop, is just to move them to uninfested ground, so I'm assuming the same is true for rabbits.

I've definitely considered DE for parasite management with other livestock, but as an internal dewormer/preventative I haven't had any luck, nor have I found any scientific studies that support its use in that way. Externally, I believe it does work for parasites, but wood ash does the same thing and it's free!

I'm thinking they would also have to have a free choice mineral supplement if they were supposed to get all their food from pasture.

Ideally, my way to deal with parasites would be to rigorously cull based on fecal results. I had a rabbit breeder tell me it would take three generations to come up with a line that was hardy on 100% pasture... I took that as a challenge

 

[Sumi]

I just found and read through this thread. It was interesting and mysunwolf, your pics are amazing! I've seen many rabbits before, but never babies, awww man, they're cute Thank you for sharing! I think I may have to put rabbits on my to-get list now as well...