How much hay per rabbit?

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Shara

Shara

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I am going to buy some good grass hay locally and was wondering how much hay one rabbit goes through. I currently have ummmmmi buck, six baby does....I guess ten rabbits I may be keeping?

How many bales of aprox 60 lb bales would I need to, say last a year?

(i know each rabbit will eat different amounts, I just was wondering how many yall thinkI should get...for a year...)
 
I usually have six adult rabbits and we go through about 15-18 bales a year... but I think they are only about 40-45 pounds. My rabbits are wasteful and since the "waste" becomes bedding for the geese in winter and goes onto the garden as mulch in summer, I'm not too careful with it. The geese and chickens eat some in winter too. Alfalfa/grass hay from the farmer down the road is only $3 a bale, not much more expensive than straw.

Sorry I can't give a more precise answer. Hope it ball-parks things for you.
 
Heh, straw here has become almost as expensive as alfalfa hay. It cost me a dollar more a bale to buy straw than a a bale of good clover :shock:
 
I thought I posted earlier, and am kinda confused...must have gotted distracted, lol. Thanks guys! I think I will buy 20 bales...That should surly last until next haying season, I think, and if it doesn't, I can get more at that point, or go out and pull again, and dry it myself :)
 
i feed just enuff to give them a small meal over night. no waste to really speak of. and they dont get it everyday either. mainly as a treat. i want them eating pellets for maximum growth in less time....you have to experiment to see what your rabbits eat so you dont just throuw you money away on hay. if thats important to you......

with all that said, ive been seriously considering feeding more hay, less pellets. i know it will slow the growth some, but im counting on the brood pen, compensating for that....just an experiment.
 
Regarding growth rates and feeding a hay/greens/grain diet, the fryers take much longer to reach butchering weight: about 14-16 weeks for my meat mutts instead of 10-12 weeks on mainly pellets. But the overall cost per pound of the meat produced is much lower - less than $0.75 per pound compared to about $1.50, last time I did an analysis. And I like the flavour of the meat better on a natural diet. Natural feeding is a lot more work though... and not practical, perhaps, for many people with large rabbitries.
 
DR, if you can find a straight alfalfa hay that's reasonable (ours, here in Wisconsin, only runs about $2.50 an 80# bale) you won't see much difference in the growth. The leaves are quite high in protein, and they'll eat enough stems to get a good fiber balance. I found it slows my NZ by about a week. When I add timothy, we slow by almost a month. BUT...the cost is comparable.

We do a lot of poultry (mainly chickens and turkeys) and have found, over the years, that so MUCH of the cost depends on your area and the farming there. I'm fortunate to be right in the middle of farm country..oats, corn, hays, straw, soy, wheat....all in the local area. So I don't pay shipping, and can get it right from the farmers. (or the feed mill)
 
MaggieJ":2v7h9gfq said:
Regarding growth rates and feeding a hay/greens/grain diet, the fryers take much longer to reach butchering weight: about 14-16 weeks for my meat mutts instead of 10-12 weeks on mainly pellets. But the overall cost per pound of the meat produced is much lower - less than $0.75 per pound compared to about $1.50, last time I did an analysis. And I like the flavour of the meat better on a natural diet. Natural feeding is a lot more work though... and not practical, perhaps, for many people with large rabbitries.
Click to expand...

fascinating. ive been wondering about actual number. im a contractor not a mathematician, and im very weak when it comes to figuring numbers.....i like this concept though. anything to actually help the bottom line $$ and more natural is better...

my rabbitry is very small now, so this method may be quite feasable.<br /><br />__________ Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:22 pm __________<br /><br />finding the straight alpha alpha will be a problem,,,but still,,,hhhmmmmmmmmmm..........

Maggie, how current is your cost analysis?

a bag of Southern States big red rabbit pellets 16% prot. is about $12 per 50 lbs............the manna 16 % prot, is almost $14 per 50
 
It's been about three years since I kept track. Pellets have gone up in price. Grain has gone up too, but since the amount fed is small it does not affect the overall picture as much. Hay has stayed about the same and, of course, the greens are free.

My main motivation was not financial. There were only two brands of pellets available locally. One contained animal tallow and the other the rabbits did not find palatable. So it was either drive a long way to get other pellets or try something different. Natural feeding appealed to me, so I gave it a try and liked it. But the financial saving are nice too.
 
check out various protein levels of greens/weeds during the spring/summer months, too. Dandelions and mulberry, in particuler, are great. Maggie found a research study that looked at feeding JUST mulberry..and it works. Not as quickly as a straight pellet diet, but they found it to be sustainable AND efficient.

It's linked in this thread: http://rabbittalk.com/a-study-on-feeding-mulberry-leaves-to-rabbits-t1447.html
 
Maggie what brand of pellets had the animal tallow? I know when our co-op switched and went to that Land O Lakes junk the rabbits wouldn't touch it and I actually think there may have been a death here over it, hard to remember because it was 6 or 7 years ago now. Then the Shur-gain did something to their pellets a short time after.Very frustrating.
 
Purina had the animal tallow. I emailed them for their ingredients list and there it was. They may have gotten rid of it since, but by then I was already launched on the natural feeding.

Shur-gain was the one the rabbits didn't like. Never bothered to get an ingredients list because there didn't seem much point.
 

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