For anyone who is trying to maintain rabbits using natural feeds, mixing your own grains, adding sunflower seeds, alfalfa hay, etc....it's important to remember that the rabbit (like ANY animal) needs protein to grow. Protein is the most costly part of any feed mix, so it can be hard to balance the cost with the amount of protein needed.
http://www.lionsgrip.com/protein.html is a great place to find the protein % of many grains/seeds/feeds and a way to figure out how much of <whatever> to add to your mix to raise or lower the protein.
Animals just piddle away excess protein. Stronger smells in the urine than normal and you might well have too much protein going. Lower than expected growth rate..and you're probably too LOW on protein.
The site above is mainly for CHICKENS and other poultry. THEY ARE OMNIVORES. Rabbits are HERBIVORES. Therefore...remove any of the meat products..fish meal, worm meal, eggs protein, etc. from your calculations.
A note on alfalfa hay....all hay is different. A really good, almost pure alfalfa hay is approx 20% protein. The leaves of the plant are the part with the high protein, btw. The stalks/stems tend to be about 1/2 the protein of leaves. quite woody, in fact.
http://www.lionsgrip.com/protein.html is a great place to find the protein % of many grains/seeds/feeds and a way to figure out how much of <whatever> to add to your mix to raise or lower the protein.
Animals just piddle away excess protein. Stronger smells in the urine than normal and you might well have too much protein going. Lower than expected growth rate..and you're probably too LOW on protein.
The site above is mainly for CHICKENS and other poultry. THEY ARE OMNIVORES. Rabbits are HERBIVORES. Therefore...remove any of the meat products..fish meal, worm meal, eggs protein, etc. from your calculations.
A note on alfalfa hay....all hay is different. A really good, almost pure alfalfa hay is approx 20% protein. The leaves of the plant are the part with the high protein, btw. The stalks/stems tend to be about 1/2 the protein of leaves. quite woody, in fact.
