Commercial vs. Natural Feeding?

I know nothing about natural feeding and would like to ask a few wurst ions regarding what you've had better success with: commercial or natural feeding.
Which is cheaper in your experience?
Which kept your rabbits in better condition?
Are rabbits that are fed naturally generally more healthy than rabbits who are fed commercially?
Is it harder to naturally feed if you have a large group of rabbits? (Like 30 instead of my four)
Also please list some pros and cons that you have experienced.
Thanks!

Which is cheaper in your experience? Natural feeding has been cheaper for me--IF I don't put a value on the time I spend gathering & searching for foragables.
Which kept your rabbits in better condition? Shinier, better coats on pellets; happier, better attitude and enjoyment on forage.
Are rabbits that are fed naturally generally more healthy than rabbits who are fed commercially? I am not sure & will leave this mostly to others. I have culled to make sure the stock I have thrive on forage, so mine are.
Is it harder to naturally feed if you have a large group of rabbits? (Like 30 instead of my four) Yes, in my opinion. By natural feeding I mean gathered plants, herbs, tree branches and such, supplemented by household scraps and grain as needed. It took me about an hour to an hour & a half to gather enough forage for 12 rabbits this summer (9 were grow-outs) and that was gathering from areas where I knew I had a ready supply. If I had to search for food it would take even longer. Pouring pellets in a bowl and giving a handful of hay is much quicker. But for me , making use of the resources around me, not having to pay $ for feed, and seeing how excited the buns areto discover what's on the menu today, makes up for the time speent.

The_Dutchess":1xeh871p said:

I know nothing about natural feeding and would like to ask a few questions regarding what you've had better success with: commercial or natural feeding.

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I think your questions could be more easily answered if you were more specific about what you mean by a "natural diet."
Some natural diets are mainly constructed from purchased hay and grain, some grow their own fodder, some contain a lot of leftover garden and kitchen scraps, some pasture their rabbits on lawn, and some gather forage for their buns.
Most people feeding natural diets I've spoken to use a combination of the things I mentioned , and many commercially fed rabbits also get some amount of natural feeds as a dietary supplement. (For example, Grumpy feeds his commercial rabbits on hay too, with is arguably one of the main components of most natural diets.)

All (except the pellets) are considered "natural" diets, but the nutrition the rabbits are getting from those varied diets will be drastically different.
Actually, the same "type" of natural diet is still going to be highly varied.

We are all going to design things a bit differently, the quantities will vary, our hays are not the same, the grains available at the feed mill are not the same, the garden or kitchen scraps we produce will not be the same, and the wild forage plants available are certainly different!! People do not necessarily even recognize the same ones as "rabbit food."

With commercial diets, there is also quite a bit of variation among different brands of pellets. Some I consider to be the equivalent of rabbit junk food, and others are well balanced and very nutritious.

So...My own answers will be based around my very limited experience.

I tend to feed my rabbits a combination diet of natural feeds, along with purina complete brand commercial pellets.
This past summer I did have a few rabbits eating mostly forage for several months. Not much to go on, but I'll answer what I can

Which is cheaper in your experience?

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For me, the pellets.
I can buy a 50lb bag of pellets with two hours of my time spent at work. There was no way I could forage feed my rabbits for an entire week with less time invested.

Which kept your rabbits in better condition?

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Forage, because they had less fat, and less fat is good for breeding. My harlequin doe actually gave me 15 live and healthy kits on almost entirely forage. My herd sire was in great shape. Since I've been working full time and my husband has been overfeeding on pellets, the whole herd is struggling with obesity..

Are rabbits that are fed naturally generally more healthy than rabbits who are fed commercially?

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Those are far to broad of categories. For that, I think you would have to be quite specific.
What style of natural feeding, in which area, and how committed to understanding rabbit nutrition is the person designing the diet? VS Which brand of pellet (free fed or limited feed), and from which mill?

Is it harder to naturally feed if you have a large group of rabbits? (Like 30 instead of my four)

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It would depend on which style of natural feeding, but in general I think anything that involves mixing or gathering your own feeds is going to be take more time and energy than simply filling j-feeders with pellets.

I agree with the two comments above, and would like to add, -
- it is my opinion that if you have more time than money forage feeding, and growing feed in your garden is an option. If you have more $ than time, pellets are a better option. Also-- some folks idea of natural feeding is to buy hay and grain, then feed it to the rabbits, - Why? , - I have no idea. -- Rabbit pellets contain hay and grain, as well as added protein, and vitamin, mineral additives. If you are planning to buy hay and grain for feed, you should also add the cost of all the wasted feed into the cost factor, as rabbits will waste far more hay than they will pellets.
I recommend that any person new to rabbits [this may not be you] start out feeding good quality pellets, and learn how to raise rabbits, - then begin to add feeds you gather, or grow into the feed ration.
I get great results with my feeding programs. sometimes I feed roots, and hay-- or hay greens, and grain, -- or sometimes pellets.
-- it just depends on what is going on around here.
I think..
The biggest factors in all feed programs , are research, and careful observation .
In "natural feeding " a more careful watch for coccidiosis is important.
mineral deficiencies will be a much greater concern with "natural feeding"
and calorie amounts will always be an unknown, or at least questionable, if you are not feeding pellets, - so weight management is more trouble with natural feeding. and-- it takes a very nutrient dense "natural feed" to get the gains in young rabbits you would get from a good pellet. [sugar beet, and good alfalfa, will about match pellets for rate of gain, as will a cooked potato/added fat/+ alfalfa ration]-

Natural feeding of forage is by far cheaper.

In my case, I found that feeding forage will not keep my show rabbits or woolers in good condition. Nor could they handle the large litters they were accustom to having.

I don't know if they are healthier. I know they sure enjoyed all those fresh greens.

It's much harder for me to feed forage. I have now between 20-30 rabbits. Being fur or wooler, they need more protein than the average rabbit, being breeders with large litters, they needed even more. I don't have acres, I don't even have an acre, so trying to find enough forage to support the rabbits was tough. At that point, I had all day, but it was back breaking work.

Balancing and trying to get minerals was stressful. It just made me neurotic. It's also something I can't do going back to work, or in the wintertime in NE Ohio.

So we are all back on pellets till the spring. The Angoras have full coats again and litters.

Something to think about...

If you only have a smallish space and you are growing your own feed, you are basically returning nutrients to the soil by applying rabbit manure. By feeding from external sources you are adding nutrients to the soil because they are getting the feed from off your property. This is just one aspect of feeding that is often overlooked but it could be important in a situation where you're trying to build your local soil.

alforddm":ewjhuxqv said:

Something to think about...

If you only have a smallish space and you are growing your own feed, you are basically returning nutrients to the soil by applying rabbit manure. By feeding from external sources you are adding nutrients to the soil because they are getting the feed from off your property. This is just one aspect of feeding that is often overlooked but it could be important in a situation where you're trying to build your local soil.

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wonderful comment, I wish more people understood this...