offering salt/minerals while minimizing rust?

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Rainey

Rainey

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Our rabbits' diet doesn't include pellets and we know they need salt and minerals. We've been using chunks cut from a block we bought for our goats. Zach bored holes in the chunks and hung them from the tops of cages so the salt wasn't touching any of the cage wire. Need to make a new batch soon and he wanted me to ask if anyone has a good way of boring a hole through salt block (he said it was really slow with his drill) And there are rusty patches above where the chunks hang. Maybe because the rabbits push the chunks up against the wire as they lick them? Anyway I'm hoping someone can tell me what they've figured out for offering salt and mineral that is easier than what we've done and doesn't rust the cage.
 
Not from my own experience, but a suggestion I saw on a Youtube channel from another rabbit-raiser:
Put the chunks of salt into condiment cups (those little plastic ones) with a hole drilled into them to thread a wire through and secure it to the cage wire. That way the salt will not touch the wire, and the rabbit (hopefully) can't fling it all over the cage.
 
I used to use those straight-sided ramekins that you get two for a dollar at Dollarama. They are like a tiny crock, quite stable and hard to flip. I just knocked off small chunks of the salt/mineral block with a hammer and put them into the ramekins. I never had a problem with rust, but then it wasn't all that long after that when I went to colony raising instead of cages.

Edited to add: If you continue hanging the blocks, perhaps you could put plastic container lids (like you get cottage cheese or yogourt in) wired in place as rust guards. Or use a safe paint to protect the wire where the block touches.
 
I make my own blocks with loose salt, a bit of water, ice cube trays as moulds and set with a zip tie or bit of wire in it

Vaseline on the wire near where I hang the salt on the cage helps protect it

I use to tie a plastic lid from a yogurt tub behind the salt blocks to guard the wire but my rabbits started gnawing them
 
I too made salt licks, I used shallow glasses, "creme brulee" is sold in them here. Put in salt (ca. 5mm, 1/5"), a little water, and dried it in the microwave (that creme is ment to be flamed, so the glass is heat resistant). It becomes a hard layer inside the glass, nothing gets out. They can throw it around if they are inclined to enjoy that, doesn't matter.

But instead of grains I feed some hard bread to growouts, and that contains enough salt, I think, the rabbits that get bread ignore the lick completly (the others too, most of the time)

I don't have wire cages, and no rust problem, but I think this would work.
 

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