What to feed, pellets, hay, supplements, calf manna, etc!

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MountainViewRabbitry

Washington Rabbit Rescue
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As some of you guys may have seen, I’m getting back into rabbit breeding and showing. I’m not sure what breeds I will raise yet, I have 30”x30” cages. Anyways. I used to feed manna pro, but had a lot of odd unexplained deaths and floppy bunny syndrome from it. And some mucus In the poop. I’m considering purina. Would like something under $30 per 50lb bag, preferably available at most tractor supply’s (I’m in Washington state). What do you guys recommend for feeding? I also don’t like that some are alfalfa based with personal experiences, I found Timothy hay pellets to be better. I’m not feeding oxbow to my breeders. No chance. Love the food. But so so expensive. I was also thinking about feeding some calf manna ontop. Timothy hay cubes (where can I find a giant pack?) anything I’m missing??

edit: I can get Timothy/alphfa mix cubes at my local tractor supply for horses, would that work? I don’t like not feeding hay, and I don’t like how to hay makes a huge mess from a bale.
 
Some people feed hay cubes. I tried years ago and none of the rabbits would touch them. At best, a couple threw them around sometimes. It'll depend on your rabbits.
My rabbits then would pick over grains when I tried feeding that. One would pick all the wheat, one would pick all the oats, etc. No one ate everything. I just got some rabbits to test run no pellet feeding and they're eating oats with the hulls just fine. My past rabbits that would eat oats always left the hulls behind. So it varies by rabbit. If the doe eats it then the kits will learn to from her.
 
Before when I had rabbits I was buying producers pride and/or country road. The cheapest ones.

I was just in town yesterday and noted some prices. This was at Rural King.
Calf manna 50# $42
Rabbit pellet 50# $17 country road
Alfalfa cubes 50# $17 top of the rockies (min 15% protein)
Alfalfa pellets 40# $17 big pellets (16% protein)
Alfalfa compressed bale 50# $23 (website says 12% protein)

If you can find a local feed store or farmers exchange/co-op it can be helpful. Some things I get at RK and some things at the farmers exchange. At the exchange I can special order my own feed mix but it's a minimum of a ton and I can't store that much.
My sheep feed went up several dollars last time I went for it. So I switched to buying a concentrated pellet (36% protein and minerals etc) that I mix with whole corn and oats. Pellet from the exchange and corn and oats right from the farmer outside of town. Buying from the farmer is almost fully half the cost than buying the same thing from the exchange.
 
I feed Puring 50lb bag with Modesto Milling 40lb bag at 50-50 for pellets, Standlee horse cubes timothy-alfalfa for their teeth and entertainment, and compressed timothy hay bales from TSC. They get some garden greens for treats. I get the MM from Chewy. I'd like to transition to all Modesto Milling because I don't really like them on soy. I have New Zealand and American Blue, they get a cup a day of pellet and plenty of hay.
 
Her Farmstead Rabbitry said:
I haven't had any problems with it and I have been feeding it for a year. Is there diarrhea involved in the deaths?
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I am unsure the report was unclear on that, however, there have been recalls on the Producers Pride Dog feed as well as deaths and recalls on the chicken feed, Just watch your rabbits, I chose not to take the chance. I Might raise my rabbits for the stewpot, but I am attached to the little fuzzballs.
 
I tried to look into the producers pride claims and I could only find one youtube video that was kinda sketchy as source material. All the other reports wound back to that video, which listed no sources at all. I was not able to find a single documented report, but I only spent maybe an hour looking.

I have fed producers pride for years without issues--in between purina, and a few other brands. Your mileage may vary, my rabbits have always been exceptionally robust and unfussy eaters.

That said, producers pride is not my favorite, it is sometimes less green looking than I like.
 
Cotton Rabbitry said:
Careful with ProducersPride it was getting bad reviews on deaths so I took mine off it.
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??? I am lucky to be able to buy Prince brand made in our area. When the feed store was back ordered around Thanksgiving, I was forced to buy producer's pride from tractor supply. It didn't have that nice fresh hay smell the Prince always had.instead almost a rancid oil smell. I lost 7 rabbits that week! Hesitated to blame the feed, but I won't use it again. In future will try to keep extra Prince on hand. Thanks for letting us know
 

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