Angora wool production on a natural diet?

[alforddm]

I think you would do well to plant a hedge or such of moringa and a patch of mexican sunflower. You should be able to handily supplement their diets with the fresh forage and still offer the alfalfa pellets and the treats on the side. If you find fiber production is good you can increase the amount of fresh forage offered and add in a few more forages.

Can you grow bananas at your location? Banana leaf is another good one.

Here are the excepts for moringa and mexican sunflower. I seems you really can't go wrong with these two. I'll admit I'm a bit jealous that you can grow them.

Fresh moringa leaves
Fresh leaves of Moringa oleifera tend to be rich in protein with a moderate content of fibre. In Benin and Ghana, they are used by smallholder rabbit farmers as a traditional nutritive forage, which is particularly valuable in the dry season when other forages are not available (Adoukonou, 2014, personal communication; Osei et al., 2012). In Nigeria, moringa leaves are used in rabbit research as a standard forage fed with concentrates (Ola et al., 2013). Fresh moringa leaves given to breeding rabbit does at 2% of body weight with a concentrate were found as efficient as fresh Centrosema pubescens (control) and Tephrosia candida (Odeyinka et al., 2008; Ola et al., 2012). Fresh moringa leaves offered ad libitum, with a concentrate, to growing rabbits were slightly less palatable (17% of daily intake) than Leucaena leucocephala and Brosimum alicastrum foliages (22 and 27% of daily intake respectively) (Safwat et al., 2014a).

Because rabbits consume both the leaves and the tender stems (Osei et al., 2012), they can be used efficiently for the routine pruning recommended to maximise forage production from moringa trees (Palada et al., 2003).

Fresh Mexican Sunflower leaves
In several American and African tropical countries, Tithonia diversifolia is commonly used by smallholders as green forage for rabbits; examples are from Bolivia and Venezuela (Nieves et al., 2010; Hernández et al., 2014), Kenya and South-Western Nigeria (Ekeocha, 2012f; Lamidi et al., 2013; Roothaert et al., 1997). Fresh leaves have been used with success as the sole feed for growing rabbits, and in other experiments as the control feed to compare the efficiency of other green forages as sole feeds (Omole et al., 2007). Used as a sole feed, the DM, protein and crude fibre digestibilities of Mexican sunflower foliage are 74, 68 and 63%, respectively, which demonstrates its value as an energy forage and as a source of digestible protein (digestible protein 11% DM). Fresh leaves were also used as a forage distributed with a concentrate in the control diet of studies about the nutritive value of other raw materials (Oluokun, 2005).

Rabbits could be fed up to 40% banana leaves without negative effects on growth, feed intake and physiology, while a 60% inclusion rate reduced DM intake (Rohilla et al., 2000). In rabbits fed diets containing either 30% sun-dried banana leaves, 30% fresh banana leaves or a 30% combination of fresh and dry leaves, there were no significant differences in weight gains but intake was higher for animals fed fresh leaves. Net returns over feed costs were highest for rabbits fed dried leaves (Fomunyam, 1985).

These are all from Feedipedia

 

[hotzcatz]

Thanks, alforddm, that's some great info!

They'll eat some banana leaves and or trunk, but it's not high on their list of tasty things to munch on. When we harvest bananas, I'll toss some of the leaves and trunk chunks in with the bunnies unless we need them for an imu (underground oven - banana trunks are added to provide moisture to make steam to cook the food). The bunnies will nibble on banana leaves somewhat, but not a whole lot. They'll eat bananas and banana peels, but that has too much sugar, I think, to feed them a whole lot of them all the time.

Once I get the new bunny yard built (after the excavator comes and does the more or less final grading) then I'll plant a few moringa trees, dwarf mulberry, bananas and ti plants up near where the bunny hutches will be. It's much easier to have them growing next to the buns since the bunny manure fertilizes the plants so there's less moving of bunny berries and less moving of forage. We have a nice Chinese Dwarf banana which will go up there, it doesn't grow really tall and it has huge racks of bananas.

To harvest bananas, the whole stalk they're growing on is pulled down. Once the fruit is harvested, it's just going to die off anyway so usually it's chopped up and tossed around the base of the banana patch or used in an imu or some of it fed to bunnies. Banana sap does stain things brown, though, which isn't so good for white bunnies.

If dry banana leaves are good for them (if they'll eat them) I can always toss the dried leaves from the plants in there. Older banana leaves dry up while still on the plant and then hang down and look messy. Generally, I'll just drop them at the base of the plant (bananas are heavy feeders) but we can speed compost the leaves through the bunny herd.

The University ag department gave me some leucaena starts and some had some leaves on them so I gave the leaves to the bunnies to eat before planting the leucaena. Which was a good thing, because none of the bunnies wanted to eat it at all. They'd take a nibble and then spit it out. So, I didn't grow any of it for them.

"Used as a sole feed, the DM, protein and crude fibre digestibilities of Mexican sunflower foliage are 74, 68 and 63%, respectively" Wonder what 'DM' is? Probably not 'dry matter'? So, to interpret this sentence, do they mean that there's a 68% protein in the Mexican sunflower or that the rabbit can digest 68% of the available protein? I'm always trying to get protein into these rabbits.

There's some bushy sunflowers growing along the roadsides around here, I wonder if that's the same plant? It seems to have some fairly distinctive leaves on it. I'll look for some and see if it's a close match and if the bunnies like to eat it. I already harvest roadside indigo to dye the yarn blue, may as well get roadside sunflower seeds or plant starts. Not knowing if the plants have been sprayed (herbicide is a common remedy for overgrown road sides around here) I'll not want to feed the roadside leaves directly.

 

[alforddm]

It does mean that 68% of the available protein is digestible for rabbits.

If you go to the feedipedia page it states a bit further down.

Dried leaf meal
Dried leaves of Tithonia diversifolia were used at up to 15-18% in compound diets for growing rabbits, without alteration of growth and slaughter characteristics (Adam, 2013; Nieves et al., 2010; Togun et al., 2006a). The estimated DM and protein digestibility (54% and 64%, respectively, Nieves et al., 2010) were slightly lower than those estimated for the fresh leaves reported above but higher than the average values accepted for dehydrated alfalfa. The calculated digestible energy in this study was 8.94 MJ/kg DM, i.e. about 8% higher than alfalfa (Nieves et al., 2010).

So the nutrition provided by mexican sunflower is very high quality and somewhat better than alfalfa.

 

[hotzcatz]

Is there a way to sort feedipedia by animal species instead of by plants? I guess if you had a yard full of plants and were trying to figure out what animals to feed, then sorting by plants is good, but when trying to figure out what to feed a specific species of animal, it's a bit of a trudge to get through their database. Although, I've not spent that much time searching their database.

I did check the glossary for 'DE' and this is what they had listed:

"DE rabbit
Digestible energy for rabbits. Difference between the gross energy in the feed and the gross energy in the faeces."

I don't think I want to know details on how they come up with that number.

That Mexican sunflower seems to have other uses as well:
"For rabbits suffering from scabies, a recurring skin problem of rabbits raised in tropical countries, a Tithonia leaf extract (300 g of leaves extracted in 100 ml of water) applied 4 times per day over a period of 5 days on the affected areas was as efficient as ivermectin to treat the condition (Vu Thi Thu Hang et al., 2012)." Should the barges stop, it will be nice to be able to replace Ivermectin. That's the primary rabbit medicine we use.

I wonder if a Mexican sunflower tea put through their water system would be a preventative? I'm already considering putting in some Epsom salts to increase their magnesium since we don't have much of that in the soils around here. Wonder if a secondary medicinal water system would be a good thing? Although, then they'd have the option to not drink it. Hmm. Maybe individual water bottles for the medicinal liquids so dosage could be monitored better.

 

[alforddm]

As far as I know there is no way to sort by animal. I usually just find things that I might be interested in adding and look them up.

I'm not sure that a tea put through the watering system would be that different than just feeding them the plant directly but then again I'm not familiar with rabbit scabies.

 

[skysthelimit]

This is such an interesting conversation.

I kind of missed it, but I wanted to point out back on the comment of Betty Chu-- she said somewhere that she did not add any non molting lines, she simply selected for rabbits that hold their coats longer. Non molter, or really what should be called cycle length, more like a modifier, than a gene, and it's present in all angoras. Normal coated rabbits do not molt every three mos, so that was something that was selected for, and can be selected against. Although the Germans (I assume) in the picture are larger than Chu's English, the English carry a remarkable amount of fiber for half the body weight of their German counterparts. That's due to feed. If you read older (and even some newer) spinning books, Angora is considered a short fiber. Much work has been done to change that, with food supporting the changes in genetic selection.

I have blown coats feeding too much BOSS. I have also blown coats feeding BOSS in the winter, then stopping cold turkey as the spring approached. For me, it's as bad as calf manna.

I have not had any problems with does kindling large litters with pellets. I do have a shut down during the winter mos, but that is understandable. Still, I am constantly concerned. It seems I have less issue with cocci when I'm feeding forage. I have the BOSS sunflowers and lots of mulberry trees available, so I try to make up in the summer, but then again, I'm not growing show coats over the summer either.

To GBov, keep up the good work. I know you like gardening, like me. I never need an excuse to plant something, but if I did, bunnies are well worth it.

 

[hotzcatz]

From what I'd heard, Betty had bred in Florida Whites (years ago) to improve the body conformation. Florida Whites are mostly meat rabbits not inclined to molting as much as angoras, so that would have been a side benefit even if it wasn't the primary consideration. In any case, she selects her bunnies for much different characteristics than we do here so her bunnies are going to be different. Pretty much works with everybunny's bunnies.

What characteristics do you select for, SkysTheLimit? It's always interesting to hear other folks' breeding hopes and plans. The characteristics we choose for here changes over time as we get the bunnies to suit whatever was previously chosen. The bunnies here are primarily a fiber herd so we don't select for extreme show coats. FWIW, once the coat reaches a certain level of density, the horse clippers won't work well and they must be either plucked (if they're a molting type of bunny) or sheared with scissors or snips. Fiber texture is really important for us. Easy keeping coats is important. Temperament is important. Conformation matters, but it's fifth or sixth on the list. Color matters since we're providing fiber for three different colors of Hula Bunny yarn. Hula Bunny isn't dyed, so the color of the bunny creates the color of the yarn. At the moment, I could use about five more white ones.

The English angora fiber we get from the bunnies here is a shorter spinning fiber than some wools, but it's much longer than most cottons. (Although we now have Bleak Hall Sea Island White which at 2-1/2" to 3" is almost the length of angora.) The bunny fluff is about three to four inches when it's harvested here. The mills don't want fibers over six inches and they're quite happy with the three to four inches. What I'm starting to breed for now is crimp. That's not covered in the ARBA 'Standards of Perfection' but as a spinner, the crimpier, the better. Pure angora yarn doesn't have any elasticity to it due to the lack of crimp in the fibers. If I can get crimpy bunnies, then perhaps there will be pure angora yarn with stretch in it.

I've also been breeding for clean molting lines. If a bun will easily molt without matting up, I'll keep them and breed more of them. Some bunnies will almost slip out of their coats when they're molting. Makes fiber harvest much easier and if the bunnies are sold to someone who neglects them (I try to only sell to folks who want them for fiber, but life happens and people's interests change), they will slip out of their coat on their own and not be a pitiful bunny being brought back to me later when their coat is out of control.

The excavator came and went and the new bunny yard still isn't near the final grading. Sigh! The Powers That Be have decided it's easier to do the final grading after the building is done. Hmpf! Obviously these folks aren't gardeners. I can maybe start the hedge on the property line up where the bunnies will be, though. Ti plants, the dwarf mulberry, dwarf moringa, maybe.

The current bunny hutch location is the little roof peeking through the excavator's arm. There's a lot of ti plants near there, but I could use more. Bunnies love ti plants.

The foliage on the right side of the picture has also been taken out, I should go take some more pictures. Our property line is from the fence post on down to the end of the green mock orange hedge. We have everything to the left of that line, the other side is our neighbor's back yard. Since the excavator was there, he had them clear out some trees in his yard since he wouldn't be able to have it ever get to his back yard unless it came up through our yard to get there. He's planning on the mock orange to extend up. The bunny yard is going to be on the far left property line, though. Too bad bunnies can't eat mock orange, we have loads of it.

I did find a lovely type of grass, not sure what it is, but it grows crazy fast and breaks off easily to be harvested and fed to the bunnies. Reznor? California? It's not Guinea grass.

Can you harvest mulberry leaves and dry them for winter feed?

 

[GBov]

Would an Astrex add wave to your Angora line Hotzcatz? Without altering the Angora micron count too much perhaps?

Skysthelimit, I LOVE to garden and have been working on my very own yard now for 4 days. Am LOVING having no one with a say looking over my shoulder, MY vision, MY work, MY garden!!! :cheer2:

Got 3 cubic yards of a mushroom compost, manure, peat moss mix delivered this morning but have been hit with having to get a fridge to replace the one that came with the house so not sure if I can swing the cage wire now for hte buns.

:shock: Cage wire is shockingly expensive now, almost twice as much as when I last bought it and that is only 5 years ago.

Still, the plants are going in to get nicely established for when the rabbits do get here.

Any idea if ornamental, aka ginger lilies, are eatable? I know ginger, banana and cana lilies all are but the really fragrant member of the family I am not sure of. I planted a small patch for my mum two years ago but when I pulled them up to move them here I found they had multiplied like, well, rabbits. :lol:

 

[alforddm]

Many lilies are toxic. Day lilies and Cannas are exceptions. I'd just be very careful with anything in that family.

 

[GBov]

Many lilies are toxic. Day lilies and Cannas are exceptions. I'd just be very careful with anything in that family.

Ginger Lilies are members of the ginger family which is why I was wondering if buns could eat them. No idea their proper name though so hard to find out.

 

[skysthelimit]

From what I'd heard, Betty had bred in Florida Whites (years ago) to improve the body conformation. Florida Whites are mostly meat rabbits not inclined to molting as much as angoras, so that would have been a side benefit even if it wasn't the primary consideration. In any case, she selects her bunnies for much different characteristics than we do here so her bunnies are going to be different. Pretty much works with everybunny's bunnies.

Many Angora people have bred in many things. Angoras are such a created breed, probably even more than any other breed because of the fiber. Satin Angoras were created from Satins, another meat breed. That's why saying molting every 3 mos is natural and non molting is not is kind of silly, since no normal coated rabbit molts every three months. So the one's with longer cycles are actually more prevalent, more in tune with normal coated rabbits. <br /><br /> __________ Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:13 am __________ <br /><br />

What characteristics do you select for, SkysTheLimit? It's always interesting to hear other folks' breeding hopes and plans. The characteristics we choose for here changes over time as we get the bunnies to suit whatever was previously chosen. The bunnies here are primarily a fiber herd so we don't select for extreme show coats. FWIW, once the coat reaches a certain level of density, the horse clippers won't work well and they must be either plucked (if they're a molting type of bunny) or sheared with scissors or snips. Fiber texture is really important for us. Easy keeping coats is important. Temperament is important. Conformation matters, but it's fifth or sixth on the list. Color matters since we're providing fiber for three different colors of Hula Bunny yarn. Hula Bunny isn't dyed, so the color of the bunny creates the color of the yarn. At the moment, I could use about five more white ones.

Honestly, I can't say I select for much. These lines are so locked in all I do is maintain. I don't have to select for a coat, it's already in the genes of what I originally bought. I could try to unselect for it, but it's harder than that might seem.
Show is more of a concern than fiber, the fiber just comes if the show coat is a proper texture, the fiber will be as well, but keeping in show condition takes work. My french grow out 6-8" coats, and I do nothing, no grooming, in between clips, unless I am going to shows. The English take more work. The Giant is going to reach 3-4" and I haven't touched him yet.
I'd say for the clippers you may need a different blade, because all my show friends with those dense coats use clippers all the time, especially with the Giants and Germans. Density is not a function of length. A 3" coat can be as dense as a 6" coat. #10 blade, but it will need sharpened frequently. I don't bother, those things are expensive, and I don't have more than 10 Angoras at one time that need clipping, it doesn't take me long to use the scissors. 20 minutes per rabbit, or not much more.
Because I show, conformation is also an issue. The french are a meat breed, and I treat them like commercial rabbits with fur. That's why they must be shake and show, what meat breeder wants to deal with fussy fur? Conformation points are very low for English, and there is a bit more leeway, but I'm a conformation freak, so no reason to let it slide.
Never have been a big worrier about temperament. I don't sell pets. I will cull a biter, but they aren't my pets, but livestock, so they don't have to be friendly. Just non violent. I don't worry too much about color either. Show rabbits are either white or colored, unless it's a DQ color, almost anything slides in the Angora world. I don't like to dye, so I try to avoid raising whites. Until I got the English I never had white Angoras in my litters.

The English angora fiber we get from the bunnies here is a shorter spinning fiber than some wools, but it's much longer than most cottons. (Although we now have Bleak Hall Sea Island White which at 2-1/2" to 3" is almost the length of angora.) The bunny fluff is about three to four inches when it's harvested here. The mills don't want fibers over six inches and they're quite happy with the three to four inches. What I'm starting to breed for now is crimp. That's not covered in the ARBA 'Standards of Perfection' but as a spinner, the crimpier, the better. Pure angora yarn doesn't have any elasticity to it due to the lack of crimp in the fibers. If I can get crimpy bunnies, then perhaps there will be pure angora yarn with stretch in it.

Breed standard length for English is 3.5 to 5 inches, I get that with the molting lines. Crimp is covered in the SOP, page 68. It's more in depth on the German website and in the national club handbook. The underwool should be crimped. The crimp of the French is specified to be heavier, but it's also a thicker fiber in general. In my article last fall in Spin Off magazine, I emphatically insist that saying Angora does not have elasticity is very untrue. Proper Angora with proper crimp has good elasticity. The Angora Bunny Spinners FB group has produced many items from 100% Angora, hats, mittens, sweaters, vest, which hold their shape quite well.


I can't say anything about mills, I'm a hand spinner, and besides the German Angora folks and their co-op, all the people I know hand spin their own or sell to hand spinners. With few exceptions we are spinners who raise Angoras, and either fell into showing as spinners or became spinners as a by product of showing. Skein competitions and fiber classes are a part of every show.

I've also been breeding for clean molting lines. If a bun will easily molt without matting up, I'll keep them and breed more of them. Some bunnies will almost slip out of their coats when they're molting. Makes fiber harvest much easier and if the bunnies are sold to someone who neglects them (I try to only sell to folks who want them for fiber, but life happens and people's interests change), they will slip out of their coat on their own and not be a pitiful bunny being brought back to me later when their coat is out of control.

There has always been a controversy over molting. Some say some breeds are supposed to molt while others aren't but if one looks at the make up of Angoras again, it's not that cut and dry. Clean molting is not natural to any rabbit, so it has to be selected for in a group. As a competitor, I prefer not having coats molt in the middle of a show season. As a spinner, I also prefer to take the whole coat off when it's time. Plucking cramps my hand, clipping is much more relaxed. It's all a matter of preference there.

I do wish I has more info about the mulberry leaves. I've never tried to preserve anything. By winter time, forage time is over, as I need to grow show coats while does are actively breeding. I have to have a more controlled nutritional diet for that.

 

[GBov]

That is a GREAT post Skysthelimit, thanks!

 

[Lewis]

Is there a way to sort feedipedia by animal species instead of by plants? I guess if you had a yard full of plants and were trying to figure out what animals to feed, then sorting by plants is good, but when trying to figure out what to feed a specific species of animal, it's a bit of a trudge to get through their database. Although, I've not spent that much time searching their database.

I did check the glossary for 'DE' and this is what they had listed:

"DE rabbit
Digestible energy for rabbits. Difference between the gross energy in the feed and the gross energy in the faeces."

I don't think I want to know details on how they come up with that number.

That Mexican sunflower seems to have other uses as well:
"For rabbits suffering from scabies, a recurring skin problem of rabbits raised in tropical countries, a Tithonia leaf extract (300 g of leaves extracted in 100 ml of water) applied 4 times per day over a period of 5 days on the affected areas was as efficient as ivermectin to treat the condition (Vu Thi Thu Hang et al., 2012)." Should the barges stop, it will be nice to be able to replace Ivermectin. That's the primary rabbit medicine we use.

I wonder if a Mexican sunflower tea put through their water system would be a preventative? I'm already considering putting in some Epsom salts to increase their magnesium since we don't have much of that in the soils around here. Wonder if a secondary medicinal water system would be a good thing? Although, then they'd have the option to not drink it. Hmm. Maybe individual water bottles for the medicinal liquids so dosage could be monitored better.

@Cosima