feeding minimal grains?

[ohiogoatgirl]

was reading over another natural feeds thread and Zab (pretty sure it was Zab) asked about feeding grains and why we dont just feed hay and forage.

i was thinking that to me the reason we started feeding grains to rabbits isnt necssarily to the rabbits benefit just as to space benefit. first monks were keeping rabbits in the walled gardens and the rabbits were basically wild but they could harvest them more easily and watch how they acted and what they ate.
then when they started keeping them in smaller areas and didnt want to have to chase them all over and trap them and for more selective breeding. well honestly how many rabbits can you handle keeping when you have to cut and store all the hay and forage for them all? its alot easier and less space taken up storing grains then hay and forages. then after time people figured out that the rabbits grew faster on the grains and certian mixes did better than others. and that certian lines grow better then others.

after that i think we all know how things progressed into pellets and chemicals and additives, blah blah blah.

well i'm one of the likely very few people who would like to breed a hardiness back into my line for rabbits that would do alright on mostly hay and forage with just minimal grain mix and mineral block.

so other then the sake of storing the hay and forage, just talking about the rabbits needs. what are we talking?

personally i would like to even just be able to feed a trio and litters until butchering. and waiting a bit longer for larger growouts wouldnt be that bad.

so....
lets say i have a nice feild of alfalfa/timothy that i can cut for forage, and another feild that i can cut and have enough for all winter feeding. plus areas on overgrown feild (checkin for poisonous weeds of course) that i can cut for forage as well.
i would add chunks of mineral block. and feed sunflower seeds in winter at least.

if i were to do this is there anything else i should really add? i would like to do this and other then the mineral block have it all be things i can grow and cut myself.

thanks

 

[cnichols]

I'm curious about this type of thing myself. I doubt I can grow enough for my rabbits, but I'd certainly like to get as close as I can!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

I'm curious about this type of thing myself. I doubt I can grow enough for my rabbits, but I'd certainly like to get as close as I can!

yes i am thinking that i will have to just "practice" on growouts to see if any signs of deficiencys come up... and then switch the breeders over to it... and then work on culling and breeding for hardiness on my feeding style.
*sigh* this might take a while :shock:<br /><br />__________ Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:16 am __________<br /><br />quoting from another forum here...

persons question:

I started raising NZ this past summer, as meat for my family.
During the summer, while they were producing, I fed them
commercial rabbit feed.
Since I was not, and have not, wanted babies until spring, I
switched my doe and buck to plain oats and alfalfa/grass hay.
They are still fat, and seem to have thrived our Michigan winter.
Wanting to stay organic, could I still feed this diet once they
start having babies again?

one persons reply:

Oats have the highest fat of any grain so actually you can make them too fat on it while not breeding. We mix it 50/50 with barley and right now even amounts of barley, oats, and manna pro pellets fed every 4 days for supplement plus mineral sources available 24/7. There are some vitamins and minerals missing from just hay and oats. Certain ones get destroyed in the drying process of hay and are bound up where they can't be used in an inactive seed or grain (meaning not soaked or sprouted).

You can get vitamin/mineral mixes in loose form from the feed store to make up for this. The goat or equine formulas are best. This is what we do most of the time. You can also use blocks but those hard trace mineral blocks are not enough unless you are also following option 2 which is to pick fresh forage for them every day. Tough grasses, bushes, tree branches, berry canes, dandelions.... Time consuming but makes up the missing vitamins and minerals very well.

Long term just 1 grain and hay is going to eventually lead to a deficiency even if it takes a year or generation to show up. You know it can take humans 20years to show vitamin b12 deficiency after not having any during that time? Different things store in different amounts for different lengths of time so you may not see a problem tomorrow but eventually things start to happen that you might not even notice at first like a slight lessening of coat quality, a couple kits less per litter, etc... until it becomes much bigger. You need to make a more rounded diet before that happens. More grain types mixed together and vitamin/mineral supplements do a fair enough job. Fresh forage does a better job.

so from this it sounds like my idea should work out pretty good as to cover all the nutrients then. though by all means, correct anything if anyone sees something i've missed or should look more into!

 

[Mickey328]

I think it would likely work. And it's true that wild rabbits get along well on that sort of diet. So, it's really a personal choice as to what access to what feeds you have, what kind of condition you want in your rabbits and what kind of time frame you're looking at for harvesting. Now, if you're showing them, you need them to be in super condition; I doubt you'd get quite that kind of condition from just a forage diet. If having them take longer to reach butcher weight isn't an issue for you, I say go for it. Personally, we want to harvest when they're still young and tender, so we'll use feed other than just straight forage to get the weight on them a bit sooner. But I still think it's a personal choice. While most wild rabbits survive on forage and bark and such, they tend to be leaner and not quiet "glossy" if you know what I mean. I say whatever works for you and suits your needs, resources and preferences is cool, as long as it's not something extreme that would cause harm or suffering to them...and I don't believe a diet of forage would do that at all.

 

[Frecs]

With the availability you have to access alfalfa/timothy and a good amount of weeds, you likely could go grain free. Watch for deficiences (but then, don't we all?) and adjust. Daniel Salatin had to go through multi-generations to develop a line of rabbits suitable to tractoring. Working toward a line of rabbits that are adapted to a different feeding and/or housing situation from what domestic rabbits have been bred to handle can/does take some time and willingness to cull and cull heavy.

(And, as someone we know on FB does -- feeders and breeders are fed differently. Feeders are mostly or totally fed forage while breeders get a diet that includes pellets...though I think he is trying to move toward a different diet for his breeders as well.)

I don't have the heart to transition full force into a non-pelleted or non-grain diet for my breeders. The level of culling I might have to do if I did is just to much for me to even contemplate nor risk. I'm taking a slower pace which allows me and my rabbits to transition into it painlessly. And, since I don't have access to my own field of alfalfa or affordable bales of it...I will have to rely on grains -- sprouted grains.

 

[Zab]

Do you not have breeds more adapted to natural feed over the pond? Our gotlanders, melleruds and swedish pelts are bred to stay well on simple food. While grain is used in winters many of them are kept on pasture only in summers. The breeding association try to keep breeders from using pellet since they want to keep the breed easy fed. Theyre 8-9lb so not big but dress out well for meat.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

I do believe that those of us transitioning over to natural feeds with the 'commercial' breeds like NZ and Californian may have a harder time than those of us who are focusing on the "heritage' breeds. The heritage breeds are not as popular, and have not been produced TO produce the way the commercial breeds have- even though the original purposes were the same-- meat production!!

So yes, in a fashion, we DO have some breeds in place, that are more inclined to do well on a natural diet from the very start-- we see it in pigs, poultry, sheep, goats and cattle. people using the common/commercial breeds of livestock have to work harder at developing lines that can thrive on a sustainable, homestead-type diets.

 

[Frecs]

That could explain why my Silver Foxes had no problem at all with adding fresh foods and sprouted grains. Being a heritage breed, they aren't as programed as NZ and Cali's. Even though the breeder mine came from was absolutely horrified to learn that I gave hay daily...she'd probably had a hizzy-fit if she knew what I feed them in addition to pellets and hay!!! They've done wonder so we continue shifting closer and closer to all natural.

 

[MaggieJ]

I find that my meat mutts are very forgiving of changes in feed... provided they are done gradually. Mutts just seem more resilient to change than many purebreds. Just my take on it.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

I find that my meat mutts are very forgiving of changes in feed... provided they are done gradually. Mutts just seem more resilient to change than many purebreds. Just my take on it.

well> Maggie, that is because they have the genetics of MANY!!!

there was a thing in Tom Sawyer, or Huckleberry Finn, where one was describing why a mutt dog was preferable to a pure bred-- and he compared it to royal bloodlines--

so, to sorta paraphrase...

If your family was the royal family of England, to keep the ancestry of your children 'pure' you would need to marry another person of English royalty. BUT-- if you married someone of say, German Royalty, your kids would have TWO royal backgrounds in their ancestry-- now isn't that better than just one?

*now ducking to avoid the flung arrows of snobby show dog breeders*

 

[3mina]

If your family was the royal family of England, to keep the ancestry of your children 'pure' you would need to marry another person of English royalty. BUT-- if you married someone of say, German Royalty, your kids would have TWO royal backgrounds in their ancestry-- now isn't that better than just one?

You do know that almost all of the royal families in Europe are pretty much genetically identical right? :mrgreen:

DISCLAIMER I'm being sarcastic here :lol:

 

[Oceanrose]

If I was going to do this, I would first select fast growing stock,with good bodies, and then buy several juniors (probably 10-25). I would switch them over to the program, get and record weekly weights and cull out 50-75% by 5-6 months based on weight gain and condition. Breed those, and repeat. Without grain you are going to have a slower growth rate but some will be better than others by far. In several generations, culling hard, you should have a solid line that does well.

I have a friend who is working on this, and doing something similar. She is finding does do better than bucks, but certain rabbits do a much better job. Her growth rate is lower though, and her rabbits don't finish growing until over a year.

Anything you select for will get better, anything you don't breed for will eventually go away. Just be ruthless in your selection.

 

[Frecs]

I am on a FB list started by a gentleman who feeds no pellets or grains to his "feeders" meaning the bunnies in the grow out pen being grown for freezer camp. Those bunnies get grass, garden wastes, kitchen scraps but no pellets or grains. His "breeders" do get pellets but he is working on a fodder system to eventually eliminate pellets for them as well. His "feeders" do get to butcher weight a little slower than on pellets but, as he says, it isn't costing him to feed them so that isn't an issue.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

I am on a FB list started by a gentleman who feeds no pellets or grains to his "feeders" meaning the bunnies in the grow out pen being grown for freezer camp. Those bunnies get grass, garden wastes, kitchen scraps but no pellets or grains. His "breeders" do get pellets but he is working on a fodder system to eventually eliminate pellets for them as well. His "feeders" do get to butcher weight a little slower than on pellets but, as he says, it isn't costing him to feed them so that isn't an issue.

quite interesting. that is a good thought! just buy pellets for the breeders then the growouts go on greens/hay/grains. another idea would be to keep my main breeder on pellets and then work her daughters onto greens/hay/grains and work from them on breeding for hardiness and still have the original mom on pellets in case the daughters dont work out i will still have litters from her.

 

[ramblingrabbit]

I am on a FB list started by a gentleman who feeds no pellets or grains to his "feeders" meaning the bunnies in the grow out pen being grown for freezer camp. Those bunnies get grass, garden wastes, kitchen scraps but no pellets or grains. His "breeders" do get pellets but he is working on a fodder system to eventually eliminate pellets for them as well. His "feeders" do get to butcher weight a little slower than on pellets but, as he says, it isn't costing him to feed them so that isn't an issue.

Do you have the info for that gentleman's FB list so that I could find it? I'd be very interested in following that...

 

[Frecs]

I am on a FB list started by a gentleman who feeds no pellets or grains to his "feeders" meaning the bunnies in the grow out pen being grown for freezer camp. Those bunnies get grass, garden wastes, kitchen scraps but no pellets or grains. His "breeders" do get pellets but he is working on a fodder system to eventually eliminate pellets for them as well. His "feeders" do get to butcher weight a little slower than on pellets but, as he says, it isn't costing him to feed them so that isn't an issue.

Do you have the info for that gentleman's FB list so that I could find it? I'd be very interested in following that...

http://www.facebook.com/groups/Backyard.Meat.Rabbits/