Feeding natural...does that mean no grains?

[Joe n TN]

I've been told by a long time 4H sponsor (mentor? not sure of the term they use) that rabbits are forage animals, would not normally eat grains and therefore should not be fed grains.

Her advice was to feed alfalfa based pellets, always to have hay available (timothy if possible), salt block and then supplement with the normally approved list of acceptable greens.

Her logic was, like with cattle that are fed grain are not as healthy (e coli, etc...) that rabbits should be kept to a true natural diet as much as possible to keep them healthy and to grow out the best meat rabbits.

Thoughts? Advice? Not trying to stir the pot here, just trying to raise the most natural, healthy table fare for my family as possible. Thanks,

Joe

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

Hi Joe
I feed grains and alfalfa hay and some greens as well. They are doing great on them. Rabbit are not like cattle they are just like horses. If a horse can eat so can a rabbit . Horse love grains ,hay ect. To me grain are natural . Pellets are process . Not natural. Maggie is better at this then i am.

 

[MaggieJ]

Wild rabbits eat a lot of grass seeds, which are not much different from grain. You see them pulling down the long stalks and eating the seeds. I agree that too much grain can make rabbits fat, but if the emphasis is on alfalfa hay and greens, a bit of grain seems to work fine.

Does your 4H mentor realize that most alfalfa based rabbit pellets contain grain?

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

Grain is the 'seed' of grasses-- feeding oats, barley,m safflower, etc, is NOT an unnatural diet. Just look under bird feeders in the mornings and evenings-- I have never had a bird feeder that did not have a wild rabbit or two find the 'grains' that the birds would miss.
"Natural" feeding is eliminating the use of processed, single foods that usually contain ingredients that are not species appropriate (horse feed with Beef tallow? C'mon, REALLY)
Rabbits have no issue with entering a barn and ripping open a sack of oats!!!

 

[OneAcreFarm]

Not to mention rabbits that eat a diet of pellets do NOT need a salt or mineral wheel...

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

That is right terry. The pellet food that i did have my rabbits on had tallow in it. I had to look it up to see what that was. Boy was i surprise. Not no more.