Natural feeding plans

[ohiogoatgirl]

Going to get back into rabbits. Plan to put natural feeding into action. See updates to my colony post for that info.

My garden is going to be huge... 2,700+ sq ft. Plus about half acre for primarily squash with watermelon and cover crop mix.

Crops:

Corn (yes, aware of pros and cons of corn, but it will be possible to have home bred and grown corn to use)
Field peas
Sunflower seed
Squash/pumpkin (fresh/dried)

Grain rye (fresh forage)
Forage oats (fresh forage)
Buckwheat (fresh forage)
Alfalfa (fresh forage)
Clover (fresh forage)
Hairy Vetch (fresh/dried)
Sunflower (fresh forage)

Turnip/tops
Beet tops
Mangel beet/tops (fresh/dried)
Carrot/tops (fresh/dried)
Daikon radish/tops
Arugula (fresh/dried)
Mustard greens (fresh/dried)
Lettuce
Bok choy
Kale (fresh/dried)
Spinach (fresh/dried)
Watermelon rind (fresh)
Marigold (fresh/dried)
Yarrow (fresh/dried)

Sheep cover crop mix-
Dwarf Essex rape
Purple top turnip
Forage pea
Forage oat
Daikon radish
Crimson clover
(Mix is even amounts of each by weight, so it's actually really weird and not to any suggested planting rate. Should have done that differently but oh well. The rape, oat, and clover should regrow well after cutting/grazing. Have tons of this for sheep pasture. Will do some just to cut for rabbits.)

Rye straw
Oat straw

Need to double check-
Cucumber (fresh)
Beets.. I want to juice some beets to try dyeing yarn. Thinking the pulp left should be edible if mixed with other stuff? And hopefully not make them pee red.
Muskmelon (fresh) I'm growing some and if I don't like them I'm a little worried about being drowned in melons to give away. Would be very spread out since it would be like ice cream lol.

Maybe possible in future years-
Grain rye. Have to learn more about storage and ergot.
Wheat, oats. Need storage. Starting small for my own use.
Barley. Need storage. Starting with above grains first. Whatever is going to grow best/be easiest to process is probably what I'll end up doing more of.
Sunflowers forage. Can be on par with alfalfa! My only thing is I don't think they grow back after cutting/grazing. So you can turn seed into much more plant matter. But idk how one cut of tall sunflowers compares to the same space of many cuttings alfalfa or any other forage/crop.

The grains are lower priority. I'm just going to see if I can grow them at a small scale. Then work up to having enough to save seed and flour for bread. Then animal feed after that.

I'm working on ideas for a root cellar to store root crops in. For table use and to have fresh veg for the rabbits through the winter. We'll see. I also want to build a big solar dehydrator. So hopefully between those and hay I'll figure it out.

Years ago on here I looked into getting a pellet mill to make my own feed pellets. I've always had that at the back of my mind. I can't afford one. But between the sheep and rabbits.. And probably be able to make stuff to sell/trade with neighbors/friends.. And if I have a big dehydrator I could do big lots of harvesting and making into pellets. I could definitely get more barrels and store large amounts of pellets I make.
Aside from the money investment in the pellet mill I can easily see only needing to buy minerals for my animals after that.

More to come as things progress hopefully!

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

That sure is a lot!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

That sure is a lot!

It is lol. I'm going to be trying lots of new things so even if I don't like it, it won't be wasted. I'll be doing lots of seed saving and breeding my own vegetables. So between that and harvesting for rabbits I hope to keep it going.

 

[tambayo]

Cucumber is safe for rabbits, i see it sometimes as an advice to feed on travels for fluids.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Forgot to add amaranth. Looks like too much to bother with the seed for grain but it can be pretty good to keep trimming off to feed greens. We'll see.

There is a couple huge willow trees in the yard, down next to a little creek. I want to take a bunch of cuttings and stick em in some wet areas of the sheep pasture. I would be able to trim them to take to the rabbits and let the sheep graze them strategically.

I'm looking at buying some saplings specifically for coppicing and feeding to animals. Mulberry and willow and something else I can't recall at the moment...

 

[hotzcatz]

Mulberry is excellent for bunnies, tea, salads, as well as eating the berries themselves. Up to about 40% (I think it was) of their diet can be in mulberry leaves without any loss in weight gain or litter size according to the folks who wrote the Rabbit Production Manual, if I remember right.

As for everything else, most of this will be for you as well as the bunnies, won't it? Generally we feed the bunnies the stuff we don't want to eat ourselves and they get a lot of tree trimmings, weeds and grasses.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Thanks. Willow, poplar, and mulberry.

https://rareplantstore.com/#pricing

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

This is one of multiple seed sources I follow. They just updated the site for the year and have 10% off if you use the code SEEDS2023 ...so I bought a few things... So I'll be trying barley this year as well.
https://www.thebuffaloseedcompany.com/s/shop

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

This is another. They will be updating Jan 12 and I'm hoping to get a few things that have been out of stock.. and maybe new stuff that tempts it's way into the cart...
https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/