Pellet ingredients - fish meal / blood meal??

[MaggieJ]

Just make sure we are all talking about the same plants. Being in New Zealand, some of the plants may be different but have the same common name. Except the rose hips. I pretty sure that one is the same. :lol:

This why I am always pushing for the use of the botanical names of plants. Using the Latin prevents the confusion. I once saw a post (not here) where a rabbit owner gathered big bunches of "cattails" to feed her rabbits and wanted to know what to do about the spines. Spines??? On cattails? :? Turned out it was a local name for teasels.

 

[wamplercathy]

I try to stay away from any feed that has "meal" in it. Blood meal is blood in the form of powder that can then be added to animal feed to boost protein. When it comes to dogs, cats, and even pigs this isn't much of a stretch from their natural diet. Seeing as they are omnivores. But people often just thinks of them as 2 carnivores and 1 garbage can. :lol: :lol: On the other hand we have goats, cows, and rabbits are all herbivores and blood isn't, in any stretch of the imagination, part of their natural diet.

Just my thoughts

If yall like documentaries about where our food comes from watch Frankensteer on Netflix. But if you want to continue to eat beef from the grocery store you might not want to. :x

Here's a snippet of it from youtube.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GdTp_BrTKs

 

[akane]

Meal ingredients are considered good in carnivore foods. Things like lamb meal, chicken meal, etc... are expected to be high quality named meats with the water removed so you are more confident they are high up in the ingredients list. Where just lamb or chicken means it has water and while it may be the first listed ingredient if you go by dry weight it may be below any following grains. Less specific meats and meat meals such as poultry instead of saying chicken, turkey... is considered second best. Things that are very unspecific, meat meal, are sometimes seen as negatives. Read the protein section http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php ... erproducts

You can see some of the same in herbivore ingredients. There is alfalfa meal and then all the way down to mysterious "plant byproducts". Grain hulls have a little use as fiber but are mostly filler and are probably making up for a lack of a good hay ingredient or other complete ingredient that provides high quality fiber. What you want are mostly complete ingredients like things labelled whole, rolled, or dried. Other countries often aren't as specific as US laws though and may have no detailed name.

 

[michaels4gardens]

Lucerne as the first ingredient is good but I'd still probably also feed a hay with those. The fiber is rather low in the last one. Is the last one an actual pellet or a mix? With the banana chips and such it seems like it's a mix and those don't work out very well because the animals like to pick out the sugary and fatty bits while leaving important nutrients behind. If you can get a uniform pellet it will be easier to feed a balanced diet. You can add some of the healthier mix ingredients to a plain pellet if you want more variety. Some feed small amounts of black sunflower seeds (the small bird feed ones, not the big striped ones for human eating), flax/linseed, and straight grains like oats or wheat for healthier coats and other benefits.

Yes it's a mix, one I currently have they pick out their favourite bits too, it's super frustrating. They end up digging through their bowl, and I get mouldy pellets, which then sprout and grow into whatever this is, all over my lawn :lol
Radish
-- Sat Apr 11, 2015 2:17 pm --

The bloodmeal is likely added to increase phosphours to balance out a high calcium level and to increase protein

The fish meal is likely just to increase protein levels

Lucerne and alfalfa are the same plant just different names

Maize and corn are the same plant different name

I would stay away from animal products as it is likely to go stale sooner (or even rancid)

although I agree that animal products go rancid before most plant products, I personally have found that rabbits fed a diet that includes some animal based protein and fat grow better, and have a longer productive life.

I'm pretty sure GMO seeds are banned in Australia and New Zealand. Over 90% of corn and soy are GMO over here and one of the reasons they are frowned upon in North America I personally don't like feeding corn to rabbits, but- especially GMO corn.

I like the diet with no animal products and 16% fibre instead of the 3rd option which only has 9% fibre

So high on fibre is good? What about protein for does? Obviously low in salt is good too

about 5% salt is a good pellet ration, [assuming you are feeding some hay] but- most pelleted rations are low in mineral, so a mineral salt block can help, and provide the extra salt some rabbits would like.

-- Rabbits are not herbivores , Rabbits are omnivores with a mostly plant based diet. If given a choice, they will readily eat meat [just give them some left-over roast beef, and see what happens]..humans force them to be herbivore , because they can still be productive on a cheap plant derived diet. .

 

[Zass]

-- Rabbits are not herbivores , Rabbits are omnivores with a mostly plant based diet. If given a choice, they will readily eat meat [just give them some left-over roast beef, and see what happens]..humans force them to be herbivore , because they can still be productive on a cheap plant derived diet. .

I'd like to know how much meat wild rabbits actually eat.
I can't imagine it's too much, maybe a little is scavenged in a rabbit's lifetime, maybe.
As far as I know, they aren't known to be insect eaters and they do not hunt anything.
Cannibalism is probably the main source.

I'd call it a stretch to say we are forcing them to be herbivores just because they are opportunists who'd have at our salty roast beef if given the chance, and we don't share.

 

[alforddm]

After watching my buck dig enthusiastically in the dirt, I've wondered if they wouldn't eat an earthworms if they found one. So of course I did a google search and found this...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3154302 To bad the main article is in spanish. They were feeding ground earthworm meal.

apparent digestibility was 5.09% higher (P less than 0.05) with the diet containing earthworm meal than with the control diet. It was concluded that it is possible to substitute 30% of the protein in the diet of growing rabbits, with earthworm meal, without any adverse physiological effects. Similar results to those achieved when conventional protein supplements are used for rabbit rations, were obtained.

I would like to know what the main protein source was in the control feed.

 

[Zass]

If it's like other research I've seen, just about anything looks good when compared to soy in rabbit feed.

 

[akane]

I don't think rabbits normally eat earthworms or any other meat in the wild. Occasionally you do see herbivores eat meat. It is probably a lack of minerals or some other nutrient. Often it happens when ungulates are on a very restricted diet. Deer in the winter/early spring and cows not on pasture. I doubt they do it even yearly. Just some year that things aren't as plentiful. Herbivores seem to prefer to eat mineral rich dirt for these things. The horses would carve deep grooves in various areas of the pasture when they did not have a mineral block. I do not think we are forcing them to be herbivores. I think we are letting them be herbivores by providing a rounded plant diet.

 

[alforddm]

From Rabbit Hunting By Dave Fisher This is speaking about the cottontail but could apply.

In tough times rabbits will eat earthworms, snails, and the bark of just about any tree or bush.

 

[Susie570]

From Rabbit Hunting By Dave Fisher This is speaking about the cottontail but could apply.

In tough times rabbits will eat earthworms, snails, and the bark of just about any tree or bush.

I think 'tough times' would be the key phrase in that sentence... would a rabbit turn down fresh greens for earthworms or snails? I doubt it, unless they truly are lacking in something (like protein) and just starving for it. I think rabbits, in particular, are pretty good at eating things they crave. When my doe had her litter, she went NUTS over banana. I know it isn't good for them to have much of it, so I only gave her a few bites of it a day, but she would have eaten the whole thing if I had let her. Now, she seems uninterested in them.

 

[michaels4gardens]

do your own research, [I have] give them a chance to eat roast beef, or any meat- [no salt added] and see what happens. It was customary to feed rabbits all kinds of meat scraps before the advent of" times of plenty" when people could afford to feed grain to rabbits.

 

[Dood]

Putting sheep by-products in cattle feed to increase the protein levels is what started "mad cow" disease so I'm going to say no to feeding my rabbits animal products

 

[wamplercathy]

All animals are opportunist, us included. Given the choice the average rabbit, horse, or goat will eat a strictly veg diet. But if something is missing from their diet they will find a substitute or fill their bellies with something to stave off starvation. I've seen too many rescued animals that had bellies full of rocks because they didn't have access to any other food. So yes a rabbit that is given meat and that's all will eat it, but that's not necessarily healthy.

Putting sheep by-products in cattle feed to increase the protein levels is what started "mad cow" disease so I'm going to say no to feeding my rabbits animal products

:yeahthat: was one of the reasons, and the use of cow byproduct to make their pellets didn't help the problem. I have seen some dog foods that have "meat meal" in them and it turned out to be dog.

Because of this I try my best to avoid any mystery meal in any of my animals feed.

 

[alforddm]

I did a bit of an experiment last night....I offered my rabbits some red wigglers. They weren't interested. Totally scientific. :twisted: :lol:

 

[michaels4gardens]

I did a bit of an experiment last night....I offered my rabbits some red wigglers. They weren't interested. Totally scientific. :twisted: :lol:

- that is funny -thank you for sharing that...
- I have not seen mine eat any worms either, [but I read that wild rabbits will sometimes do that, or eat carrion when hungry] -- I have always raised rabbits the "old fashioned way" [except the years I was raising rabbits commercially]. -- My rabbits get all of the scraps from the house , [and sometimes from restaurants] except I never give raw meat [ because I worry about spoilage, or sharing disease from frankenfood farms]or avocado [because I have had chickens "act sick" after feeding them avocado]
I almost never have a sick rabbit, my growth rates are about what I would expect from pellets,[at least 4 lbs at 8 weeks] and the does I have [could also be genetics] are usually productive for about 6 years. any way-- to each their own...