switching away from pellets

[Zinnia]

I feed organic pellets, but I am not thrilled with the ingredients or quality lately. I see a thread here about feeding your own mix. But, many posts are over a year old. For all of you who are successfully making your own feed... What is your current blend? I need high protein for my Angoras. I think I want to buy alfalfa pellets (though they are pretty big pellets compared their feed).

I already give lots of weeds in summer and kale in winter. Mineral licks are in their hutches... Do they need grain? Oats? Should I have the mill roll them or keep whole?

 

[Rainey]

I feed no pellets. Our rabbits always have hay--mixed grass and clover that we cut ourselves. Spring through fall they get lots of weeds, willow and bramble, kale, radish tops etc. Nursing does and growing kits get grain daily-- whole oats or wheat. The wheat is grown into fodder for the winter months and they get root crops then--potatoes, carrots, parsnips last year but we're adding more roots this year.
Hope that helps. There are folks on here who've been doing this lots longer than I have and they're really helpful sharing information and answering questions.

 

[MaggieJ]

Zinnia, I'm not sure what part of the United States you live in . . . and when you are talking about natural diets for rabbits, this becomes an important factor. (If you could add your state to your profile, that would be helpful.)

Can you get bales of alfalfa or alfalfa/grass hay locally? This makes natural feeding so much easier. You can feed alfalfa pellets to help the protein level in your feed, but I have heard that some rabbits do not like them much. Another possibility is the pressed cubes of alfalfa sold for horses. I fed those one late winter when I ran short of alfalfa hay and the rabbits did well on them. I feed alfalfa hay free choice.

I do feed some grain, usually wheat and occasionally barley. Oats are fine, but my rabbits did not seem to clean them up the way they did the other grains. They are picky critters at best. :roll:

The rest of their diet is made up of forage (fresh or dried according to the season) and such things as cabbage, kale, root crops, pumpkin, apple peelings, carrot tops etc. in winter. We have a wonderful variety and abundance of useful weeds here plus a huge willow tree, so that helps tremendously. I believe that if you feed a good variety of fresh foods, the chance of nutritional shortfalls is slight. The rabbits also have a trace mineral salt block.

Rabbits raised this way do grow more slowly. Mine were ordinary meat mutts and it usually took them 14-16 weeks to get to butchering size, compared to 10-12 weeks when I fed pellets. But they are meat, not fat, and the flavour is better.

 

[Zinnia]

I live in Wisconsin. I already buy bales for my cows, sheep, goats and pigs. Rabbits get the grassy stuff, but I guess I can feed the richer bales if they are not on pellets, huh? We've tried the alfalfa pellets and experienced quite a few rabbits that didn't like them. The hay, however, they love.

Can I give free choice of wheat and barely? Or should I limit that?

I love the flavor of the rabbits we raised only on forage last year. But, when it became cold we went back to pellets and there is surely a difference in flavor of meat in the ones harvested after eating pellets.

I just planted a bunch more kale to get through some colder months. Maybe I should also try drying other weeds like I would hay? I have three hundred feet of raspberry plants I could harvest leaves from...

 

[LPH_NY]

The pure alfalfa pellets (made for horses) are what I use. Yes, they are twice the size of rabbit pellets, but we've been using them for over a year now and the rabbits do eat them - even little kits. I also give rolled oats and hay. And I offer forage when I have time to collect it.

I tried to go pelletless, but for me it was way too time consuming. Someday in the future, I aim to try again. There is a LOT of edible weeds around here, but picking enough for 24 rabbits takes too long.

 

[Caldhara]

I find the alfalfa pellets to be the easiest and least wasteful for my rabbits. The size isn't a hinderance at all and they eat them up everyday! They turned their noses up at the cubes and would only eat them if they had nothing else, which wasn't often so they just sat in the corners and rarely got nibbled. When it comes to alfalfa hay, its hard to get the timing right on the cuttings to avoid all stems and dust so the pellets are the most consistent option for us. I feed an oat and barley mix with black oil sunflower seeds, unlimited alfalfa pellets and grass hay, and a big helping of weeds and forage twice a day. It is labor intensive but a labor of love The benefits are worth it! For winter time I hope to master fodder, as well as the few things outside growing in containers that will come inside to feed too.

 

[MaggieJ]

I live in Wisconsin. I already buy bales for my cows, sheep, goats and pigs. Rabbits get the grassy stuff, but I guess I can feed the richer bales if they are not on pellets, huh? We've tried the alfalfa pellets and experienced quite a few rabbits that didn't like them. The hay, however, they love.

Can I give free choice of wheat and barely? Or should I limit that?

I love the flavor of the rabbits we raised only on forage last year. But, when it became cold we went back to pellets and there is surely a difference in flavor of meat in the ones harvested after eating pellets.

I just planted a bunch more kale to get through some colder months. Maybe I should also try drying other weeds like I would hay? I have three hundred feet of raspberry plants I could harvest leaves from...

Alfalfa hay is excellent if you have access to it. You can also feed some grass hay for the fibre.

I don't give the rabbits more grain than about a quarter to a third cup per rabbit per day. Too much and they will accumulate a lot of internal fat.

Yes, you can dry most weeds, berry canes with leaves, willow and poplar with leaves for winter feeding. I dry the small weeds in the large mesh bags that onions and oranges come in. Long things like berry canes, tree branches etc. are probably best tied in bundles and hung up. Make sure of good air circulation during the drying process. One year I took an old bed sheet, tied knots in the corners and hung it up like a hammock in the rabbitry. I dried a ton of willow and poplar in it and it also served as a storage space.

 

[Zinnia]

I wanted to post an update on where I am at with this.

Having confidence from the good advice here on RT, I've settled on feeding mixed grass/alfalfa hay in addition to about 1 or 2 tablespoons of wheat per rabbit per day. At first, I blended alfalfa pellets with oats. That was a disaster. The rabbits developed the horrible habit of scratching through their dishes to root out the grain, spilling a good half of their food! It became a daily chore of collecting all the waste and feeding it back again....until we realized that this would not end. The issue was having mixed feed in the dish. We knew we could only offer one type of feed in the dish in order to stop them from wasting. So, we went to just a treat of wheat in their dishes. The wheat treat is tossed with a touch of ACV or molasses to moisten it just a little, then very lightly coated with ground herbs, kelp and powdered papaya. I'm not sure if I really need to give them this daily... it's still an experiment... They still get treats of fresh weeds and leaves.

So far, I think the rabbits are holding good weight. Being angora, I need to make sure the protein stays high. And... being angora, the hay is getting stuck to their wool more than I'd like to see on some. I still need to tweak a few things to get it all just how I'd like it, but overall I am very happy.

AND, I have seriously saved a LOT of money over buying the feed!! I use no more than a half a bale of organic hay per day for about 125 rabbits (includes babies). That's $2 per day, plus the cost of their herbed organic wheat, which I'm guessing at no more than another $2 per day. $4 per day ($28 per week) to feed 125 rabbits of varying ages is pretty good. When I fed organic pellets, I was spending about $60 per week! Best of all, the rabbits that were having trouble with irregular droppings cleared up completely within a week of the new diet. I think the balance of soy and corn that was in the pellets wasn't great for their gut health.

Thanks everyone... this has been a great experiment so far. And, I am excited to keep making improvements!