Taste: pellets vs. natural/forage diet

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PrairieBelle

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I have often heard that the meat tastes better from a naturally fed rabbit.

Why is this?
Is it because of the processing of the pellets, or because there is so much alfalfa in the diet?
What is the difference in taste?

:popcorn:
 
You are what you eat. So is the rabbit. :)

I don't think it is the alfalfa causing the problem. My rabbits eat a lot of alfalfa hay and the flavour is excellent. I figure it is probably because of the processing. Rabbit pellets do not smell at all appetizing... quite nasty, in fact. Whereas good hay, whole grain and a bucket full of assorted grains smell pretty darn good.
 
I would think that there would be a big difference.

With chickens, when we raise meat birds, I can definitely tell the difference from any chicken bought from a store. Just a better flavor homegrown.

And I know our eggs are better than any from the store. I can TASTE the difference. No ands ifs or buts. My egg customers keep coming back, so I must be doing something right.

My rabbits get regular pellets. They get hay in racks. Fresh handfulls of grass picked everyday. I have started feeding wheat and they choose that over their pellets. Carrots are a big hit. They like bread especially hard rolls. At some point, I plan on getting away from pellets. My rabbits are under 5 pounds full grown, so are definitely pets. I don't plan on finding out how they taste.

We have ate rabbits in the past, but nobody wants the job of doing them in.
 
Just curious.

Do any of you think that a rabbit gets the same nutrition from, say, whole soybeans as they would from processed soybean meal?
 
I don't know, Billy. I doubt they could eat whole soybeans. Whenever there have been a few in a bag of grain, the rabbits have always ignored them. And since soybeans have to be steamed or roasted to be used for livestock, they are always, in a sense, processed.

If I understand correctly, the point of your question is that the ground feed would more easily digested and the nutrients more easily absorbed. But since the rabbits do chew and nibble foods like hay and grain, they are "processing" them as they eat. Processed foods usually have preservatives to extend shelf life. Whole foods like hay and grain don't need them... a big plus where I am concerned.
 
MaggieJ is right, you ARE what you eat. I jokingly maintain that if you are trapped in Siberia and forced to cannibalize each other, eat the vegans first, the rest of us will taste awful! :lol:

Holds true though. I won't kill or eat ducks that dive down and eat crap off the bottom of rivers and lakes...I love to eat paddle-duck species though, they eat little leafy junk on the surface. Taste a HECK of a lot better.

I shot a farm-raiding buck and a swamp-dwelling doe one year. I didn't label them differently, just "DEER - (type of cut, e.g. "ground," "medallion steak," "stew" et cetera)" and the year I shot them. I could tell you by flavor which deer was which though.....the buck raided farms his whole life, grew up on corn, apples, and rye, he tasted mild and light, like a really good flavored beef. The doe though...she lived her whole life in the swamps up north, eating mostly cedar, poplar, and acorns. She was HEAVILY flavored, very "gamey" and while I love that flavor, most of my friends hated that doe for that very reason! :lol:

So I would imagine it holds true for rabbits as well. :)
 
MaggieJ":2xmozx44 said:
I don't know, Billy. I doubt they could eat whole soybeans. Whenever there have been a few in a bag of grain, the rabbits have always ignored them. And since soybeans have to be steamed or roasted to be used for livestock, they are always, in a sense, processed.

If I understand correctly, the point of your question is that the ground feed would more easily digested and the nutrients more easily absorbed. But since the rabbits do chew and nibble foods like hay and grain, they are "processing" them as they eat. Processed foods usually have preservatives to extend shelf life. Whole foods like hay and grain don't need them... a big plus where I am concerned.
Click to expand...

You passed the test, Maggie. I ran across that tidbit recently when I was google searching Allied Mills, which is the company that milled the lines of Wayne Feeds, which was THE best feed I ever used back in the day. One of their feed mill "pioneers" if you will, actually developed the process that most mills still use today as a means of baking soybean mill. Turns out there is an enzyme in soybeans which, if not broken down by baking it at a certain temperature for a certain length of time, will not benefit any animal in any way, shape, or form when feeding it.

We still differ on the viability of feeding straight grains, though. I think it largely depends upon where you live as to how feasible it is to do so. If I were to try and switch my stock over to barley and oats, it would put me into the poor house in short order.
 
Billy, natural feeding is not suited to everyone's needs. It works best in a small backyard meat operation in areas where alfalfa hay and grain are reasonably priced. We are blessed in this regard, here in Southern Ontario. We make our choices according to what is likely to give us the best results.

But the meat from naturally fed rabbits does have excellent flavour. :)
 
What exactly are the differences in flavor?

The pellets I buy don't smell nasty to me, they kind of smell like hay or grass.
I totally understand that rabbits are designed to eat fresh and dried foods, therefore it only makes sense that their bodies would be the most healthy and best tasting on their intended diet.
Like chickens, beef or any other animal.
I guess was just hard for me to wrap my head around the idea as concerns rabbits, since I had never thought about it before. This forum is the first place Ive encountered "alternative" rabbit raisers. :lol:
Its an awesome idea and I plan to start fresh/natural feeding when we finally move to the country.
 
It's difficult to explain the difference in taste. It is subtle and adjectives to describe flavour are inadequate at best. I want to say naturally-fed has a fresher, cleaner taste, but that would be unfair to commercially-fed rabbit meat. All rabbit is delicious.

I like to think I had a little something to do with the present popularity of natural feeding. Since I started with rabbits in 2005, I've been active on a few forums where I have discussed the idea at some length and although there was some fairly strong initial resistance, natural feeding began to catch on with people who had acreage and who had access to cheap alfalfa hay. It's not a good choice for everyone, but for some of us it works very well.
 
Maggie, you have that luxury. As I indicated before, it would be cost-prohibitive for me to feed straight grains and hay versus pelleted ration because a bag of oats and a bag of barley each cost in excess of $25/ 50-lb. bag around here. For the same money I'd shell out for 100 lbs. of that, I could easily get almost 4 ea. 50-lb. bags of pelleted feed. That would literally double my feed bill.
 
Right now I can't afford natural feeding (though I've toyed with the idea of a fodder system, it would be impossible because I am out of town too often) but someday I'd like to. :)
 
ive raised rabbits both ways.pellets and natural forage that i cut for them. i really cant tell any diff in the taste of the meat.however,when you pile a bunch of turnip greens, soybean greens,apples,squash and whatever weeds and grasses yu can cut for them, they just go crazy eating it.the most healthy rabbits i ever had was when i was feeding them all they cud eat turnip and forage radish greens.if i had enuf greens i didnt bother with pellets. they were glossy and fat and had big litters! but it is some work cutting it all for them. not for everybody.<br /><br />__________ Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:30 pm __________<br /><br />one thing you can do to relieve the food cost is to go out in harvested corn fields and get sum of the wasted cob corn.jus throw the cobs in with your fryers and they will eat them. now im talking corn on the cob. look in the corners of the fields where the combine turns around. there will be plenty of cobs with the kernels still on them.
 
Ridgerunner1965, another "trick" I've learned is to wait for nearly the end of deer season...huge bags of bait go on sale cheap. :D Scored fifty pounds of shelled corn last fall for about five dollars! Turned around and sold most of it to the guys at deer camp, LOL!!! Paid for my gas there and back. :mrgreen: But I still had maybe fifteen pounds left...I fed it to my rabbits all winter. In small doses though...they can get FAT on that!!!

But yeah...deer season brings big bags of corn, carrots, apples, sugar beets...hey, I wonder if rabbits can eat sugar beets. :shock: :? Those darn things last for just about EVER.
 

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