What did people feed before pellets?

Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Rabbit Talk Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
G

GBov

Well-known member
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
2,616
Reaction score
63
Location
Cumbria, UK
Just got signed in at the library (ugh, I MISS my internet at home!) and am now able to ask this question that has been pestering me for the last 4 weeks!

What did people feed BEFORE pellets were invented?

Not just one or two rabbits but people who raised Lots of rabbits and sold the meat in towns.

My mum asked me because she remembers a man in her town who raised many rabbits and he was NOT the sort to go picking buckets of grass and weeds for them and now that my herd has reached FIFTY :shock: feed is just killing me!
 
Hay and whole grains, especially oats and barley. Alfalfa is good to increase the protein, I feed cubes to cut down on waste.
 
That is pretty much what we guessed but its like pulling hens teeth to get any information on the web about rabbits before pellets :roll:
 
GBov":2khx1e06 said:
That is pretty much what we guessed but its like pulling hens teeth to get any information on the web about rabbits before pellets :roll:
Click to expand...

i know what you mean!

basically all i could find is there was just hunting rabbits... then people built warrens for them and made sure the warren was kept safe and there was plenty of food around and then hunted around the warrens... then monasteries had walled gardens with little holes for rabbits to come in to escape from predators, which turned into walled gardens without the holes and kept the rabbits fed via the garden and just trapped them for eating or selling... then came cages and hay and grains... then came mass production and pellets and auto waterers, etc.
 
There is a lot of information in our ebooks. You can "buy" them with your BunnyBucks. Just go to the menu bar at the top of the Index Page and click on EBOOKS.

Gathering forage was often a job for children. And likely all the weeds from the kitchen garden were tossed in as well. Rabbits were often raised entirely by the farm kids. They would glean the harvest fields for grain and pick forage. Add some hay and the rabbits did just fine.

Most rabbitries were of the backyard variety in those days... Something to put some meat on the table. Like chickens, rabbits can be used one or two at a time with the main supply kept alive until needed. A whole cow, sheep or even a pig was a lot of meat to process at one time... Very difficult unless the weather was cold.

There are commercial rabbitries in France that raise their rabbits on alfalfa hay and grain for the most part. These are premium meat and fur rabbits, so you can be sure they are not short-changing them. Link below... Please excuse the clumsy Google translation.

http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl ... 26hs%3DbUg
 
Thanks guys! I am so missing being online here but "needs must when the devil drives" as they say. The only feed sold locally to me is very odd smelling, not nice at all. Wheat middlings, soybean meal and alfalfa meal are its main ingreadiants and my rabbits HATE it.

But we are now in the land of great hay so I was thinking of getting two nice big round bails of good hay - coastal and timothy perhaps - and just feeding them that for a while. Good thing I checked in though, I had forgotten the oats and mineral blocks.

They are loving the sweet gum leaves and branches but with so many right now its not an option to just forage for them all.
 
Perhaps you could alternate which group of rabbits get greens for supplements. Nothing says they all have to have them every day. Decide how many you can comfortably supplement daily and mentally divide the rabbits into groups. So maybe each group gets greens once or twice a week.

If you can get alfalfa hay or cubes, that will help up their protein intake. Grass hays run about 7-8% and grains about 10-12%. This is okay for non-working rabbits but not really quite enough when you are raising for meat. Your grow-out rate is likely to be considerably slower if they don't get sufficient protein.

Willow (Salix species) and mulberry (Morus species) are great for rabbits and are fast growing and are great sources of protein. It might be worth planting some for the future. :)
 
MaggieJ":3kjipwt0 said:
Perhaps you could alternate which group of rabbits get greens for supplements. Nothing says they all have to have them every day. Decide how many you can comfortably supplement daily and mentally divide the rabbits into groups. So maybe each group gets greens once or twice a week.

If you can get alfalfa hay or cubes, that will help up their protein intake. Grass hays run about 7-8% and grains about 10-12%. This is okay for non-working rabbits but not really quite enough when you are raising for meat. Your grow-out rate is likely to be considerably slower if they don't get sufficient protein.
Click to expand...

That is a great idea! I will see what hay is available to me at what cost and go from there. Even if I just switch the bucks and "pets" it will be a great savings.

As soon as we can afford a place of our own many things will be planted for the rabbits, like mulberry trees but for now we have a nice belt of hardwood trees and the garden will be plowed next week so some things can be planted there to help up the protein.

Yipes! Where did two hours go??? My session at the library is now over so shall catch y'all next week.
 
darn it ya left ): well next time you get on, check out the ebooks part of the site. i had forgotten about it until today and lookin at the one titled "Backyard Rabbit Farming" its the second one down, and it might answer some of your questions.
 
If you want greens, my local grocery store lets me have their vegetable trimmings. They inspect daily (at least), and trim anything that's not "perfect". It's a small store, but they sometimes have a few boxes of luscious greens for the asking.

Maybe you could ask the grocers in your area? Beats the heck out of foraging!
 
gulien":31zr9d1m said:
If you want greens, my local grocery store lets me have their vegetable trimmings. They inspect daily (at least), and trim anything that's not "perfect". It's a small store, but they sometimes have a few boxes of luscious greens for the asking.

Maybe you could ask the grocers in your area? Beats the heck out of foraging!
Click to expand...

this is a good idea. i asked my local stores but the durn amish got em all way back for feeding it all to the pigs... durnit...
oh well. i get alot more forage around the farm and dont waste the gas.
 
Also check out http://www.forgottenbooks.org Lots of books written about rabbits late 1800's early 1900's, pre-pellet. Though if you are using a library computer, you may not be able to get them printed out. If it's your own laptop though, and only the library's internet, you can get 50 books for free.
 
I have a book on Angora care and breeding written in the 40's or 50's and focusing on production rabbitries. I've read the chapter on diet, but I'll find it and post the diets here. I know one grower fed alfalfa, wheat chaff, bread and MILK. Most added wheat germ, and fed a lot of hay. There were some interesting diets, and some things we'd never dream of feeding!
 
Was lucky enough to find a writeup on Oren Reynolds and his family's struggles with rabbits during rather lean economic times, including the Great Depression. Alot of interesting info in that article.

https://www.arba.net/district/library/drarticle.pdf

Not sure if that is the article or not, but it seems like in his early days of raising New Zealands he used alot of local grains and hay, much of which found their way into the pellets he later had milled and he sold out of his garage. I'm proud to be using that feed today.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top