Alternative Rabbit Food

[Beekissed]

Beekissed, you are steeping in a land mine field.

Beekissed is used to rolling around in land mines and brought steel gaiters for the occasion. I've been swimming up stream on these forums for 5 yrs now and am used to being harassed for being different in my livestock paradigm. Never stops me from doing it anyway and posting about the results...and so far they've been nothing but stellar!

Five years ago when I mentioned giving ACV to livestock I was more or less told I was imagining any good health benefits from it and it was stupid. Now you can't do a search on the net without hitting thousands of references to giving ACV to livestock, particularly chickens.

Two years ago I started exploring fermented feeds for chickens and couldn't find a single reference to it in regards to chickens except some overseas studies...now there's thousands of hits on Google about it. Blogs and articles abound! It's catching on...even the agribiz poultry houses are putting distiller's grains, brewery grains and probios in the feeds now.

People catch on eventually that there is something to these things when they see the results in pictures of the livestock in good health and other people testifying to the same results. There will always be those few who have negative feedback on these things because they do not like change and they don't have the confidence it takes to do something different than what the books or the USDA advises. I'm always curious as to why those folks visit such threads as these when the title clearly states alternative feeding methods and they have no interest in exploring them...only naysaying them. That's always a puzzlement to me.

 

[Andrei]

Good for you and your animals and let's hope the business side of raising animals does not ruin the Natural side of it.
There are a lot of small "Monsanto" among us.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep. But...you can hardly blame them when they see how much money is being made by companies raising animals real quick and in a hurry and folks naturally think that's desirable...make an animal hurry into maturity or heavy weights so that I can have a quick turnover and make/save money/time but history has shown us that animals are naturally healthier when able to grow and develop at a more appropriate pace.

I think many farmers are trying to get back to that paradigm in their livestock management because they are tired of constantly vetting and pumping meds into animals to keep them alive to butcher weights or throughout production. The high mortality rates from that kind of management can be absorbed by the big agribiz guys but not so much by the small farmer.

If you'll notice on these forums, the most active sections are in the emergency and illness threads and despite all the medicine at their fingertips and following all the advice found in books, their animals are still sick, dying, having abnormal birthing/laying, etc.

Of course, this can be attributed to lack of experience of the owner but I've seen the same troubles in farmers in their 70s that are still trying to stick to USDA recommendations for livestock. After awhile these old guys just accept the fact their animals will be sick and die and resign themselves to it, even claim that others who are having hardy livestock are just "lucky". They also claim that no one makes money on farming, which begs the question "Why then, do you continue it?".

 

[Andrei]

You have a very accurate picture of the reality nailed down.
I would like to add on top of that the concept of Genetic Health.
Gene lines that after being exposed to all kinds of diseases survive and thrive like not being affected.
And going back to the concept: I work for the animals or the animals work for me?

 

[OneFineAcre]

I read through this entire thread. It is a thread on alternative feeding methods. I saw people making suggestions and links to more information. I saw nothing negative until Monday 12/9 at 10:31 pm, after someone had the "audacity" to say that they had tried more "alternative" feeding regimens but were sticking with pellets. That's when the name calling started, people drinking Kool -aid, walking in mine fields, working for Monsanto and the USDA. It seems to me that the hostility comes from the people who are enthusiastic about alternative practices towards people who prefer to stick with the practices that have worked for them. In fact, it seems like some join these forums just to pick fights with those who do not agree with them.

And I promise you that I do not work for Monsanto, and my goats are not on the emergency/illness thread. My animals are loved, and well cared for.

 

[Beekissed]

Garbage in garbage out !

'Nuff said.

 

[Bitterroot]

Bingo, OneFineAcre.

 

[alsea1]

We all do what works for our situation. There is no right or wrong way per say.

 

[VickieB]

For the time being I'm using pellet, it really is the best choice for me. I raise my rabbits for my family, have never sold one and really don't plan on selling them. I don't have the space for an operation like that, and if I did I wouldn't anyway because I don't have the time for an operation like that. Many of the people here have their own reasons for raising rabbits on pellets. We are not "small Monsanto" and feeding pellets does not "ruin the natural side of it." And I doubt seriously anyone here is feeding rabbits pellets in order to make money. The cost of the pellets pretty much defeat that. Thank you for sharing your opinion of us, though.

 

[Beekissed]

We've got a thread on BYC about improving yard and pasture grasses to increase nutrition to free range flocks and I was wondering if anyone doing alternate feeds for the rabbits are intentionally improving on the available forage for their rabbits as well.

I've found that the grasses proving to provide the most digestible proteins for chickens are also those recommended for game plots for rabbits in the wild, so I'm liking that win/win aspect of pasture improvement.

If the Lord is willing and I'm still here in the spring, I'm thinking about getting back into rabbits in a small way and pasture them in a tractor or two. I like the idea of them having cool, fresh soils underfoot and being able to pick and choose what they will eat from the mix of grasses available, as well as the distribution of their manure and urine where it needs to be~the clean up and disposal of the waste seems to be the most problematic for some folks and was my most tiresome task in the past when raising rabbits in a rabbitry style cage setting.

I rely heavily on white dutch clover to increase the total nutrition here because we have a big area and the WDC seed is the cheapest, with a high level of protein(19-22%), for me to obtain. It also germinates quickly, doesn't require tilling or disturbing the soil, provides an attractant for honeybees, and the chickens eat it like candy. I also like to plant tall fescue for a good cool weather perennial.

I generally frost seed here but I also seed over the tilled portions of the garden in the fall so that the soil is not left bare and the chickens have fresh stands of clover in the fall on which to graze. These strips of clover in the garden and those in the garden pathways will be excellent places to tractor the rabbits, as well as down in the "mixed meadow" that has a mix of native grasses and the clover(see below).