Grass Only Diet?

[TylerWaugh]

I've heard of people just putting rabbit tractors and letting rabbits eat grass and not giving anything extra? Is this a proper diet? I'm thinking about getting 3 meat rabbits as a hobby/food source and i want to keep it cheap. I wouldn't feel right just giving grass and weeds, would free range grass, hay, and occasional fruits/veggies be a healthy diet? If not what could I add? I don't like pellets as a staple but would give as a supliment if i had to and in winter they would probably eat a pellet and veggie/fruit diet because they wouldn't be able to get grass.

 

[alsea1]

Some people use the tractors.
I live where normally there is too much moisture thus parasites, fleas,mites and what not for them to pick up.
I prefer the pellets because the are formulated to grow a fryer quickly to butcher weight.
My luck has been that when I try to supplement with different things I lose a few here and there to stomach upsets. So I don't do that anymore.
I feed pellets and grass hay and that's it.
I find five ounces of pellets per day per rabbit is good. I use an 18 percent protein feed.
I don't really have the time to gather an assortment of the right greens.

 

[Bossroo]

I've heard of people just putting rabbit tractors and letting rabbits eat grass and not giving anything extra? Is this a proper diet? I'm thinking about getting 3 meat rabbits as a hobby/food source and i want to keep it cheap. I wouldn't feel right just giving grass and weeds, would free range grass, hay, and occasional fruits/veggies be a healthy diet? If not what could I add? I don't like pellets as a staple but would give as a supliment if i had to and in winter they would probably eat a pellet and veggie/fruit diet because they wouldn't be able to get grass.

What alsea1 said AND with the other " people " method of thinking , you will have to add lots and lots of your time to get the rabbits to butcher weight. The longer you keep the rabbits the tougher they will be . Too, as you know TIME is MONEY ( your extra labor ) !!!

 

[David]

the issue with a pure grass diet is largly the fact most peoples grass is a short fescue/bermuda grass thats only 15-25% digestable where as orchard and timothy is 85-90% digestable

 

[GD91]

It depends on the pasture - if you've just got grass there and lots of it the rabbits will grow slowly. If there's a larger variety of plants then the rabbits will grow much quicker.
Rabbits need more than just grass to eat. Grass is too low in nutrients and it takes a long time to reach butcher weight, even with veggies and fruit added.
But for some reason if you introduce other wild plants and shrubbery the rabbits will grow much quicker.
I fed my rabbits just grass and root veggies for the first few weeks - ended up with very skinny rabbits. Now I also feed other plants.
I recently recieved back a doe from a friend which equalled the size of her forage fed siblings. The only difference is that she has a dewlap and became sexually mature earlier. Mine have only just become sexually mature at 8 months, which is the right age anyway.
It should'nt be called grassfeeding really - natural foraging should be the correct word.
So, the more variety, the more nutrition = faster growth.
More grass = lower nutrition = slower growth.
They do need about 50% grass, but not silly amounts - that's actually depriving them of essential nutrients found in other plant life.