Turnip varieties for winter feed

We have a small homestead in Vermont and have raised meat rabbits for many years, recently cut back to about a dozen. I typically feed them Jerusalem artichoke leaves and tubers during the warmer months and we are trying to get away from dependence on bagged feed in the event of a major disruption to the supply chain. Unfortunately Jerusalem artichokes doesn’t store well.
I had read somewhere about a fella that grew a type of turnip, French variety possibly that stores excellent all winter and supplies his rabbits with adequate nutrition. Anybody have any experience growing a turnip that fits the bill and could possibly be grown this year to stock up for winter? We have extensive gardens but are on a small one acre property so it limits growing some crops. Thanks

Forgive me as I am not well read with rabbit nutrition so I'm taking a shot in the dark.

Could you be referencing Mangelwurzels?

It is a fodder beet, not a turnip, but I figure I'd try and be helpful.

I seem to recall the particular article referencing a turnip variety that was pretty large. I will check out the beet variety that you mentioned as that might be an option as well. Thanks!

Might it have been a swede - rutabaga also known as a turnip. Both the leaves and roots are grown as a fodder crop.

We eat the roots but I also grow it for our chickens who love the leaves.

Google tells me that there is a french variety of turnips.

And google say turnip store well in sand ...

The French word for "turnip" is navet (pronounced nah-vey). It can also refer to a rutabaga or swede, which are sometimes called "French turnips".

I did a little research on the suggestions from people in this post and there seems to be a pattern of not recommending certain turnips and other root crops as a steady diet due to high sugar or starch levels. I read an article from the 1940’s that said many meat rabbit farmers fed a regular diet of these French turnips with no issues. It sounds like it’s one of those just try it scenario’s, our rabbits are pretty well versed in eating root vegetables and greens so I am hoping a transition away from
pellets might not be to difficult.

Do you / could you have a root cellar?  You could  store any root vegetable, for your and for bugs bunny. I dont and wished I did.  Like Ive been saying for years. "Maybe next year I'll have a root cellar."

The only place I have is the seller in my old farmhouse, but I typically don’t store things down there. It can get a little humid. I have an unheated workshop area that I keep most of my stuff in inside milk crates, and it stays typically in the low 40s there winter.

I think I might have a little experience, I’ve got an idea of how to grow white egg variety

I’m all ears, please continue

Jerusalem Artichoke stalks dry easily, makes for good hay.
Have you tried storing the roots in compost or sand?

I haven’t tried storing Jerusalem artichoke in sand or compost, my experience is they don’t keep very well and storage space would be difficult for a winter’s worth stored in the above scenario. I do feed them Jerusalem artichokes May through October along with my other animals, supply starts dwindling by the end of the season.

Have you tried storing the roots in sad?
I’ve got a tutorial video though, if your interested

I grew purple top turnips and daikon radishes for my rabbits in the fall and winter. They adored the turnips and rarely got tired of eating them. Of course they like variety, but they really did love the turnips. The radishes, they liked less. They enjoyed the tops on those more than the root, but those were so easy to grow that it was worth it to me. I don't know if you have room for peas, but I made hay out of all the pea plants I pulled up as they played out and they dried and stored very well in old feed sacks. I fed the rabbits that for a long time in winter. I am just now getting some jerusalem artichokes growing, do they multiply quickly?

The Jerusalem artichoke will spread about 2-3’ in diameter per year in good fertile soil. I have mixed feelings about planting it as it started out in a corner of the big garden with twenty tubers and six years later it’s gotten out of control and requires a lot of effort to manage it. The rabbits absolutely love all parts of the plant and it’s pretty easy to pull up or cut a big amount every morning. It doesn’t store very well so we use it strictly during the growing season.

I am hoping to really get a lot of use out of the jerusalem artichokes. I planted maybe 20 of them along the fence of the various animal pens. The more, the better for me. It is intermingled with chicory, which I also recommend. Planting along the fences uses space near the animal enclosures for growing food and beautifies the space. Do you harvest the artichokes a little at a time or all at once in fall? I realize the leaves can be harvested at any time. Does it stunt the tuber growth to pick the flowers and leaves excessively?

I feed leaves, stalks and tubers in the spring and then mostly leaves during the summer on a daily basis. We feed tubers in the fall but haven’t had good luck storing them so we feed them until the ground freezes

I wonder if j chokes in buckets might work well.
Grow them in the bucket, feed the greens fresh, leave them outside overwinter, pull them inside to thaw, feed most of the roots to the bunnies, plant a few roots back into the soil along with fresh rabbit bedding.

Or maybe, bring them inside and grow them out?
Sunchokes can grow in low light, producing blanched sprouts.

If bunnies can eat beets, swish chard/beets are incredibly resilient.
The roots might have too much sugar, but I keep pet rabbits so my criteria for feeding is different.

I think if someone was trying to keep a small footprint with Jerusalem artichokes or had limited growing area they could be container grown. I know that digging some up in the fall and putting them in a refrigerator they keep for a week but for our needs we are targeting 500 lbs of good storable root vegetables for the winter so we are growing more beets and turnips based on their keeping ability