is it realisticaly possible to grow feed for rabbits?

  well a few dozen domesticated rabbits were released into an area with an abundance of foods, and rabbits. then for 2-3 years the wild rabbits had colorings just like the domestic ones and it slowly trailed off..... Wild colorings often being dominate in a species.
 
the wild rabbits didnt have this coloring before or after, there or anywhere else Im aware of.... this would be quite a coincidence if what looked like happened, wasnt what happened. In fact Id think the law of probabilities would be greatly in the favor of it being exactly what it looked like, and such things arent uncommon in other semi related species either. Let alone when humans force breed things, japan has done some that were as distantly removed as that, in relation to domestic birds species. Lots of others, but they did many.

60 domestic rabbits X probably 100 plus (no way to know but there were hordes of them Im being really conservative) equals one heck of a lot of chance breedings. And now that im thinking on it more, it was excluded to one section of the farm, about 200 feet from where the rabbits were released was a old canal full of trees. Only saw these along there. It would of only needed to work once....


 

I once had a dog hump my leg, but no dog people came of it.

Just because two rabbits go at it, doesn't necessarily mean that a hybrid rabbit will result.

(I'm deleting a bunch of stuff here - please stop making work for me)

now that i know rabbits would feed a worm farm, I need to know what to feed the rabbit farm! would they act like chickens on a paddock and come in to their cage at the end of the day to feed worms?

No, not like chickens. . . . . but

Rabbits raised in colonies (as it's called) will have many tunnels/dens - one of which will be the 'toilet' where they all potty.  

In my rabbit paddock the ground became very damp in winter, because my house was placed in a dig out of the side of a foot hill (flow of winter rain problems).  Anyway - I placed lots of hay on the ground up against the house and they tunneled into it instead.  They still potty in the back of the open cage (no bottom really).  So I could harvest their droppings + old hay for worm bins if I wanted.  In true colonies it would be hard or impossible to collect their droppings.

So if collection of droppings was a goal you would want to devise a plan, maybe like I had of handling your rabbits.  Encouraging them to use the hay above ground. . . . . by filling in any tunnels (watch for dens with babies) every 6 months or so.

Rabbits keep themselves warm in winter and cool in summer by tunneling, so I would only clean up tunnels a couple of times a year and only during stretches of moderate weather.  And make sure their paddock has shade, maybe from a tree.  If they don't have a lot of fear of predation, or extreme weather, etc. they will tunnel less.

K.B. wrote:
Most domesticated rabbits (European type meat rabbits) are Oryctolagus cuniculus, while many wild rabbits (North American cotton tail types) belong to the genus Sylvilagus, so not only are they a difffernt species, but genus as well.

If the farm was in Europe, then yes, the domesticated rabbits could easily interbreed with the wild types.  In North America, it would be a... stretch.  Won't say impossible, but highly unlikely.

interesting.  this i did not know.

i was hoping for some crossed up wildXmeat rabbits when releasing a few.  but i never saw evidence of it happening.  this helps explain why.

i do know of two different individuals that released san juans and they crossed with  the wild populations and endured for decades.  in one area its said that they are still quite the populace. in a graveyard........... but i personally havent been there to see for myself. 

SILVERSEEDS wrote: well a few dozen domesticated rabbits were released into an area with an abundance of foods, and rabbits. then for 2-3 years the wild rabbits had colorings just like the domestic ones and it slowly trailed off..... Wild colorings often being dominate in a species.

I'm in Europe, where domestic rabbit will breed quite happily with wild rabbit. 

My experience of breeding rabbits with 'domestic markings' is that there are always a few who revert to wildish colouring pretty quickly.  I'm not really sure if you mean colours or markings (like white patches), but the patches and spots in particular tend to breed out very quickly if you release  load to the wild as they are often dependent on the gene being heteryozygous (one 'spot' gene, one 'solid' gene) so the offspring come out in ratio of two spotted, one solid coloured, one solidish white.  Predators pick off the white and coloured offspring very easily so it only takes a few generations for the pretty colours to disappear.  This would happen even more quickly if the feral rabbits started breeding with wild ones, but it's quite common in the UK to see occasional little 'flocks' of spotty rabbits who disappear after  few years, but I'm not sure if it's because the spotty ones get eaten, or if they all get eaten, spotty ones first

Another interesting thing is that a lot of animals which are domesticated (dogs and horses in particular) and are selectively bred for non-aggressiveness will start having offspring with more and more white markings on them.  I hand reared a couple of baby (wild) hares two years ago from a mother who had plucked up the courage to have her babies right in the middle of the veg garden, presumably because we have a regular water supply and the mum was naturally less cautious than other hares.  She was a 'normal' colour, and the offspring was 'normal'.  We released the babies right at the bottom of the farm away from the veg garden but this year we've seen spotty hares around the farm, sauntering around as though they own the place.  I've a sneaky feeling I've done my bit to preserve the hares only to partially domesticate and spotify them in the process.

Though interbreeding may not be viable the domestic rabbits can go wild, ie loose the "breed colours" and go to the natural mottled brown in as little as 2 generations. 

As for wild feed.  I raised rabbits on it in Thunder Bay Ontario for several years and never bought pellets.  A mix of dandelion, wild seeds (grass heads, maple keys, alder and birch catkins etc) and clover with kitchen wastes was what did the trick.  Dry some of what you gather to overwinter your breeders.

I was only buying minerals until I left the farm.  I grew all of their food before that.  There must be a thousand different recipes for rabbit feed but I never buy pellets.  I will have to buy my sunflower seed, oats and rye this year though.  I can get all of the barley I need from the local craft brewery.  I never use antibiotics unless they are sick.  I do not believe in medicating feed for healthy animals.  I am working on an inexpensive method for mixing the ingredients and producing homemade pellets.  I will let you know if it works.  I finally found a spot close to where I live to grow alfalfa and the rest of my hay mix come from me finding it cutting it and hauling it home.  Living on the farm was so much easier.  Does anyone know of an available source for soy free pellets?  I do not feed soy to my rabbits.  I never eat it either.  LOL.

T. Pierce wrote:
i dont believe Salatin claim for a minute.  i truly dont believe it takes yrs to get a strain of rabbit that can handle pasture. if he was losing that kinda numbers.  than there was more to it than pasture diet.   there was disease or something else accounting for this lose.  unless there was two rabbits loose and one died.

ive had a few rabbits get loose. some ive turned loose purposely.  and ive never ever lost one.  when caught back up. they are in as good a shape or better shape  than their caged compatriots. 

yep i tend to agree that they can quickly transition to wild pasture food i do think they can have other problems with going wild though that wild rabbits have adapted to.


im thinking parasites,disease and predation

chowan wrote:
yep i tend to agree that they can quickly transition to wild pasture food i do think they can have other problems with going wild though that wild rabbits have adapted to.


im thinking parasites,disease and predation

I agree about the problems you suggest.  Domestic rabbits are all descended from the European Hare.  They don't generally do well completely left to be "wild" though and it is more than likely for the reasons that you stated.  For me, because they aren't really well suited to a wild environment I prefer to keep them in hutches and especially the kits.  Those babies haven't developed any immunities and from what I have read are especially susceptible to coccidiosis.  So far I haven't had any sick rabbits.  I allow them plenty of sunlight and supplement it in the winter with full spectrum lighting.

Dave Bennett wrote:  Domestic rabbits are all descended from the European Hare. 

I think they're descended from european rabbits, not european hares, which are a different species.  Here are two newborn european hares which I hand raised - I'm sure any rabbit breeders will see the difference between these two guys and the blind, bald kits of rabbits. 



I can bore you with more photos if anyone's interested - these two were removed from my forest garden when their mother decided it was a great place for them to be born, but hares love to strip the bark off young fruit trees so I hand reared them and released them away from my fruit trees. 

Cute......

Great picture....

Please post more pics, Burra! I'm curious what the adults look like there.

I've got a couple of what I think are hares that have started hanging around my orchard.  Not a very welcome sight!

I think the hares and the mule deer around here are competing to see who can grow the largest ears...

K.B. wrote:
Please post more pics, Burra!

Oh alright then, seeing as you asked 

Be prepared for overdose of 'cute'...























They were released at eight weeks, a few days after they were fully weaned, to give them time to get used to not getting food from humans.  I know some of you might think it was a bit crazy raising and releasing them, but the hares and rabbits are getting a bit scarce in the wild as most of the grassland in Portugal is now planted over with pine and eucalyptus, and what is left is usually plowed up every year to reduce the fire risk, so there's not much left for the hares. 

The boys found these two right next to a plum tree I'd just planted.  They assumed they were rabbits and gave them to me to fatten, but I'd been brought up in the UK where hares are considered almost sacred and I just wasn't prepared to do it.  Especially when I realised they were newborns.  It was actually a wonderful experience learning about them and raising them, especially for my son as it really helped to bond him with the wildlife on the land - every time we see a hare we are never quite sure if it is one of 'ours' and it just changed the whole way he viewed the land and its other inhabitants. 

Sorry, I still get a bit over-emotional about these two... 

great story and great pics - thank you!

Very cool.

interesting story. 

I transitioned my Californian/New Zealand cross rabbits to home raised forage.  I dried a lot of it, like the sunflower or Jerusalem artichoke leaves, or mixed grass hay with clover, and also gave them some fresh.  I did it slowly so they didn't scour.  Made sure they always had fresh water, anything fresh and leftover more than 12 hours was taken out of their cages, and they always had a mineral/salt block.  I kept the dried forage or hay in a hay rack for them constantly.  They did great, actually got much healthier than when on pellets, they just grew slightly more slowly.  However, I think with more protein in the mix, they would have grown off just as fast.  They ended up having larger litters on the home based feed, coat shined up more, and eyes glistened more and they were much more active.  Also gave them raspberry and blackberry leaves, collards or kale, sourwood, maple, bean and pea leaves, even pea hulls, which they relished.  I kept trying to give them a high percentage of legumes, maybe 1/4 of their diet, so they had adequate protein.  As the protein content went up, so did the weight gain.  They did get parasites from some of the fresh stuff, as I noticed some little white worms in their droppings, so I gave them Ivermectin as a wormer.  There are probably some herbs I could have used, such as wormwood, but not sure if that is safe for rabbits. 

Sounds like a good variety of food for them Red Cloud.  My rabbits love Bamboo and especially chew up the twig size branches.  It is all over the place so every time I see a yard with over grown bamboo I ask the owner if they would like a free trim.   I also offer to dig a trench and line it with a barrier to prevent further spreading.  I charge them for doing that but I cut it back and haul off the trimmings for free.  Bamboo makes excellent biochar too.  I am experimenting with homemade pellets on the cheap that I will preserve with a seal a meal vacuum sealer to get through the winter with minimal feed cost and fresh green food for them.  I will let you know how it turns out.

now those are some pretty definite answers.  im glad others that are actually in the know are starting to post up on the subject.

after all domesticated rabbits live and thrived a looooooong time before pellets were introduced to the public market.

Mine do well on forage that I harvest for them.  I only ever buy s few supplements like mineral salt and some vitamins but I only use them in the winter.  If I had enough room to grow all of their food I would but I live in a mobile home park so I am out a couple of days a week harvesting greenery.

WOW tons of ideas guys, thanks!

just throwing this out there but, curious what percentage of permaculture people raise them for meat.... You are what you eat after all and what should I be sure to include in the diet for meat rabbits, things that I can grow or find in North Idaho even?

Any of the items mentioned here would be good for meat rabbits, but as mentioned you want to make sure you feed good veg-protein sources so they put on weight.  As for Idaho specifically I could not say.

Jami McBride wrote:
Any of the items mentioned here would be good for meat rabbits, but as mentioned you want to make sure you feed good veg-protein sources so they put on weight.  As for Idaho specifically I could not say.

Side Bar: I used to raise rabbits for meat, but don't any more - I go for fatter cuts of meat. 
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional-diets/628-guts-and-grease  to read more about pour Native American diets when rabbit was the main food source.

There are other sources of animal fats.  I eat lots of rabbit meat.  I also eat other animal meat and enough butter fat that some think I am crazy.  I joined the Weston A. Price Foundation 10 years ago. 

To answer your question about diet.....
I feed my rabbits alfalfa, white clover, bamboo branches (they love the leaves and the twigs keep their teeth worn down), wild dark leafy greens like dandelion, plantain and other plants that most people consider "weeds"  The following is my opinion and is likely to bring differing opinions:
Cereals, grains, seeds, and nuts are not part of the rabbit’s natural diet and should not be given.

This will be my first venture into livestock on my suburban, HOA governed small plot of land. Aside from fish, these seem to be one of the only meat sources I can produce.

When I get land, I hope to have a bit of a head start living with and eating animals. While I don't plan to exist on rabbit meat alone, having a meal hopping around in my backyard is reassuring to my efforts to be able to provide food for my family in uncertain times ahead.

I live in a mobile home park and produce 300 lbs. of rabbit meat a year.    They are a good choice for "guerrilla farming."  I am not supposed to have them here.  I have to keep them in my home.  I figured it out though. 

quick question to jami from page one.

Are the maple leaves fed to rabbits always fresh or are they also able to eat dry fallen leaves.
I don't know what the nutrient situation is like for fallen leaves and what the rabbits are getting from fresh leaves.
I'm drying all my vegetation and pelleting them for the winter as fresh greens are scarce and occasional.

I can barely reach the lowest branch on our 70ft giant maple, but when the leaves fall I can get 10 bags of it 10 feet away from the tree.
I'll worry about feeding ratios once I have enough dried weighed and identified in categories of benefit and potency.

I have only feed fresh maple leaves.

The great thing about our maples is that they are cut and come again trees.  Sending out lots of new branches, bracing and leaves as you trim.

The maple I harvest from has been cut down to a stump, and then sent back up many shoots, I trim the top every year and so it is much like a beautiful mushroom tree.  I used to harvest the perfect size branches for bent wood projects, it just keeps growing back.

I wouldn't worry about nutrition, just make sure your offering plenty of various items and they will eat what they need just like in the wild.  I hope you can grab freshly falling leaves and store them for testing as feed, but my gut says once fallen they will be to dry to interest rabbits. However, I'd love to experiment with picked and stored leaves - maybe there is a way to retain some greenery in them for winter feeding.  I think you will want to focus on things that will retain nutrients over winter such as cabbage, squash, grasses, etc. for winter feeding.

Leaves that fall seem to have much of their nutrition removed by the tree before falling, however many grasses will remain green from some time after drying.  I would look toward harvesting grasses for dry storage.

All the best!

Guerilla farming! I love it! I am planning on raising rabbits for meat in a staggered paddock system with chickens, and perhaps low-line cattle a little later (looking for land now, and chickens and rabbits look like the cheapest, simplest, and most lucrative start). It didn't occur to me to raise a small colony of rabbits, but I think I could easily adapt the chicken tractor idea to make an open-floored mobile paddock that I could use to shift them around in my yard. I wonder, though, if they would burrow into densely-packed dry bedding instead of burrowing into the ground (and, thus, out of the paddock)? If they would, I would keep a section of it floored, to hold the packed bedding, which I could change at need and use in my garden beds.

-CK

We have been experimenting with this topic for 3 years now. We started out with pellets while we learned about rabbits. 3 years ago, 50lbs of pellets at TSC was $10. Now it's $15 for the same thing. I started a "rabbit garden" in my yard just to try growing different ingredients to see what they like. We designed our own wood/wire grazer run suitable for use in a sub-division so our feeders could eat more grass and less pellets. Our breeders stay on pellets as we learn. We pick from the garden and toss it in the grazer runs and get a good mixed diet. The feeders do well with that. We aren't worried about long term effects of diet. We harvest them at 12-16 weeks instead of 8-10 like we would on pellets. The differences are 2. Feeding this way is FREE, and they TASTE better! I put 70 feeders in my freezer last year from my 120x120 city lot this way!

It works so well, we bought a 5+ acre, over-grown alfalfa field with a house in front, a pond site behind it and 165x1320ft of tangles behind that. My son lives in the house with his family and we are creating a farm of it from scratch. Last fall we hired a man to clear a 100x800ft patch behind the pond site for pasture, leaving about 30ft of tangles on both sides for shade and privacy. In the last two weeks we have planted field Rye grass, alfalfa, crown vetch and white clover over it all. On the 800ft south side we planted Sudan Grass that gets about 8ft tall. In the middle we broadcast about 1 million carrots seeds, 2 million purple-top turnip seeds, 1 million radish seeds, a large baggie of basil seeds from my garden last year, and a large baggie of pole bean seeds from my garden last year. We will simply put our feeders in permanent, predator proof grazer runs and move them around the salad bar until they are big enough to eat. We are aiming at doing 800 feeders on nothing but salad bar after they are weaned. Our breeders will remain in hutches on a diet of pellets as the density of the pellet is the only way to get enough nutrients packed into them to keep up with the breeding season. When the free food is done next fall, everyone in the salad bar (regardless of size) will go into the freezer. I'll let you know how it goes!

Casey Halone wrote:maybe I need to look into getting wild rabbits to hang around my area then? let them do their thing and spread like rabbits? breed with meat rabbits?

Wild rabbits cannot successfully breed with domestic rabbits. Genetically too far apart. They can "practice" all day, but nothing will become of it.

Jami McBride wrote:I hope you can grab freshly falling leaves and store them for testing as feed, but my gut says once fallen they will be to dry to interest rabbits. However, I'd love to experiment with picked and stored leaves

Actually Jami, they LOVE the freshly fallen Maple leaves and even slightly more dried ones too! They eat them like so many potato chips it seems! I also have a weeping willow tree in my yard. They LOVE the green leaves AND eat the entire green new-growth branches all up! They will eat these stored branches all winter, but mine will not touch dried willow leaves.

Boyd Craven wrote:

Casey Halone wrote:maybe I need to look into getting wild rabbits to hang around my area then? let them do their thing and spread like rabbits? breed with meat rabbits?

Wild rabbits cannot successfully breed with domestic rabbits. Genetically too far apart. They can "practice" all day, but nothing will become of it.

What about rabbits that are natives? I raise New Zealands and according to the sources I have read they are native to the America's, despite the name.

I have wild brown rabbits in my hop / clover field all that time, and was thinking about trying to catch one and breed it with my stock just for shits and giggles.

Casey Halone wrote:What about rabbits that are natives? I raise New Zealands and according to the sources I have read they are native to the America's, despite the name.

I have wild brown rabbits in my hop / clover field all that time, and was thinking about trying to catch one and breed it with my stock just for shits and giggles.

Let me know how that works for you.

Greens are what wild rabbits eat, here or in Europe. I can transition rabbits who have never had greens to eating them with no trouble in 2 weeks or less. It all depends on the right symbiotic bacteria existing in their gut. Just start them with a couple of nibbles and increase slightly every day. In hardly any time at all they are gobbling them down with no problems. It takes very little time to populate their intestines with the right bacteria and they are usually already present, just not in high enough quantities. Greens by themselves however are a slim diet. You need to suplement them with either grain or commercial pellets (or both)
One rabbit green I always make room for in my garden is red clover. It's very nutritious and if it gets tall you can just cut it down and dry it for hay. It comes back very quickly after being cut to the ground. Another good one is chicory but not the kind you use in salads. There are broad leaf chicories used as graze for both wildlife and (especially in Europe) sheep goats and cattle. You can find the seed for it by Googling Deer browse seed.

rabbits and hares are different species. cotton tails and jack rabbits are born eyes open ready to run with hair. rabbits ( new zealand whites and english flops etc are born with there eyes closed for 5-10 days and no hair.

thats the united states versions. might be different elsewhere.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141219-rabbits-hares-animals-science-mating-courtship/

http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/bunnies.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare

If you want to raise rabbits on pasture and are worried that there is something in "highly bred for meat rabbits" not being suited to this diet, you could find a more old fashioned breed like Old English spotted ones which may have a hardier/thriftier constitution.

Certainly I have read at least one guinea pig book which stated that you must NEVER give guinea pigs more than an occasional treat of grass, and ours used to run free on the lawn all summer like little mowing machines.

I recently posted this on my blog because I get numerous questions about feeding meat rabbits without purchasing rabbit pellets......

I keep getting requests for a list of fresh foods that are safe to feed to rabbits. I'm not here to tell you what to feed your rabbit. I can only say what I feed to mine. My rabbits get an assortment of all sorts of foods. It's whatever I have handy that is ready to go. Yes, you've noticed that I give them stuff that other websites say not to. Well, so far I haven't had a problem. No sick rabbits. But perhaps it's because they always get hay or grasses daily, either alfalfa hay cubes or young grass from the farm. And perhaps it's because they always get a variety of things to pick from, though most are little piggies and eat it all. Oh one more thing. They don't get rabbit pellets. No need.

So here's a master list, to date, and alphabetized to boot.

Alfalfa- fresh and dried
Apples (I only have access to fruits at the moment)
Arugula
Asparagus
Aztec spinach
Bamboo- young leaves
Bananas- fruits including the peel, leaves, cut up trunk
Basil
Bean- leaves; young pods are sometimes eaten
Beets- leaves and bulb
Blue snakeweed
Bok choy
Broccoli, including the leaves, and stalks if split
Cabbage
Carrots- roots and tops
Cauliflower, including the leaves
Celeriac- leaves, stalks, and bulb
Celery, leaves and stalks
Chard
Chinese cabbage
Chinese greens, all of them that I've tried I far
Cilantro
Collards
Cooked c.o.b. (corn, oats, barley)
Corn- leaves, tender parts of stalk, ears including the cob, tassels
Cucumbers- fruits and leaves
Daikon- roots and leaves
Desmodium
Dill
False staghorn fern- young leaves and stems, young frond heads
Guava fruit
Ginger- flowers
Grasses- most, especially when young
Honeysuckle
Honohono grass
Jerusalem artichoke- entire plant except woody stalks
Kale
Kohlrabi- leaves and bulb
Lemon- the rind. A few will eat some pulp.
Lettuce
Lilokoi- they prefer the fruits cooked, rind and all.
Loquat- leaves and the bark off of young branches
Mamaki- leaves and young twigs
Mango- fruits
Melons- fruit, rinds, and seeds
Mustard greens
Nasturtiums
Noni- only the fully ripe soft fruit
Oats- grain and fresh greens
Oranges- fruit. They reject the rind.
Oregano
Papaya- fruits, leaves, and tender stems
Parsley
Peas- vines and pods
Pennywort
Peppers, sweet- fruits with seeds
Pineapple - fruits with rind, leaves
Pipinola- fruits and leaves
Plantain (the weed)
Portuguese cabbage
Pumpkin- seeds and pulp, flowers, growing tips of vines
Purslane
Radishes, roots and leaves
Rose- flowers, hips, leaves, young twigs
Rutabaga- leaves and roots
Salad burnet
Spinach
Squash, summer- fruits, flowers, growing tips of vines
Squash, winter- seeds and pulp, flowers, growing tips of vines
Starfruit
Strawberries- fruits and leaves
Sugar cane, leaves and stalks
Sunflower- leaves, young stalks, flowers, seed heads
Sweet potato- tubers, leaves, and vines
Sword fern
Tangelos- fruit. They reject the rind.
Tangerines- fruit. They reject the rind.
Taro, cooked corm. Some will eat it, some won't.
Thimbleberry- fruits, leaves and tender twigs
Tomatoes- fruits ripe or unripe
Turnips- leaves and roots
Watermelon- fruit including the rind & seeds, tender stem tips and leaves
Wheat- grain and fresh greens
Yacon - entire plant except the woody stalks
Zucchini squash

Rejected --
Ginger leaves
Guava leaves
Mango leaves (I know that other people feed their rabbits mango leaves, but mine don't eat them)
Noni leaves
Pumpkin flesh, fresh
Hawaian Ti leaves
I haven't offered them items that I think might be toxic or just don't seem to be bunny food.


Things I will be trying soon:
Eggplant
Potatoes
Sage
Loquat fruit
Mulberry fruits and leaves
Rosemary

I don't have a number of bunny-friendly food growing here that I had back on the mainland. And I haven't yet tried introducing them to my farm. Things like dandelion, clovers, bramble berries, stone fruits, pears, grapes, nettles. There are a number of other plants that I've read that they like, but I don't happen to be growing them yet, such as buckwheat.