***warning this is going to be impossibly long
"One issue has been that they will dig through the pellets, knocking it out of the feeder and wasting it to get to the sunflower seeds that are mixed throughout."
feed it in different bowls. they will do that if it is mixed. like a kid diggin through the cereal box to find the prize. try feeding the sunflower seed at one time and then the pellets later or just a second bowl. few years ago i had got a small bag of calfmanna to try with some of the rabbits to give em a
boost and see if it actually did anything for em. if it was mixed in the pellets they'd dig it all and get most of all of it in the ground. the does learned i would fill up the bowls and feeders and then drop a spoonful on top of their pellets for em. those does always waited (impatiently) for me to come back around with the
bucket of calfmanna and
spoon to give em the goodies.
quote "think it depends on what already grows around you and what you can cultivate in your climate."
this is huge. some people cant grow wheat. some people could grow wheat for the whole county. some people have a
city lot. some people have a thousand acres. some people grow a hundred pounds of veg on an apartment porch. some people couldnt get a single seed they plant to as much as germinate.
quote "what are the store bought feed pellets made of? probably alfalfa"
yes most of them have alfalfa as a top ingredient
q
uote "it's my understanding that it requires some delicate maneuvering to transition them to raw pasture"
this is quite true. if i met 100 rabbit breeders today i would bet 70 or more of them feed ONLY PELLETS and many of them will swear up and down at you that feeding em greens or veg is a sure way to kill em. some would feed only pellets and hay. some would tell you feeding em lettuce turns em mean (fact: lettuce will not cause a mean rabbit). some feed few veg or greens as treats but would tell you a rabbit under 8wks will die if they eat it.
in reality its all about balance and transition. rabbit pellets are comparable to slimfast. slimfast is supposed to have ALL a human adult needs equal to one meal. imagine you consume one slimfast for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. they can be different flavors or off brands.
ok now one day out of the blue someone snatches you up and feeds you breakfast of two fried eggs, four pieces of
bacon, two slice of toast with butter and choice of jelly/etc. for lunch you are fed a medium baked potato with choice of toppings, and side of corn on the
cob. for dinner you are fed a nice medium rare steak, side of brussel sprouts, side of candied carrots, side of french fries.
do tell me how you think your stomach will react to that! especially if a person was born and raised for generations on three meals a day of slimfast!
quote "it's a pretty complex cocktail of extra supplements"
its near impossible to be sure that the rabbits are getting all the minerals and trace minerals they need. these are especially important if you are feeding a
milk or meat animal because you want nice healthy meat in a good amount and nice healthy milk in a good amount. and if they arent in good or great condition these things immediately begin to decline. all animal raisers/breeders that i know or know of or have read good things from all feed mineral in one form or another.
quote "dont believe Salatin claim for a minute. i truly dont believe it takes yrs to get a strain of rabbit that can handle pasture"
once you raise animals for a decent length of time, you learn that all domestic animals seem to always find ways and new ways to die on you. its a resounding theme throughout any and every animal group or forum i have been on for every animal.
but speaking of rabbits specifically,
alot of people raise and breed bad rabbits. rabbits that are sickly, have genetic problems, have behavior problems, that are bad mothers, that are bad breeders, and on and on i could list things! this goes for all animals but rabbits can be more noticable because they are easier for more people to keep and seems more people breed any to any just to breed it and they'll raise unholy hell if you talk about eating any or so much as putting horribly sick animals down.
i have had some rabbits that did great on a 15% protien pellet. then as i got more only the few did good/great on that pellet. i changed feeds a few times. most rabbits did so-so on 18% pellets which is the highest protien % pellet and is of
course the highest priced! still wish i had that pair that did great on the 15% pellets!
even in breeding show animals i see more often than not people breeding for traits that are useless and many are doing much more harm than good. rabbits that are tinier and tinier. ears that are loonnggeerr and thinner. breeding for a gene that causes kits to loose all their fur at a mere 3-7wks (they just grew it in the first place!) and then regrow it in because they believe that causes better fur quality for that breed.... even when most of the kits that exhibit this die and the ones that live through it always need coddled and are more likely to get sick, more likely to have digestion problems, etc.
my point here being that you take a chance buying any animal. most animals turn out to leave many of your goals wanting and you have to breed for what you want. and the point is very very few breeders are breeding rabbits that do well on natural diet. i would say very signifcantly less than the number of people colony raising rabbits. the main reason being that its time consuming even for a small amount of rabbits. unless you happen to have loads of money to blow on buying and fencing vast amounts of
land for rotation grazing them in groups.
livestock have been bred to be the best. the best meat breed. the best milk breed. the best wool breed. the fastest horse breed. the strongest ox. and on and on and on.
in about the last hundred years especially it has been moreso. you can keep the animals 'better' and feed them 'better' to make them thee best of their kind.
this means more meat and faster. this means more milk and for longer. this also means the animals have alot more they are required to produce. ergo they need more supplementing farther and farther from what the wild relatives need to survive.
here is where i would like to explain that. wild animals mainly survive. they rarely get fat and happy. they dont thrive by our modern human standards.
for example i give you holstien cows. holstiens are known to be 'the milk cow'. modern production holstien cows put so much of their
energy into milk production that they need lots and lots of supplementing. they get several pounds of feed per cow each milking. many develop bone problems before they could grow old because their body is constant push!push!push! for milk production and milk making overides healthy bones. this is how they were bred.
wild rabbits in north america are different species than european rabbit. FACT: it is not possible to get a wild american rabbit crossed with a domestic rabbit! possibility of ZERO PERCENT. the genetics arent there for them to correctly line up for even mules of a sort. if anyone disagrees, by all means show me the articles, pictures, genetic test, etc so that i may learn.
you are more likely to get a full term healthy geep (goat/sheep cross) that lives and grows old. and at least 95% of those breedings that develope a fetus will abort. as it is, this so rarely happens that when there is a healthy one it often ends up in the news.
quote "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 dub thee... not a geneticist... Wild color is dominant, yes but not the way you are thinking.
rabbit colors work from 5 base genes. 1) black vs chocolate 2) complete color vs shaded vs albino 3) dense vs dilute 4) extention of color vs limitation of color vs elimination of color 5) agouti vs not agouti
agouti is what you are talking about. the common agouti is 'tan, white or fawn marking on the belly, underside of the tail, inside of the feet and legs, inside the ears and nostrils, around the eyes and in the shape of a triangle at the nape of the neck. The fur on the body has rings of colour when blown into the coat. A grey or dove-grey ring at the skin is noticeable. Looking closely at its fur you can see that it is made up of 3 to 5 b and of colour. The Hair closest to the skin is gray. This is followed by yellow and yellow followed by black on the tips of the fur.' ((copied from this site page on rabbit color genetics:
http://www.droopyears.com/rabbitgenetics.htm ))
so what you saw was wild rabbits and domestic rabbits with agouti fur. the domestic rabbits bred together without intervention and genetics end up back at the basics and probably sped up by predators which can more easily see the rabbits that arent agouti, ergo more agouti rabbits.
quote "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"
firstly, see just previous about genetics. secondly, san juan breed, the true san juan breed, are domestic european rabbits and, see further above, would not have litters with wild rabbits. they were bred from domestics to look and act as much like cottontails in order to best teach hunting dogs. i have also read that the breed is from an area called san juan where some idiot kept dumping domestic rabbits and they overtook the local wild population and setup shop quite well with there being too few predators in the area. then after several years folks got into the sport of driving the area shooting as many as they could from the vehicle because there was so many that it was a huge nuisance for all growing things and they burrowed all over and caused major havoc to small outbuildings and big barns etc. including the supposed collapse of a barn with livestock inside. the area has a variety of sized cottontail-looking rabbits from 4 pounds to 15 pounds.
quote "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"
have you seen the articles on the experiments in fox breeding and farming? supposedly they make quite the pet after x amount of generations farmed the color variety and patterns just keep poppin up and they become super lovey and act something like a cross of a cat and a dog. saw a video ages ago and i admit the thing was super lovey and adorable.
quote "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"
nah the breed was developed here. not a native animal. they are european domestic. also careful trying to introduce them to wild rabbits. one may not take too kindly to the strange cousin and decide to attack now and nevermind the questions. also many areas i have heard that some strains of wild rabbit illness that usually doesnt affect them too bad but will be terrible and can quickly kill off many domestics. dont know any truth to that but something i would be worried about stickin one in a cage with my rabbit.
quote "Rosemary is an abortifacient"
didnt know that. dually noted. also, pine needles are high vit C and people often make tea of it i read.. but it has one of the chemicals in it that causes abortions. our goats always ate it plenty and would strip a tree down to clean
wood in no time flat if one was cut and tossed in there. but only at certian times as it causes abortions and we milked and didnt want pine-milk ((gags!))
wild rabbits will 99% of the time die if caged and given rabbit pellets. their bodies aren't used to/developed toward pellets. i have only ever seen one hutched rabbit that lived more than a month caged and fed only pellets and hay. oddly enough it was with some dirtys amish and the kids found a nest and popped em in with their domestic rabbits. only one kit lived to weaning and the amish guy said it was about a year old and every day he waits to see if it will die of heart attack. the thing so scared any time someone walked by or the kids would feed the rabbits.
wild american rabbits are completely different than domestic or european wild rabbits. american wild rabbits usually litter in a brushy area (hedges, briars very dense,etc) or in tall grass where they make little room looking spots in the grass and make a nest on the ground or a small shallow scoop of the ground there. i have never seen evidence of american wild rabbits burrowing and only so-so evidence that they will utilize an empty hole as a home or nest.
hares and cottontails do that versus european rabbits which live in burrows/warrens.
wild american rabbits breed only once in the spring and rarely they seem to breed immediately after for a second litter if weather/etc permits however they figure it or if a doe loses her litter it seems she would immediately breed back to try and get in a litter.
a wild rabbit will be usually on its own or in a small group and need to only feed itself for nearly the entire year. bucks during breeding time will have the stress of mating and likely fights. in spring the does will be stressed during breeding, for about a month gestation, and about 4-6wks feeding a litter. they usually litter 2 to 5 per litter, the only ones i have happened upon or have heard others happen upon are 3 or 4 kits.
if nothing else take into your thoughts these bits:
**1) eastern cottontail rabbit is approximately 15 to 19 inches (37 to 48 cm) in length and weighs 2 to 4 pounds (0.9 to 1.8 kg).
**2) commercial meat breed rabbit adults weigh from 9 to 15 pounds.
**3) the general educated guess is that wild american rabbits about 1 in 100 lives to see its third fall season.
**4) estimated production life of a commercial meat breed rabbit is 5 years and many backyard/small time breeders (myself included) have had does produce good litters and be good mothers up into 8 years old.
**5) i have heard that in the south and warmer parts of the US that wild rabbits will breed more often and have a potential of 18 rabbits for one pair of adults within a year, though that potential is probably never met. 18 rabbits of adult size for eastern cottontail would be live weight of 36-72 pounds total, and then take away at least 40% of that for the offal (unedibles/not meat). and thats if every rabbit is at top adult weight which means that would take more than a years time.
**6) a commercial meat breed rabbit will have 6-9 kits per litter, generally breed back the doe at 2-4wks post-kindling (since last birthing), and wean the litter at 5-7wks old. then the doe has a short break between litters and will kindle again. the goal is to have kits of 8 pounds by 8 weeks and many good small time breeders get around 5-6 pounds by 8wks though some go long as 12 wks.
that schedule means potential of 6 litters weaned in a year totaling 36-54 kits. if each kit lives thats potential of 180 (36 5pounders) to 324 (54 6pounders) pounds live weight. then subtract your 40% offal.
as you
should be able to see. this is a whole different animal. a rabbit that is producing alot will need alot of good food. a rabbit that is significantly smaller and less producing will need less food and could get away with more food of lesser quality.