Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Kassaundra]

You are thinking of rabbits too?

What have you gleaned on your lurking?

I've often wondered why more folks who live in the burbs don't do rabbits instead of chickens...more meat to feed ratio, more total meat in less time, good lean meat, quick finish out time to butchering, quiet and no one even needs to know you have them, less susceptible to predation if the caging and housing are done right, etc.

I have been thinking about it and planning, researching for about a year or so now. I have learned it is completely doable to feed natural to meat rabbits, many are/have done it for many, many generations of rabbits successfully.

If you do it this way the best way is to find rabbits already fed a natural diet, but if you can't introduce slowly and thoughtfully.

Provide mineral source.

Not just grass or garden veggies, but leaves from trees and shrubs are good source, weeds and the like, many many sources we don't often think about.

Growing fodder from seed grain is a great way to feed through the winter and still avoid the pellets.

Comfrey is an awesome food for chickens and rabbits

In my area my biggest obstacle is going to be the long hot summers. Rabbits can take lots and lots of cold but can't take heat. Many poor countries are going to home meat rabbits (in hot climates and very little money for electricity) and they do it by creative underground housing. That is what is taking me this long, getting my ducks in a row for a creative, cheap, underground housing.

That is what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[Beekissed]

Great information!

I too have found the heat to be more detrimental to the buns than the cold and I'm thinking this tractor will help with that to some degree with the rabbits being on the cool ground rather than up in suspended cages where the heat rises. I used to move mine out of the rabbitry in the summer and hang them under a large carport we had and sometimes provided a fan but I'm thinking I won't be doing that any longer. I want to cull for rabbits that thrive well in the heat, so double shade, an open air penning and contact with the coolness of the grasses and soils might make a difference.

I'm really liking the idea of having the rabbits in a tractor because all that hair really activates my allergies when it's confined to a building, even with good ventilation. I'm thinking that a whole grain mix that is fermented and then drained off would be a great addition to the diet of hay and grass/twig/roughage they forage in the tractor, and they make plastic gravity feeders with the holes for dust that would work perfectly to drain off feed...but how in the world do they keep the rabbits from nibbling on that plastic?

 

[Kassaundra]

The plan I have come up with is a dual pen, using a plastic food grade 55 gal drum on it's side buried in a "raised bed" for the under ground portion attatched to a walk in ground pen w/ wire sides for ventilation and the sides of the ground area have a wire covering about 6 inches over the ground for two perminant fodder growing (rabbit salad) areas that I can just toss seasonal seed in and let grow through the wire. I have a drawing somewhere I posted on another thread some time ago I will see if I can find it. It is more intensive a plan, but it is going to be a forever type plan/structure and I am wanting to solve the food / heat / housing problems all in one. I know my idea is bigger then it needs to be, but my husband is totally, completely against the 3x3 cage for the life of any animal even a meat one. That is not meant against anyone who does.

 

[Beekissed]

Did a little reading on eastern cottontails and found some info on feeding habits:

Quote: Natural vegetation can be maintained for feeding areas as well. Periodic disking will set back succession and allow native grasses, forbs, and legumes to flourish. *** Looks like the same things I plant intentionally for my free range flock will provide some good forage for my meat rabbits.*****

Quote:

 

[Triple Willow]

Aw, c'mon guys! Where's your sense of adventure? ANYTHING is edible ONCE!

Famous last words??? LOL I still wonder about the first person that ate an egg. Who in the world thought of eating something out of a bird's backside! Yuck! LOL

 

[Kassaundra]

Here is the thread I started about my housing idea.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-project-what-do-you-think-new-drawings-added

 

[Beekissed]

Wow! You HAVE thought about this!!!

I'd really like to see all this when you get it completed and see how it's all working out for you. I particularly like the underground den idea. How soon do you think you will be initiating all this? Are you going to frost plant some grass mixes in those areas this winter to increase variety?

 

[Lacy Blues]

Kassaundra, I just looked over on your thread for your rabbit housing project. I would have answered over there but I have no interest in raising rabbits and I don't want the thread continually showing up on my profile page as something I haven't kept up with. I'm just going to make a suggestion in regard to having a hot wire that rats will have to deal with.

I've often wondered if poultry wire could be hung on the insulated posts they use for electric wiring as a deterrent to dogs, coyotes, what ever. For rats, around your enclosure, could you hang hardware cloth on those insulated posts and hot wire it? You would need a good strong charger for that much wire, so I'm not sure it would be cost effective.

 

[Kassaundra]

Wow! You HAVE thought about this!!!

I'd really like to see all this when you get it completed and see how it's all working out for you. I particularly like the underground den idea. How soon do you think you will be initiating all this? Are you going to frost plant some grass mixes in those areas this winter to increase variety?

I tend to be a little bit of a planner. I was hoping to have it set up this fall, but it isn't yet, so really hoping to have it complete by winters end.

 

[Kassaundra]

Kassaundra, I just looked over on your thread for your rabbit housing project. I would have answered over there but I have no interest in raising rabbits and I don't want the thread continually showing up on my profile page as something I haven't kept up with. I'm just going to make a suggestion in regard to having a hot wire that rats will have to deal with.

I've often wondered if poultry wire could be hung on the insulated posts they use for electric wiring as a deterrent to dogs, coyotes, what ever. For rats, around your enclosure, could you hang hardware cloth on those insulated posts and hot wire it? You would need a good strong charger for that much wire, so I'm not sure it would be cost effective.

Not sure about any of that my husband is an electrician all that is up to him