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Post by FrostyTurnip on Oct 30, 2023 7:35:27 GMT -6
I’m so grateful you posted this. I am out of discipline over foraging and have become dependent upon feed. Also, I have been in the process of sterilizing the yard(s)! I need to keep a weedy area and to coppice one of the elm tree and mulberry tree saplings instead of eradicating them entirely.
It is difficult to balance a city residential yard with the foraging needs of bun buns.
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Post by macmex on Oct 30, 2023 9:35:48 GMT -6
Sounds almost far fetched, but I have found the Chinese Fiber banana, which is hardy over winter here, to be a good source of forage at the end of the season, when we're about to get a hard freeze.
I cut the stalks and stash everything in a shed. The rabbits adore them, even eating the thick stalks. This gives me several weeks of forage before having to depend on hay most of the winter.
A bale of hay is also usually a good deal compared to rabbit feed. This is all the more true if a person can get it during the summer from a grower, rather than from a pricey feed store.
A single round bale could "fuel" your rabbitry for more than a winter, provided you tarped it to avoid mold. You'd need someone to bring it and drop it someplace on your place, as they typically weigh about 600 lb. I bought my round bales, this spring, from a neighbor, for $50 each.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Oct 30, 2023 13:46:27 GMT -6
I may give one of those a try. I’ve a sheltered spot that would work. Pretty tree.
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Post by macmex on Nov 1, 2023 9:08:55 GMT -6
Come spring, maybe I can ship you a banana "pup."
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 1, 2023 21:15:19 GMT -6
Blackeye would approve. Plus, it’ll be acclimated. I’ll hit you up in spring, shipping on me.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 3, 2023 6:05:42 GMT -6
I've fed our rabbits little more than chopped corn for several months now. Our rabbits run free, digging long tunnels under my caged in 14 x 50-foot hoop house, so they all eat communally from the steel lids of two 55-gallon barrels that I dump the litter off of each morning before overspreading them with cracked corn. I supplement the cracked corn with wagonloads of weeds pulled by the roots from our garden.
I just pulled a half pickup truck load of healthy weeds right after the rain, just before the frost. The frost promptly turned them to hay.
When the weeds are all gone, which will be quite soon, I'll continue supplementing with Timothy grass hay and eventually, I'll have to supplement that with pellets, but for now, cracked corn is only $10.50 per 50-pound bag and weeds are free.
I say "Only $10.50" which in retrospect is astronomical, considering only a few short years ago cracked corn was $3.50 per bag, while round bales were commonly $10.00 to $12.00 each in the field.
Feed prices have been crazy high since the drought of 2011. I used to raise hogs here, and draft horses too, but the price of feed and hay have long since put a stop to any of that. Without a hay field of my own, a tractor and diesel have become cheaper than horses in the long run, and pork on sale at Reasor's has become much cheaper than raising my own hogs. Rabbits are no longer economical, but we still keep them out of conviction. Right now, our chickens (because of their eggs) are the only thing really paying off.
With our 4 kids married and moved away, even eggs have become cheaper when purchased from the grocery store, but after all the years of eating farm-raised eggs, I can hardly make myself look at one of those anemic, pale-yellow, store-bought egg yolks.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 3, 2023 12:07:45 GMT -6
Excellent post for perspective.
Last year, standard 5’ round bales were from $90 to $120 depending on the grade of grass. A square bale at Atwood’s was $14 !
Atwood’s premium deer corn on display was for $40. They failed to move it, so it was marked down. Eventually, their standard 50# bags of corn went down to $12 and then $10. Ahrberg’s clean whole corn was $20 per 50#.
Because of your example, I started picking up the deer corn on sale until I ran out of room in storage this year. Good back up but not as good as wheat is for the chickens and I can grow that so very cheaply. The chickens can handle any fungal or mold infections in wheat.
I’m still picky about animals protein supplements. I prefer black oil sunflower seeds. With the shortage on sunflower out of Europe last year those prices were astronomical. Honestly, I bought a #50 about 2 months ago and did not pay attention to the price. A little goes a long way, so I make it stretch. It increases chicken egg production, but I limit it for them when they are not free ranging because the hulls are a ton of empty calories for them.
I barely have enough room to grow black oil sunflower seeds on the lower end of our property in a good year of rain, but no guarantees on yield. This spot would alternate between sunflower and corn and also wheat. I’ll be content when I get to that point.
Be careful with that Timothy hay. I’ve killed rabbits with it. Not this rabbitry but the first bun buns I owned while not knowing much about caring for them. Not sure what it was, but they died from intestinal problems. I’m figuring it was the herbicide or pesticide they use. I find it best to pick from round or square bales sold by poor land owners who don’t spray (prairie hay or goat hay) and I carefully pick through it as I feed it to them.
I’m proud of my scything earlier this year. I still have home made Bermuda hay for the bun buns!
In my opinion alfalfa hay is superior, but one cannot give them much feed while using alfalfa hay as they will quickly become morbidly obese. LOL
I lost count of the number of hay harvests this year. Last count was 6. They have so much hay, the ranch owners have begun piling them up on the empty lots next to the battery tanks, lining them along their drives and left in the field until sold. Lower grades are listed at $50 now. This makes me so happy for all the animals and livestock. My dog is thriving on the bun buns. It makes their existence productive. What the wildlife doesn’t get of their remaining carcasses, the chickens clean off. I know that you are exhausted from slaughtering, tho.
I feed myself primarily from those cheap bags of chicken quarters, one for me for the week and one for canning up. Yesterday, I picked up 2 bags and showed my daughter the ropes. It’s chicken with a lot of impurities, but if cleaned and portioned and brined, they are really tasty. I find that it is not cost prohibitive to fry up whole thighs. I partially debone by removing the hip portion of that chicken quarter. I showed little Miss how to do this yesterday.
As we cut off the tails and excess skins and then the hip bone, we throw them right into the cast iron skillet and put a lid on them to cook on low and create gobs of gelatinous bone broth. I typically filet the meat off those bones, but in this case I can be sloppy with the cut leaving a decent portion of meat for instant dog scraps to go along with my dwindling supply of bun buns.
When all is said and done, there’s nothing wasted. Even the dog will get the protein and bone scraps from my dinner plate.
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Post by macmex on Nov 4, 2023 6:36:00 GMT -6
Can't say that I've ever knowingly used Timothy hay. Had never heard of a problem with it before. In Mexico we used to grow alfalfa, and one could raise good meat rabbits exclusively on it.
Last year I had a great doe and decided to keep one of her doelings for a back up. I left the two together, figuring I'd separate them about this time of year. One day my wife was cleaning out the shelves in the house and ran across a number of sweet potatoes which were shriveled up (not rotten, just shriveled). She handed them to me and I figured I'd give them to those two rabbits as a treat. I put two or three in their cage and then left for work. In the afternoon I found both of them dead in the cage. I wonder if it was a vitamin A overload. My son, who is a vet, mentioned that perhaps there was mold in the sweet potatoes. Who knows? I won't do that again!
We have a wonderful neighbor with some acreage. He sold us 25 round bales this last May or June, for $50 each, apologizing that he couldn't go lower in price. We were thrilled with the price. On top of that, he has covered storage and offered to hold them under cover and deliver them as we need them, or let us go get them whenever we'd like. Can't beat that!
Frosty, the best hay I've ever had was sourced from an older farmer about 35 minutes from here. He didn't spray at all and his hay was full of weeds. The goats and rabbits ADORED that hay. He also gave us a better deal if we picked it up out of the field, ourselves, when he was baling. That was an annual event for our family. To this day Jerreth feels like she's going through some kind of withdrawal if she doesn't get to load square bales during the summer. Me... well, I enjoy working with her but I am getting attached to round bales and ... the tractor!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 4, 2023 19:04:04 GMT -6
Ouch. All that time and work for the does! Frustrating to lose any, but especially good ones with expectations. Now ya gotta start all over again.
Your hay purchase warms my heart. Lotsa hay for the livestock and kept fresh for them, too. What a great neighbor!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 10, 2024 23:50:03 GMT -6
About the 13% all stock from Atwood’s.
I’m talking about my retired old doe and keeping in mind her nutritional needs versus younger bun buns. She’s at least 7 years old, a real trooper. I use her wisdom sometimes when determining how some foraged foods might work out for all the younger bun buns. If she doesn’t eat it, or if she takes a couple bites and then hops over to the corner to stick and digest, I know it might not be good for the younger bun buns.
i’ve been using the 15% all stock for the past few months. Not breeding, but just maintaining. Lately, this old doe had been clawing at my hand for the black oil sunflower seed treats. She’s been eating her feed, but not vigorously. Today I went to Stillwater Mill and picked up some good feed. We dumped the remaining of the all stock and put in the fresh feed. She went to town and had that half closed eye syndrome of “Ah, this is so good.”
In my opinion, over time, the all stock is nutrient deficient. Looking back, I can say that even Blackeye seemed a little more anxious than usual. What he really likes are weeds, because George raised him on weeds.
Nonetheless, if I should ever get into a bind with transportation and cannot get out to Stillwater Mill, I’ll use the all stock but supplement with mineral blocks. I don’t like using the mineral blocks because they deteriorate the cages. But whatever it takes. There’s nothing to forage this time of year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 11, 2024 23:24:38 GMT -6
To feed our rabbits I have two 55-gallon barrels sitting up on blocks, with banded lids to keep the rain out. I keep a bale of hay inside of each barrel. I have a third barrel sitting out there for cracked corn, called "Chops".
I probably have about 30 rabbits living underground, inside our hoop house at any given time. Their main diet is just plain old cracked corn. I feed them a gallon of that every day. Three cups of cracked corn equals one pound, so a gallon of corn is just a little over 5 pounds.
Then every few days I set out a block of hay under the roofed-in area, so they can forage that. There is a 50-pound mineral block out there too, so they can hit that anytime they want.
So far, everyone seems fat and happy. Since corn prices have dropped to $10.00 per 50-pound bag, my feed bill is currently running about a dollar per day, plus hay.
I really don't know why we keep rabbits? I guess I like feeding animals. A feller could buy an awful lot of rabbit meat for $365.00 per year, plus the cost of hay, a 50' foot hoop house, and 50 pounds of mineral salt.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 12, 2024 0:40:38 GMT -6
Oh! Thank you for your post, Ron. I completely forgot that I have some corn in stock. I’m glad to hear the price of corn has gone down. I should probably rotate what I have in stock.
Sounds like the mineral block does the trick.
I’m imagining your does carrying mouthfuls of hay down into their little burrows. How cute! When we picked up feed we stopped and got a bale of fresh clean Bermuda hay for them. We put almost a full flake into their cages so they can decorate or line the floor with it. Rabbits are so good at self care. It’s fund to watch. They’ll pack the hay up against the wall of the cage to block cold winds and line a portion of the cage to buffer their pads from the cold wire.
It’s quite a mess to clean up after a few weeks tho. They’ll pack the hay in a corner to use like a litter tray. They get mad when I clean it out frequently, so I generally leave it for their enjoyment and switch them into a sterile cage after deep winter. I think what they’re mostly trying to do during this time is eat their poo. Even sometimes I neglect the poop trays. They diligently poop in the same spot creating a pile that reaches the bottom of the cage where they can deposit their cecotropes to be eaten later. This could explain some of the nutrient deficiencies my bun buns were experiencing, but I can only speculate.
Your bun buns have unlimited access to their cecotropes and are the better for it. Plus, their poo is in contact with real soil, so it composts appropriately and who knows what sort of benefits they may derive from it. Then of course there’s stimulation with free ranging. Because of the local dogs, I wired the hutch so nothing can get in. I sometimes shut the door on the hutch and I will alternate leaving the cage doors open but only for the old Doe and Blackeye.
REcently, I discovered that there are all sorts of the standard breeds from California to New Zealand, Tamuks and even American blues in censorial Oklahoma! They are all very close, too. No more driving across the state. I’m still the only one with Checkered Giant blood in this area (thanks to George’s stock).
Still, if I didn’t have any good stock, I’d happily by pass the local rabbitries and drive across the state to retrieve from George.
When I started, I really wanted the American Blues for conservatory status. I might get some later this year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 13, 2024 18:21:52 GMT -6
It was hard to decide where to place this post because it's about an item that is listed as a heated dog bowl, but I use mine to water my rabbits and my chickens instead. (I'm sure the dogs use it as well) but they have their own heated water up at the house.
Walmart is currently selling these heated 'dog bowls' for $19.98 Which is a bargain considering the cheapest chicken water warmer I could find was $40.00 or higher.
Here is a link to the Walmart listing. www.walmart.com/ip/6-Qt-Round-Heated-Pet-Bowl-Blue/422131881?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=4375&adid=22222222277422131881_117755028669_12420145346&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9026625&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=422131881&wl13=4375&veh=sem_LIA&gclsrc=aw.ds&&adid=22222222237422131881_117755028669_12420145346&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9026625&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=422131881&veh=sem&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAhomtBhDgARIsABcaYykKjQ7HSCUBw4ZvoGjGuLkcHOJgY40MbTyJHQwaZEzKjr2eGERlUe0aAhAAEALw_wcB
These sell at other places for higher prices, an example of that is Tractor Supply, the very same item sells there for $29.98 Atwoods sells them for $25.00 The prices are all over the place up to $45.00 from Chewy.
Regardless of the price, the reason I'm writing about this product is that it seems to be a really well-engineered item. It holds a little over a gallon of water, it has a steel-wound cord to protect it from being chewed on by a rabbit, it's a dark color so it warms quickly in direct sunlight, and they even thought to make the cord cap small enough to fit through a chickenwire fence, so that the plug in, to a regular un-protected cord, can be made outside the cage.
I've never had a store-bought water warmer before. I've always used a lightbulb inside a concrete block, but this summer the homemade version had a run-in with the riding mower and did not survive.
I thought by listing this item, someone else might be able to use the information to make their life a little easier, not to mention the lives of their pets or their livestock.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 14, 2024 2:40:36 GMT -6
If all goes well, I should be receiving pedigreed American Blues in April. I don’t plan on showing them, but maintain for conservatory status. The breeder is in Guthrie. Her Blues originated in Indiana. We are both excited about seeing an expansion in conservation of this breed.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 20, 2024 8:30:43 GMT -6
Charge more. Always charge more.
American Blues are not the most popular bun buns out there, so it can be hard to sell them I bet. Even so, when I was looking through the breeds to maintain, I really wanted American blues.
Our cash flow was abysmal. I think a pedigreed (anything) about that time came in at around $125.00 per rabbit. That was absolutely not possible for me at that time. In addition, the closest rabbitry maintaining Blues was across the country. Years later, I would find them in Arkansas but even today we could not reliably make that trip. As harsh as it maybe to the ego, but if I could not have afforded the trip or the price of the pedigree, likey I would not be able to afford all their care.
So, the local gal selling me these pedigreed Blues is shy to charge. She found a ‘flaw’ in the toe nails of her blues and wants to bring down the price.
Not only did she retrieve them from Indiana at her own time and expense, the doe she ended up with is a biter. Absolutely horrible temperament with which she persisted because that doe was the only productive doe.
I refused her offer. Her price is already too low. I gently brought all of this up and told her that she should actually charge MORE because of the investment she’s already made, the investment I couldn’t make.
We paid heavily to rent a vehicle to go pick up Black Eye. He has more than paid for all of that in high quality dog food since that time. His strength held up in those hard times and he still prefers weeds to feed because of George’s care. Despite the “meat to bone” ratio relative to his ‘hare’ build, his stock out produces in meat than any other. He is still - hands down - the best rabbit I have in temperament, health, vitality and minimal feed costs. Every other breed I obtain is weaker, requires more attention or is more costly, etc. I do not look forward to this with the Blues, but I am committed and now capable.
So excited.
PS: Blackeye is still producing babies though I think he is beginning to dwindle.
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