Quote: Melissa Thom

Someone mentioned feeding clover to rabbits. Again, I'd avoid it. Some clover is actually toxic, some grass however is completely ok. Just not too much or it'll be squishy poo.

Our grass is about 20% clover in the summer I would guess, and I was just planning to let them nibble the area for awhile. This is what I mean about lots of people saying different things though...many people have told me that clover was a good food source! At any rate, just like dogs...it's all about the poo, isn't it? I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks.

And we do use the (welders) CO2 w/regulator method. I've never heard that any other method was illegal for rabbits raised exclusively for home consumption, although I know there are stronger regulations for commercial breeders. What state are you in? We haven't used the dry ice because some people have reported bad results with them...but I suppose anything done improperly can cause a problem!

And you're right about the CO2 method having to be done correctly, I should have mentioned that. If you just blast them with a high concentration, they feel like they're suffocating and panic, as well as showing signs of respiratory distress and eye irritation. At initial lower levels the CO2 is an analgesic and sedative so the rabbit just drifts off.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Since you want various protein profiles anyway, wouldn't it work well to combine rabbit with fattier meats, rather than adding fat to the too-lean rabbit?

Yes, that's what I was thinking, but my thinking was that if it's only a matter of a small amount of fat then I suppose it could just be given with the other meats.

So far my dogs are in great health and seem to be doing fantastically with the addition of rabbit. But rabbit is not their base food yet, so I'm learning as I go.

The Corgi had a hard time at first getting what he was supposed to be doing with the rabbit...but the GSD caught on right away!

And Mallory, my rabbits are caged, but they do have lots of roaming time, inside the barn and outside...weather permitting. I make it a point to do that. Like I said, it's a trade off. I think that the lives my meat rabbits are living are better than any factory farmed animal you could find, and better than most of the pet rabbits I have seen that people get bored with and keeped caged at all times. And you do get attached to them a little bit when you interact with them, but that's okay, too. It's hard, but it's the price I'm willing to pay to manage to feed my dogs a raw diet in what I think is the most ethical and healthy way available to me. Either way, something has to die to feed my furry carnivores and we do the best we can.

Edited by Amber Morgan (02/20/2008 12:52 PM)
Edit reason: type-o

"BUT-now for the challenging part. Rabbits get very painful arthritis and other muscular/skeletal issues when kept in even roomy cages. They are an animal that is meant to roam and graze, much like a cow. When we put them in small hutches, and the even smaller cages that mass breeders use-it is too hard on them. "

I'll dispute this to the end of the earth and back. I raised rabbits for 10 years and at least 5 generations in cages. Normally my animals lived to a ripe old age and I have never, ever seen any negative results from properly sized wire cages with the exception of thinly padded feet on rexes and on the rarest (like twice in ten years) occasions a broken toe. My animals were healthy, unstressed, breeding and eating machines.

I have never seen a case of arthritic rabbits except in cases of extreme age like with my old buddy Blue Ribbons who died at the age of 16 which is ancient for a bunny. Normally the "look he has arthritis" examples I saw was when someone took and animal who was raised in a cage and suddenly put them on the floor and the animal looks confused and staggers around a bit which is normal behavior. Anyone ever take a dog who has never been on grass before out on a lawn. You'll get the same result and trust me, it's not arthritis.

I wish I knew where my notes were on this, but I will type what I can remember from a discussion in the 90s. (You know -- the last century? )

The variety theme was the topic, and rabbit was one of the examples used.

The nutritionist loved it for its RMB size and digestibility, and its protein efficiency (meaning, in this discussion, protein yield per calorie), but said several times that it should always be one of two or more protein sources because of its leanness and its "relatively limited number of amino acids."

(Unfortunately, most analyses of amino acid quality and presence in different protein foods are geared to human nutrition, and dogs have different requirements. Dogs have two more essential amino acids than humans.

So the "rabbit starvation" and other information that's most readily available about using one protein source isn't usually reliable for canine purposes.)

What I came away with was that protein-source variety is always important, and that rabbit was particularly in need of supplementation with meats of different amino acid profiles and higher levels of fat.

This was NOT in any way a negative assessment of feeding rabbit; it was strictly a warning about not limiting the dog's diet to that one protein profile.

I will try to find more (that isn't specifically for humans).

If I could raise or find a good supply of rabbit, I would definitely use it for part of my dogs' diet. And I know that rabbits I raised would have a good life, too, which is challenging to ascertain about purchased slaughter meat.

 Quote: Amber Morgan

 Quote: Debbie Bruce

I got beef fat to supplement the lean muscle and they put the weight back amazingly fast and I was able to cut back on the muscle meat.

You just fed them straight beef fat, right? Not fatty cuts of meat? How much did you give your dogs, per day? Do you still continue to do this?

My GSD is really sensitive to fat in his diet. It made his original transition into the raw world pretty rocky at first and he still can't handle too much chicken skin, hamburger and the like. If I do wind up having to add fat then I think I'd rather do it in a meat source rather than just straight fat, but I'm curious as to what your experiences were.

Many thanks, Debbie!

By volume it was probably 30-40% fat (I haven't weighed it, but fat is much lighter than muscle for the same volume.) I'm still feeding the hard keepers and adolescents about 25-30%. I have fed meaty scraps in the past, right now I just cut a slice of fat off the big glob (1'x 1'x 2' around a beef kidney :shocked and feed it at the same time with the muscle meat. I adjust the amount of fat added depending on the fat content of the muscle cut.
I had some runny stool problems in the past when I fed too many fatty meat scraps one day. I DO NOT want to repeat that.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Since you want various protein profiles anyway, wouldn't it work well to combine rabbit with fattier meats, rather than adding fat to the too-lean rabbit?

I'm sure that would work very well, as long as the total fat was the right amount for the individual dog.
I think we have been conditioned by the diet dictocrats to think that low fat is best and we tend to transfer the same thinking to dogs. In most cases it is not the best thing for them.

Connie your amino acid info on the rabbits is very helpful. Are there similar situations that you know of with other meats in regards to dogs?

And back to rabbits...
Is it do-able to raise rabbits in a colony type situation? As in pastured? How much area per rabbit would it take to avoid territorial problems?

Excellent thread. I'd definitely consider doing this, if my city allowed it. Really great info, though.

 Quote: melissa thom

"BUT-now for the challenging part. Rabbits get very painful arthritis and other muscular/skeletal issues when kept in even roomy cages. They are an animal that is meant to roam and graze, much like a cow. When we put them in small hutches, and the even smaller cages that mass breeders use-it is too hard on them. "

I'll dispute this to the end of the earth and back. I raised rabbits for 10 years and at least 5 generations in cages. Normally my animals lived to a ripe old age and I have never, ever seen any negative results from properly sized wire cages with the exception of thinly padded feet on rexes and on the rarest (like twice in ten years) occasions a broken toe. My animals were healthy, unstressed, breeding and eating machines.

as a house rabbit advocate, and having done the research-yes, it is arthritis.

Sure, some rabbits don't get it, but most do.
Rabbits were designed and created to hide any signs of pain. They aren't going to limp, they aren't going to fall over, and wince when they hop. They are going to act perfectly normal till the day they die. House rabbits hide pain too, but because they are in the house, people(should) notice ANY slight behavior/poop/eating change right away.

Even the sickest most disease ridden parasite infested rabbit will be a breeding machine. (i am NOT saying your rabbits are these things-i believe you when you say that they were healthy). Sure, yours might be fine, but too many buns do infact suffer from this. I would never do it to a rabbit.

not to turn this into a rabbit care thread-just i personally think that part of raw feeding, for me, is to feed the healthiest meat i can.
I don't believe the conditions meat rabbits are kept in are condusive to health.
It is akin to buying free range eggs/chickens, and other organic meats.

Having also recently aquired rabbits for the reason of adding more variety to my dogs diet I will add my $.02.

I looked at what it would cost me to feed 3 dogs 2 pounds of ground rabbit 2 x a week. =1088 not including shipping.

Getting started cost wayyyyy less than that, but it will take me a while to get to the point that I am able to feed that much rabbit.

I have a small lot in the middle of town. While there is no zoning in my town, I don't think having livestock outside would go over too well. Rabbits are quiet, and being a gardener at heart, the manure was a great plus.

I thought about this for a long time, joined ARBA over a year ago, talked to people, my vet, more people, read, etc before I felt I was ready. With all of the current problems with the way human food is being handled, I wanted to go one step further in providing my dogs with a quality meat source. My rabbits arrived on Sunday.

Someone mentioned alternative housing. If you google rabbit colonly, pastured rabbits, and rabbit tractor, you should come across some other ideas.



If you do not agree with the topic, don't feel you need to contribute. There are people who believe crating a dog is cruel too.

And back to rabbits...
Is it do-able to raise rabbits in a colony type situation? As in pastured? How much area per rabbit would it take to avoid territorial problems?

A neighbor when I was a kid tried this for teaching his birds of prey to hunt and I thought it didn't go all that well. Rabbits with ripped ears, worms, mange and with terrible mortality rates.
He had 10 - 25 rabbits living on a fenced acre with these kinds of problems. Buck fights are brutal and doe fights are not much better. I also found that the wide open spaces tended to make the rabbits very flighty and apt to hurt themselves.

I do know some people who are able to raise neutered pet bunnies in extremely large ground cages (like 25 x 25 feet) but I've never seen someone successfully do this with a breeding herd.

All this rabbit talk makes me almost want to get them again. We had some great times developing them and exploring the breed options. When I turned 21 my allergies spiked and being in the same room as my favorite rabbits would cause my throat to swell shut. So yes... the cute fluffy bunnies will be the death of me.

Having never done it myself, this is what a quick search last night came up with.

http://www.rabbitgeek.com/articles/clny_valerie.html

So far as the "pastured rabbits" most were in the rabbit tractors, (like a chicken tractor) and were rabbits meant for meat.