How to Feed Rabbits Without the Feed Store (For Forage or Grain Diets)

This video covers how much feed rabbits need, how much feed from the feed store costs, how much meat you get per rabbit, how long it takes to raise a rabbit, simple rabbit nutrition, which forages and grains to grow, how much space is needed to grow the rabbit feed, and the cost to grow your own grain.


This PDF shows you the manure output of each animal (it helps you fertilize your crops).

0:00 Intro
0:42 How Much Rabbit Feed is Needed
2:37 Cost to Feed A Rabbit w the Feed Store
4:18 Forage vs Grains/Pellets?
6:02 Rabbit Reproduction and Weight Gain
8:20 58 Rabbits Per Year
8:32 How Much Meat Per Year?
10:16 Feed Conversion Rate
12:10 How to Reduce Feed Needed
12:45 If I Was in a Survival Situation
13:35 Can I Let My Rabbits Free Range?
14:56 Basic Rabbit Nutrition
21:51 Feeding Forage Only
26:08 How Much Space to Grow Forage
27:46 Feeding Grains and Forage
32:31 Forage Only Space Needed Total
33:03 Forage + Grain Space Needed Total
34:07 Cost to Grow Hay / Forage
36:09 Cost to Grow Grains
39:52 Seed Saving
41:02 Conclusion

[deinse]

The reason why you're getting so many viewers so fast is because you're doing the exact opposite of everybody else in this space: you give pure information instead of selling a narrative and emotionalism, use natural language instead of buzzwords for the algorithm, you use a simple, descriptive thumbnail and title instead of sensationalistic, deceptive ones, you make the video 40 minutes long, if that's how long it takes to present all the information, etc.

In short, your videos are substance over style, while everybody else's are style over substance. It's quite unique among Youtube homesteaders. Please keep it up.

[fraadebauer]

This is going to sound weird but please read it. You were a godsend to me today I have been a long time rabbit razor since like 1995 and last night I was doing our finances and getting severely depressed about the amount of money that I was shelling out and feed for all my livestock. I have a huge farm and a bunch of different animals to feed
It is April of 2024 I am making more money now than I've ever made before have less bills than I've ever had before and I am more broke now than I'm ever been before. I was honestly thinking about getting rid of a lot of my animals just because I couldn't afford the feed bill. This video was an answer to a prayer of how I could keep my rabbits and still feed myself too. I'm going to be binge watching all the rest of your videos that you have. I again want to say thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart for this very good educational video you have a new subscriber!
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[HolyPineCone]

Finally a channel dedicated to actual teaching. Sure its nice watching some dude brush his cows and mention one fact a month, but you wont learn much from that. This is gold!

[jbnovah]

Im sitting in an apartment in a shiitty, overcrowded city taking notes and planning for the future. This content is really important. Thank you ❤

[SgtSnausages]

A quarter acre-ish (100 x 100 ft) of Timothy /Orchard Grass is our base. Old-school (Austrian) hand-scythe an hay rake work great. Need shed/lean-to/barn/<whatever> to store loose hay. Take about 3 times as much space as square bales.

Sweet Potato (vines in Summer, tuber in Winter) - a 25-footer row per Rabbit. Sunchoke (tops - stalk, flower, leaf in Summer, tuber all Winter) ... Mangel Beet / Fodder Beet. Black oil sunflower. (Stalk/leaf/flower in Summer, seed head full of seed all Winter.) Ridiculous amounts of easy to propagate/grow Comfrey. Autumn leaf drop from the yard leaves. Peanut hay - we grow 800 row feet of doubled rows for Human snacking of peanut ... the tops are bundled and dried at harvest for Winter Feed.

These make up the bulk of our feed. Currently maintaining 2 quads (M F F F) with about 150 growouts a year.

Growouts are tractored. The Mating Mob is not.

[justsurvivin]

Just to expand some horizons a bit: bones of your rabbits can be just as useful as the meat and pelts. I crock pot the bones of my rabbits and have "marrow soup". I crack the long bones, add whatever vegetables are around, my favorite spices and about a tablespoon or maybe two of apple cider vinegar. This makes a very hearty, filling stew that I serve with my choice of starch. Once the bones have gone through the crock pot, I allow them to dry in a solar dehydrator and then grind them up in our hand cranked mill for bone meal. Bone meal has many, many uses. You mentioned a survival situation. The extra nutrients gained in this way could make or break a pregnant mother, a person recovering from illness or even beef up your dog's food.

[project]

Have never raised rabbits for meat (and probably never will), but something that so many people neglect to mention as a benefit of raising rabbits is the non-burning manure.

All the manure from our pet rabbits goes directly into our gardens or compost piles without any concern that it will burn the plants like chicken or cow manure can.

[samualaddams]

I think I am on my third play through.. This has to be the most densely packed information I have seen on this platform in a long time. Believe it or not the mid level information like how much to feed your rabbits per day by weight will benefit as many people as the breakdown of land per rabbit.

[cxsey]

Can you make a video on how to actually raise rabbits? Space, cage requirements, best practices, etc. I’d love to try my hand at it, but I have no idea how much space I need or what the different ways to raise them are. And I love the way you make videos, they’re super informative!

[kaylinsimmons]

Would love to see a tutorial for a rabbit blanket if you end up making one 👀

[vonRow]

Been raising rabbits for almost 10 years now, and I say your #s are pretty much spot on. My friends and family thought my rabbit math was "funny" until I put 380#s in my freezer, 80#s in my neighbors' 60#s in my cousin's, and another 50#s in misc customers' freezers. In a single year. We run 12 to 23 does, and half a dozen bucks, and we breed 3 to 4 litter runs each year, as the weather allows. When the girls kindle, it's not impossible for us to have over 100 kits drop. Some of those go for live animal sales, a few get saved back to keep our broodstock fresh. The rest are headed to "camp." The past couple years we've figured out how to brine and smoke our jointed rabbit parts to make mini rabbit hams. Some of those get tossed into the smoker for a few hours. Rarely any leftovers on those dinner nights.

[danielhurst]

Zone 7b here in Middle Tennessee, and I have 30+ "wild" meat rabbits that free range that were left from the previous owner. They are domestic animals, as the shape is that of a meat rabbit, but they have breed enough that any particular species is hard to tell. They get, and have not received, any pellet feed. There is hay available, and they eat the hay, plus forage for other food.
They also act like a cross between a domestic and wild rabbit, in that they do not leave the 50 acre property, but they have survival instincts of a wild rabbit, they will run and are fast, but become much less wary to an individual with time.
They originate from meat rabbits that escaped and created their colonies.

[lindabell]

You not only quell fear but inspire action. Truly a gift.

[catw]

I don't plan on keeping rabbits - but in these times never say never - and still i watched the whole thing. I was that fascinated with all the information that you presented. This was one of the best animal husbandry and prepper vidoes that I have ever seen on YT. Your knowledge base is amazing and you presented the information so well. I sub'd and wishing you the best on your channel. Btw, some great additional videos would be how you cook your rabbits. Think rabbit intimidates many because it is not a meat that many were raised eating.

[fylith]

With alfalfa I have been told it is too rich or "hot". So i always feed orchard grass or timothy. I have had my rabbits jump out of their hutches before and they always go exploring. I let them "free range" on nice days, and they always have a blast. they run, jump, dig, eat and do zoomies. I bring them back into their cages after a couple of hours. I have a large enclosed area where my chickens roam.

I am loving all this great info. ty so much.

[ts]

Amazing video. Should be a course in every high school in the country

[steffybael]

in 1985 i started raising rabbits.. bought 2 New Zealand does that the seller bred right then and there. bought 2 cages and waters, and 2 feeders. bought some wood and built some nest boxes. i built above ground cages and hutches. a guy at work gave me a black and gold collored buck. soon we were eating rabbit a lot. my wife discovered "chicken nuggets" in the store so pretty soon we were eating RABBIT NUGGETS, GOAT NUGGETS, DUCK NUGGETS, GOOSE NUGGETS, AND EVEN HOME RAISED CHICKEN NUGGETS.

i sold meat rabbits for $5 each and soon quit me job, to raise rabbits full time!

[pekopan]

One of your top comments in your chicken feed video was to make a similar video with rabbits. You're true to your fans and true to your information!

[y.a.salimu]

You put this out so fast in response to us saying we wanted it. Good job. And ty

[jsredrose]

I absolutely love this and your other videos. They are so incredibly helpful! I raised rabbits as pets when I was a child, and from my experience, those domesticated rabbits definitely desired to be wild. Maybe it's because my hutches were away from the house, down near the woods, but I saw numerous wild rabbits approach my rabbit cages and touch noses with mine. Mine also loved to escape, and the last one actually took off into the woods, never to be seen again!