[Padfoot]

For my rabbits class I had to make a diet. The professor gave me the requirements and the possible ingredients. I checked with him and it's correct.. Now.. I would like to know, what you rabbit owners think of it? Just know that this is for meat producing rabbits.. and I know that you are all against it (I took the class for 1 reason, I still needed a professional elective and it was one of them... and well.. it's always good to know a bit about them for when I have them as pets in the future..) but I still wanted to know what you think about it. It is supposed to all be grinded, pelletized and served as you serve your rabbits pellets.

Well.. here's the diet


Sorry if I have some names wrong.. I translated it from spanish...


Ok.. the table came off all messed up.. give me a sec till I see how to fix it..

 

[Padfoot]

Here it is:

Protein, Fiber, Ca, P, Met and Lys are given as porcentages, energy is given as Mcal/kg

 

[Padfoot]

Oh.. also.. I have to answer a question (well 2):

What would happen to a rabbit if it only ate carrot?
I also need to compare 2 comercial rabbit diets. I'm off to look for the nutritional information of two different brands.. I was thinking of looking at Kaytee and Oxbow.. I found Kaytee's webpage already.. I'm looking for the info I need.

 

[veggiegirl]

Oh.. also.. I have to answer a question (well 2):

What would happen to a rabbit if it only ate carrot?.. I'm looking for the info I need.

I'm not really sure what would happen but here is Oxbow's site. It has a lot of nutritional info. Hope it helps.
http://www.oxbowhay.com/index.sp

 

[Padfoot]

Thanks 8) (here is me, as always.. doing school work at the last minute... LOL)

 

[Jade]

I'm not a rabbit owner but have done extensive research in chinchilla nutrition ...

The first concern I have is the use of fish meal. A rabbit is a herbivore and I'm wondering how fish meal would affect a herbivore as opposed to an omnivore.

You used corn and I see that it's 17% of your diet. I don't know how common it is in Puerto Rico, but in the US it's generally frowned upon as the main grain due to being hard to digest the hulls. Chin diets (and I'd assume rabbits) are usually hay based, with grains such as wheat middlings, wheat germ, oat flour, etc. as additional ingredients.

'Fraid I'm no help with the only carrot question, other than to say it obviously wouldn't provide enough nutrients or fiber. You might look up carotene overdose or other ingredients carrots are rich in.

Oxbow's ingredients can be found at www.oxbowhay.com and American Pet Diner (americanpetdiner.com) has a quality rabbit feed as well. You might check into feeds used by rabbit ranchers for a more accurate comparison.

Good luck!

 

[Padfoot]

Thanks for the websites! Yes, I thought about the high carotene and about it not being a balaced diet in an all-carrot diet.

I'm not a rabbit owner but have done extensive research in chinchilla nutrition ...

The first concern I have is the use of fish meal. A rabbit is a herbivore and I'm wondering how fish meal would affect a herbivore as opposed to an omnivore.

You used corn and I see that it's 17% of your diet. I don't know how common it is in Puerto Rico, but in the US it's generally frowned upon as the main grain due to being hard to digest the hulls. Chin diets (and I'd assume rabbits) are usually hay based, with grains such as wheat middlings, wheat germ, oat flour, etc. as additional ingredients.

About the fish meal, it's an ingredient widely used in farm animal diets (even those hervivore animals) It's used for it's protein. It's really high in protein and it's a high quality protein source (animal proteins are better digested than plant proteins, even by hervibores). The only drawback to use fish meal is that it gives meat/milk/eggs a fish taste. It can't be used in chickens used to sell the eggs cause it gives it a black color to the yolk (plus the heavy fish taste). In other animals it should be less than 5% of the diet to avoid the fish taste.

I really don't know about the corn... If you see, the dieat is really based on starrgrass hay (40% of the diet is hay, other ingredients are much less than that). and my fiber quantity is 26% (the minimum is 13% to be safe on stomach issues that arise when there is not enough fiber in the diet). I used corn, along with soy and sunflower, to creat a small mix that gave me the protein and energy not provided by the rest of the diet. I tried doing a small mix using other ingredients, but it didn't gave me the numbers I needed to fullfill the protein and energy requirements.. Hehe

Thanks again for the websites. I'm off to look at them (If I stop hanging around here.. haha)

 

[Catherine]

If you want more opinions post your info here http://rabbit.lyrical.net/ There usually are some meat breeders on there.

We will also be buying more rabbit food tomorrow so I will look on the back of the packet and see if anything is comparable.

 

[Padfoot]

I already finished my work. 8) It looks like all I do is hang around forums.. but I do my work too.. LOL.. I'm now doing some diagrams for a rabbitry.. gaaack.. this assingment is so long!

I compared Kaytee Forti-Diet with Oxbow Bunny Basics/T. I didn't had to compare them to my diet, just compare the two about their ingredients and nutritional analysis, so I just evaluated them as pet quality diets, and not as meat producing diets. 8)

 

[Padfoot]

That I'm finished doesn't mean that I don't want your opinions anymore.. This is a diet based on the information my profesor gave me and (I asked him yesterday) it's well done, but I want the opinion of pet owners about the diet fed to commercial rabbits.. 8)