Features of pelleted rabbit feed
With a lack of healthy vitamins and minerals, the immunity of lagomorphs becomes susceptible to various diseases, so many livestock breeders recommend buying or making pelleted feed for rabbits with their own hands.
Rabbit pellets
Rabbit breeding is not easy. Each breeder needs to know about all the nuances of keeping these animals, care and feeding. It is especially important to monitor the diet of the rabbits. The immunity of animals, their growth and development depends on the quality of the products used. Nutrition should be complete and balanced. How to choose the right diet for pussies and what should be included in it?
Advantages and disadvantages of pelleted feed
Pellet feed - concentrated compressed herbal mixture.
Its composition is determined by the need for lagomorphs in certain foods, vitamins and minerals. Specialized compound feeds are produced in several variations, replacing the main food of animals, cereal ration and individual additives. Feeding rabbits with specialized food has many benefits. The composition of such a feed meets all the necessary criteria for a high-quality balanced diet. This feed includes grass flour, hay, grain and mineral supplements.
Experienced rabbit breeders believe that the less additives in the product, the better it is.
Only natural ingredients allow animals to grow faster and gain muscle mass. Feeding with such food in winter, when there is a problem of lack of plant food, is especially beneficial. It is not difficult to check the quality of the pellet feed. It is enough just to throw a few granules into a container of water and observe their condition. A quality product hardly changes its state. If it contains additives, it grows in size. It is not recommended to give such granules to rabbits.
But there is still one drawback: this is the high price for ready-made feed. When keeping a large number of heads, the cost of its purchase will significantly exceed the profit from the breeding of animals itself, therefore many rabbit breeders resort to self-production of feed in granules. The only problem is to find special equipment with which you can make the same high-quality and balanced feed. In addition, granulated concentrate contains most of the food products that grow in gardens, fields and farms, so the cost of such feeding will be minimal.
Specialized granular concentrate
If it is not possible to make your own pelleted feed, you can purchase it. But those breeders who have not yet bought such products need to know about its variety and characteristics.Having found packaging with feed in granules on the counter of a specialized store, you need to make sure of its suitability, because some concentrates cannot completely replace fresh plant components and are only additives. The composition of the compound feed should include:
- 20 to 25% plant fiber;
- 13 to 15% protein;
- no more than 2% fat.
The composition of the compound feed can be different. Most often, such products contain grain and herbal mixtures, including:
- oats;
- corn;
- hay;
- barley;
- legumes;
- alfalfa.
In addition, the granular concentrate may include sunflower meal, as well as minerals (meat and bone meal, chalk, etc.). A particular type of product can contain a large amount of vitamins and minerals. These concentrates are used only as dietary supplements. Complete animal feed for rabbits should not contain more than 1% vitamins.
Some breeders prefer to avoid buying specialized feed in stores, choosing an alternative type of product - market. It is difficult to determine the exact composition of such a product. Experienced breeders recommend paying attention to the appearance of the feed, its color component and its uniformity.
What to look for when buying
When buying compound feed, you need to know about some of the tricks of recognizing a high-quality balanced feed by its appearance. Rabbit granular concentrate can be:
- yellow or gray;
- green;
- dark green or brown.
If the concentrate in granules is yellow or gray, it is dominated by grain, and if it is green, it is grass. If the farmer sees a dark concentrate, this indicates that it contains vegetables. Such a product is of lower quality than grain. Moreover, it is not suitable for constant feeding. Rabbits should be provided with the required amount of vegetable fiber and protein, and in such a feed it is often in short supply.
It is equally important to pay attention to the homogeneity of the granules. They must all be the same color and size. These factors indicate product uniformity and purity. But still, it is not always possible to avoid crumbling compound feed. During transportation by the seller, and sometimes even by the farmers themselves, some of the pellets crumble into dust. Rabbits rarely eat a product that could not be stored, so it is important to transport the purchased concentrate carefully, avoiding unnecessary shocks and shaking.
Nuances of self-preparation of pelleted feed
Rabbit feed concentrate in granules is an indispensable product for the growth and development of animals. Having decided to do it yourself, you need to know not only about the percentage of the individual components included in the feed, but also about what equipment is used in its manufacture. The breeder should acquire:
- a crusher or other grain grinder;
- a grass dryer;
- hay chopper;
- mixer;
- granulator.
Having prepared all this equipment, it will not be difficult to make the required amount of pelleted feed. In addition, many farmers consider only one device indispensable in the manufacture of pellets - a granulator. But some craftsmen can create it with their own efforts from scrap materials.
For novice farmers, as well as those people who do not want to test their skills in designing a home granulator, the best way out of the situation is to buy a ready-made device. Extruders (the official name) have a large number of models that differ not only in price, but also in configuration and performance. The cost of such a technique may seem high, but it will quickly pay off if the device is used correctly.
Feed consumption calculations
Many farmers often ask the question of what kind of granulate will be good for animals and what it should be made of. The answer to it requires knowledge of the needs of animals for certain products at certain periods of life.That is, for dwarf lagomorphs outside the mating period, 150-180 g of feed are required daily. Under other circumstances, you need to increase the dose:
- when mating - up to 230 g;
- pregnant rabbits - up to 180 g, supplements (hay) - 70 g;
- the first 2 weeks after okrol - 300 g of granules and 100 g of additives;
- from 3 to 4 weeks after okrol - 500 g of granules, additives - 200 g;
- from 4 to 6 - 0.7 kg of feed 0.220 g of additive.
In order to calculate the cost of making or purchasing pelleted feed, it is necessary to calculate how much product is consumed per year. The average feed weight per crawl is 180 g. This value should be multiplied by the number of heads kept. It is also necessary to add the average increase in the need of animals to increase the dose of the product during mating, pregnancy and the postpartum period.
A novice farmer can be helped by feed made by experienced breeders. Many farmers who produce pellets on their own are aware of the average consumption values per year. For 30 individuals, 400-440 kg of feed most often goes. A novice breeder can use the same calculations.
Production of pelleted feed
If the farm already has all the necessary equipment for preparing pelleted feed, you should calculate how many kilograms of all the ingredients are needed for the procedure itself. One individual eats 0.18 kg of the finished product. To feed a herd of 10 animals, you need 1.8 kg. We must not forget about the addition to those rabbits who need it. Most often used for the manufacture of feed:
- hay - 35% (or grass flour);
- flour from barley or oats - 25%;
- sunflower cake - 20%;
- legumes - 15%;
- bran - 5%.
You should also know about the benefits of the individual components of grass and grain feed. Vitamin A, essential for growth, contains alfalfa and meat and bone meal. B vitamins are found in bran, flour, potatoes and carrots, therefore, it is important that these products get into the feed. Each breeder must change the recipe for making pelleted feed himself, composing it as needed.
For quality balanced feeding of pregnant females, it is also important to add sulfa drugs, which the rabbits need for normal bearing of the fetus. But veterinarians do not recommend introducing them into the diet on their own. It is best to consult a specialist before purchasing them.