Rabbit Food - Why Balanced Nutrition is the Most Important Factor in Breeding and Raising Rabbits
Rabbit food needs to contain essential elements in the proper amounts and ratio in order to ensure optimal growth and nutrition. If you have been or are thinking about raising rabbits you will also need to know the difference between high fiber rabbit food vs. high production (high protein and energy) rabbit food. Most people alternate between both styles of feed and are never truly pleased with either one.
Why? Because high production rabbit food, which promotes good growth rates while using less food (saves money), causes digestive troubles and leads to high mortality (death) rates (averaging 20%). Additionally baby bunnies on a high production diet are more prone to bloating and digestive troubles including diarrhea while mature rabbits can have a shortened life span. Because of these reasons people switch to a high fiber feed and find that while digestive troubles and mortality rates go down so do the growth rates. This increases the feed bill because it takes more food to raise rabbits and it quickly becomes too costly.
What is the answer? Several scientists have studied and published their findings in many areas of raising rabbits and the essential nutritional requirements which commercial feed producers are not using in the formulation of their rabbit food! Some feed manufacturers lead you to believe that they are on the "cutting edge" of rabbit nutrition because they test their feed in their "own" labs. However, a quick review on rabbit nutrition as it has been published by many reputable scientists reveals that the commercial rabbit feed world is severely lacking in several areas. Just how much can you improve existing rabbit food? The best food for raising rabbits is simply a balanced one tailored to its specific life stage!
Why is it important for rabbit food to be balanced? Think of building a rabbit from a set of miniature building blocks (rabbit food ingredients). Many of the blocks are unique and have a special purpose that cannot be fulfilled by the other more common building blocks. To make a complete and healthy rabbit you need enough of these special blocks in the correct ratio because being deficient in one (the limiting factor) causes all the others to be wasted. Additionally the rabbit has to process and get rid of excesses which causes stress and reduces feed efficiency. Also using one formulation of feed for raising rabbits at every age will not meet their differing nutritional needs and will compromise their health and productivity as well as feed efficiency.
In summary, those who want to successfully raise rabbits, need to be concerned with and learn more about the following:
• Crude Fiber
• Crude Protein
• Crude Fat
• Natural Vitamins
• Chelated Minerals
Ideally, all these elements should be incorporated in a rabbit food at the correct ratios (balanced) and quality level to ensure optimum growth and efficiency.
Questions and Answers
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