raising rabbits as dog food

i remember coming across a thread a while back about a cheap way to raise rabbits for dog food. i remember it saying you could feed multiple dogs off just $50 a month with this set up. does anyone know what im talking about or have a link?

 

Wondering if anyone raises chickens also for the same purpose? Thanks for the link Treez.

 

so i wonder if raising rabbits to feed 3 dogs would be cheaper then just buying kibble? i currently run through about 2 50 lbs bags of food a month, which runs me about 100 a month

 

Lol I wish my feed bill was $100 a month! That sounds high for 3 dogs though, sound like a lot of work for just 3 dogs anyways. I plan on doing both rabbits and chickens after the winter. Rabbits are pretty lean so I'd imagine they'd need supplementing but I'll know more in a year or so.

 

I plan on getting rabbits and adding it besides their kibble, I hear that it can be bad to feed unbalanced all raw diets.

 

You'll spend more on rabbit food than you are on dog food by the time they are big enough to feed your dog. Rabbits are not the best kind of food for a dog either...very low in fat and nutrients. I raised rabbits for over 2 years for meat and the cost per pound is terrible and the end product isn't worth it IMO. Chickens are much better and cheaper. You can free range them in the spring and summer and the feed cost is almost nothing if you raise them for meat. You also need to keep a brood flock and get good eggs that you can feed to your dogs too. Get an incubator and hatch them in the early spring and wait about 4 months and you are good to go........

I never mix in kibble when feeding the RAW diet.

 

Don't feed raw and kibble as they digest at separate rates. The dogs stomach needs to adapt and increase it's acidity to breakdown bone and raw meat safely.

 

We were feeding so many dogs at one time, we bought old ponies and butchered them. In fact Maurice put us on to it! Really cuts down on the feed bill,

 

Done that. We used to get retired thoroughbreds off the trainers for free to feed our stock dogs

 

Didn't know it was that easy to butcher a horse. Doesn't raise many flags?

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Once you've had a bit of practice you can have the horse processed into the main cuts in 45 mins including gutting and skinning. They have auctions specifically for horses to be used for pet food, so not really. That said, I wouldn't be telling everyone

 

Although there is science behind this thought process the advantages are inconclusive. All foods digest at different rates as all foods are different including different brands of kibble. There are also other factors involved like the individual person or animal as some have better/stronger digestive enzymes and or intestinal flora and can digest things better and faster then others. Those with a strong stomach/gut can easily compensate different types of foods and those with a weak gut cannot and needs to be transitioned gradually. Certain brands of kibble now days usually the higher end ones will add digestive enzymes or probiotics to further aid in the digestion of the kibble to assimilate it better by the bodies needs. The quality of our foods now days are lacking because of all the pesticides, hormones , gmo's etc...all these things can hinder the production of good bacteria in our gut, hence why there are more people today living with IBS. Ah shit I am rambling now and going off topic , Im done LOL.

 

The Butchery way is the only way that seems working cheaper and healthier for my dogs.

 

Very good post Slim ! informative as always!

 

In one of Bobby Halls books, he shares something to the effect that they got pulled over on the way to a match with a dead giraffe hanging out the truck that they apperently got from a zoo, the made stew out of it and fed it to the dogs if I remember right... pretty funny and strange on todays standards...

..Does anyone raise chickens for the dogs??? I know the eggs are great and know of a laos fellow that feed all the scraps to his dogs...
But wonder if anyone feeds whole chickens, The late great Barney Fife used to let his dogs chase chickens in his keep, and if they caught them that was thier reward... I figure if he allowed that during a keep that it should be alright for dogs not in a keep???

...back to the silly rabbits, GREAT POST ON THE SUBJECT SLIM...

 

I was of the understanding that rabbits were not a significant source of nourishment. I have always done the very method you use in regards to a butcher, mine was only to happy to do this and even grinds it into chuck for me.