shared post from FB

Part 4 of 4

This part four of these posts to answer the question of alternative sustain feeds that will support rabbit production and profitability.

KangKong (also called Chinese Water Spinach, water morning glory, Impomoea aquatica). I became familiar with this plant during one of our sustainable farming projects in Honduras. It is a nutritious plant that has two distinct varieties, and can grow in water, in wetlands or in well watered soil. It is used as a human food crop (very, very tasty) or as a livestock feed, or both. Some people use the stalk for human food and feed the blade to livestock, and in this case specifically rabbits. Where can you get this plant? The easiest source is to go to an ethnic food store that sells food from Asia. It may be sold under any one of the names I mentioned. It roots really easily. Just stick it in a bucket of water. If you add worm castings to the water (1/3 cup castings to 1 gallon of water) you will have a great rooting solution. Worm castings contain plant growth hormones (Auxins and gibberellins), which enhance root growth, and make an excellent rooting solution. If you do not have worm castings, cut up the tender growing ends of willow tree branches (any species of willow) into 1” lengths and add to the water. Willow tree branch ends also contain a concentration of root growth hormone. The Kangkong will root and you can plant it in a kiddie pool with some soil on the bottom. You can keep it very wet, or you can fill it with water, depending on how you wish to manage it. Kangkong does grow well in an aquaponics system too. It can be simply grown in a tote with some soil. TO harvest, just cut off the stem and feed it to the rabbits. Studies show that the high nutritive value of kangkong is beneficial to rabbits and can be included in volumes of up to 50-75% of their diet. It gives good production and aids in profitability. Once this crop is established you can let some of it go to seed, giving you a crop you can continually harvest from and a way to replant too. IT is a warm climate crop, so it works well as a seasonal one outdoors in cold climates, but can be grown indoors easily.

Fodder – Whether or not fodder is a truly sustainable feed source depends on how one looks at sustainability. There is no doubt however regarding being able to get good production and profitability (and cost savings) through using fodder. Because the types of fodder are variable, I will not go into the nutrient value of the different ones. I am sure it has been discussed on the FB group in the past. I have long been using fodder on our farm for our pigs, chickens, quail, and rabbits. The easiest of the fodder crops to grow is wheat. But some other ones we grow are barley, sunflower, pea, lentil, amaranth. TO be a truly sustainable crop in the truest sense of the term, one needs to be able to perpetuate the crop oneself. Depending on your set up this can be easy, but for many, growing enough wheat or barley to grow fodder continually just is not practical. But it is more easily possible to grow your own seed source for peas, sunflowers, lentils and amaranth. However, in getting your profitability at a higher margin, and better production from your rabbit herd through using fodder, your cost savings can make buying the seed for growing fodder sustainable.

The best way to have cost effective fodder production is by doing it DIY. Anyone can buy a costly commercial Fodder production system, but oh! my! Goodness! They are costly to buy. And they are so easy to make at home. And you can actually start out growing fodder in a window using any flat-ish container that will hold seed. Then use your initial cost saving to buy whatever building materials you might wish to use to grow fodder with. A lot of people grow fodder in the cooler months due to the issue of controlling mold in the summer months. This can be a good management strategy, switching feed sources with the seasons. It depends on your location, as to what is easier what time of year.

Fodder lends itself well in the sustainability web of any farm/homestead or backyard. Fodder can be grown without any growing media ( that is without soil), and without growing solutions (no fertilizers, etc). This means you can produce organic feeds. However, on our farm we DO use worm castings at the growing media for black oil sunflower, lentil and peas and amaranth. Sometimes we also use it for growing wheat and barley. Why? Remember that earlier I mentioned that worm castings have plant growth hormones? Those same plant growth hormones (Auxins and gibberellins) not only encourage root growth (so you get a great root mat formed that up takes water well, but those hormones also increase seed germination success and lower seed germination time. This means that you can grow fodder crops more quickly, and get more fodder grown out of the seeds you plant. Those hormones are also responsible for enhancing vertical stem growth, so you get a great fodder food crop volume too. Yes, I realize that fodder crops are only grown to the point that the emerging plant is ‘living off the energy in the seed”, but the plant growth hormones act on the seed itself and are also taken up into the plant with the water the roots imbibe. One thing that I also do, is cut my pea fodder. If it is cut off at the right height (just above the initial node) it will re-grow, giving me more food for the seeds used. In this case, the plants truly benefit from growing in worm castings. The plant at this point needs the nutrients in the worm castings. You can present fodder mats to rabbits whole. If I grow them woth worm castings, I sometimes will hose the worm castings out of the mat the roots form. Do this in your garden, so the worm castings can benefit your veggies. At any rate, any root mat left over that the rabbits do not consume, should be placed in your worm composting bin or pile. The worms will convert the roots into more worm castings, so you can grow more feed for them.

There is a famous fodder feeding chart for rabbits floating around on the internet. It will answer the, “how much fodder do I feed my rabbit?” question. But just in case you cannot find the chart with a Google search here is the info for some typical meat breeds: the formula to figure it out is rabbit weight X 6% = fodder weight. A Flemish Giant weighing 14 pounds, would get 0.84 pounds of fodder. A Rex weighing 10.5 pounds, would get 0.63 pounds of fodder, and so on.

There is so much more I could address here, but I fear if you have read this far you deserve an award!

I am in the process of writing a book covering Sustainable homesteading/farm and Alternative sustainable feeds, where this info will be in detail (with photos). I have been asked by some if they can re-post what I have presented here. Please contact me first, before doing so, and I ask that my name be kept with the information, and it be reposted in its entirety. We are all about education and helping others on our farm. I hope this have been helpful and encouraging to you. If you have questions, let me know. – Deanne, De Converse

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