Small Scale RABBIT FODDER SYSTEM: Save Money Growing Your Own Rabbit Food

A system for growing fodder for rabbits is a great way to cut feed costs, especially when green foods are unavailable during the winter months. Before we started documenting on KZbin, we used to sprout wheat grains as winter fodder for our rabbits, and it worked amazingly. But after moving, we just got the system set back up! The indoor rabbit fodder system is up and running again, and the rabbits are getting some high-quality wheat fodder. This really reduces our dependency on pellets, at least for a maintenance ration for the rabbits, as the adult bucks, does, and juvenile rabbits all do amazing on this fodder system. If you want to save money on rabbit feed, are looking for a viable alternative to pellets, or just want to grow a tasty and healthy treat for your rabbits, growing fodder for your rabbits is an excellent way to achieve these goals!
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Thanks for watching!
Steph and Chris
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[@OurLifeOffGrid]

Oh yes rabbits sure do injoy it very well, along with most other animals (even the cats in winter do).

[@HickorycroftFarm]

Agree on the cats. ours usually nibble on a bit in the morning before we cut it up for the rabbits (but never eat a lot of it usually)

[@marciaabbott5370]

That's good to know. My nephew is thinking about getting rabbits and we know very little about them.

[@HickorycroftFarm]

Rabbits are a good way to grow a lot of food in a small space, but there are different ways to raise them pending on your goals that is for sure!

[@MyAlabamaFarmLife]

I keep saying i am going to grow sprouts but havent yet! Great advice and set up!

[@HickorycroftFarm]

Its worth it in our opinion. The rabbits love them and do really well on them, and we even eat a few!

[@littlehomesteadbythebeach]

Thanks, I tried last year but I had so much mold that I stopped. I don't want soil or anything me neither to start the grain. Your method seems better. Of course, by doing it by gravity, a thub is kinda nice under 😅. As I already germinate wheat and oat for the chickens, I suppose I could do some for the rabbits too. I'll see, I'll see.

[@Adnancorner]

have you thought of adding vetch or alfalfa to add the protien. This is actually really good for sheep as well.

[@ThorHavenFarm]

I love this idea!!

[@HickorycroftFarm]

it actually works pretty well. Planning a second video to talk about a few things we didn't in this one (just some things we have learned from doing this in the past) like so many other things we did this for a long time before we filmed anything so learned a lot along the way!

[@maplewoodhomestead2017]

Bathtub is great idea. Can you skip pellet feeding when you do this?

[@victorialg1270]

In the States Azure Standard had 50lb of organic Chicken wheat for $38.62 (0.772 per pound before sprouting). If 2 lb produces 8lb that is less than 20 cents per pound. I think my silkies and chickens would eat this too.

[@ShawnWi]

This is so awesome! Do you add anything to the water for the fodder or just use regular tap water?

[@shermdog6969]

Where do you get your grain at that price? There is no way i can get that in my location. More like $80 for 25lb bag. 😊

[@nomir4065]

I tried doing fodder with barley for my chickens and I could not make it work. I just had tons of mold. Do you have any advice on how to avoid that?

[@danweisser6616]

Any advice or recommendations on what to use on the floor of a diy rabbit hutch? I noticed in a few videos that you use the wire shelving units. Likely the heavy duty ones with 5/8 spacing. Do you find that a good size or is it too big? It looks like in this video you also have some 1/2 coated hardware cloth… is that better? I am also in Ontario and as you probably know it’s challenging to find reasonably priced 14ga 1”x1/2” wire which seems to be the recommendation on many American KZbin channels.

[@HickorycroftFarm]

We love the heavy duty wire shelves. They have definitely become our go to. We use the 20" by 4 foot ones and have built the hutch so that they drop in place and we can remove them for easy cleaning and such. What type of rabbits do you have? We find that they are great for our champagnes, which are around 11 pounds. The wire mesh didn't work as well for them. We have never had any foot issues even in the mesh bottomed hutches, but the rabbits spent way more time on their resting boards. The 1" x 1/2" seems to really only be available online and you are paying for it for sure. Saying that, the wire shelves are not cheap either, but they last forever. We use the 1" spacing ones for our rabbit tractors. Hope that somewhat helped. Happy to go into it further if you have more questions. Thanks for watching :)

[@janew5351]

Would the chickens eat this as well?

[@riahsrabbitry9268]

Yes they would!