A good rabbit pellet is made from a base of hay mixed with other ingredients found in plants and grains. A quality rabbit pellet will not have chunks or colors. A healthy rabbit pellet should be a neutral color and should be uniform in appearance. What Ingredients Should be in A Quality Rabbit Pellet? A Quality Rabbit Pellet Contains a Base of Either Timothy Hay or Alfalfa Hay, Which Should be Fed to Your Rabbit Dependent on Their Age. A Good Rabbit Pellet Will Only Contain Hay and Herbs. If a Hay Contains Whole Dried Fruit, Seeds, or Nuts, this is Not a Healthy Rabbit Pellet. There Should be No Obvious Colors, It Should Look Very Bland. When Looking at Rabbit Pellets, You Should Look at the Guaranteed Analysis on the Label to Learn How Many Critical Ingredients are in the Formula. This is Usually Calculated by Percentage.
Raising rabbits for meat is an increasingly popular farming operation in Maine. Rabbits don’t take a lot of space to raise and are efficient feed converters, with a feed-to-meat ratio for fryers of 4:1, or 20 pounds of pellets to 5 pounds of meat. Broilers’ ratio ranges from 2 to 6:1, depending on the breed and management methods.
Types of Rabbit Pellet Ingredients
| Group | Ingredients |
| Animal Products (Should not be in rabbit feed). | Bone meal, blood meal, fish meal, feathers. |
| Animal protein products (Should not be found in rabbit feed). | Hydrolyzed poultry feathers, fish meal, milk products, and other items which are not natural to a rabbit’s digestive tract. |
| Forage products | Alfalfa meal, grass hay, soybean hay, lespedeza meal, dehydrated silages. |
| Grain products | Barley, oats, wheat, corn, rice, rye. |
| Molasses products | Beet or sugar cane molasses, beet pulp. |
| Processed grain byproducts | Wheat millings, corn, gluten feed, rice bran, wheat bran, brewers’ dried grains, distilled dried grains. |
| Plant protein products | Cottonseed, soybean, canola, peanut, linseed and sunflower meals, cultured yeast. |
| Roughage products | Hulls of cottonseed, soybeans, oats, peanuts, rice; apple products, beet pulp, citrus pulp. |
Features of Rabbit Pellet Ingredients
- Fresh grasses or legumes may be included in the ration to a level of 70%.
- 50% legumes plus 50% grasses may afford minimum dietary requirement for resting does and bucks.
- Dustiness of mash may be avoided by adding water to moisten the feed slightly.
- Ensurement may be made to avoid acidity (sour) of feed since sour feed is not liked by rabbit.
- Clean and fresh water may be made available at all seasons.
- Does may not be fed with heavy diet right after kindling.
- Feed of does may be increased after 5-7 days of kindling.
- Abrupt change in the quality or quantity of feed may be avoided.
- Molasses at the rate of 5% may be added to the diet to increase
- acceptability of the diet.
- A small quantity of hay/straw may be fed in addition to the compound feed to prevent boredom and to provide bulk.
- Rapeseed oil mea! may be heated before inclusion in the diet. It may be fed below 15% levels in diet.
- High calcium diet may interfere with the acceptance of does to the offspring and thus may affect the growth of the litters, therefore diet should not contain excess calcium.
- Dry does, bucks and replacement stock may be fed once a day at the rate of 100-120 gm of pellet feeds.
- Young rabbits in growing stages and lactating does may be fed free of choice by keeping grain/pellets in the feeder at all times.
- Good quality legumes may be kept before the rabbits in addition to pellet ration.
- Carrots, green grass, spinach, turnip, lucerne, barseem etc. may be provided as good succulent feed for rabbits.
- Other feed stuffs such as kitchen wastes, spoilt milk, damaged fruits may be fed by small farmers but they should be fed with caution considering their deleterious effects.
Specification
| Ingredients | Composition % |
| Oats (ground) | 19.0 |
| Wheat (ground) | 10.0 |
| Barley (ground) | 10.0 |
| Wheat bran | 6.4 |
| Soybean meal | 12.0 |
| Rapeseed meal | 2.5 |
| Fish meal | 3.2 |
| Dehydrated alfalfa meal | 23.7 |
| Dried brewers yeast | 3.0 |
| Dried distillers solubles | 4.0 |
| Dried whey | 4.0 |
| Molasses | 1.0 |
| Salt, iodized | 0.5 |
| Vitamin,mineral premix | 0.775 |
| DL-methionine | 0.07 |
| Feed flavour | 0.05 |
Prices of Rabbit Pellet Ingredients
$310.00-$320.00/ Metric Ton