Rabbits and Nutri- Drops and question about what is going on

[Gardening with Rabbits]

My son plays with one of the bucks and will get a piece of tough hay and they tug a war with it and if you do not do it first, Buttons will grab a piece of hay and start waving it around wanting you to pull on it. Can they eat the flowers on the clover? I have a lot of different types of grass growing in corners and behind things that have not been tilled or mowed. All these weeds came from horse manure. I need to take pictures so I know what I have. We have both white and red clover in the yard. What about the dandelion flowers, can they eat those?

 

[lesa]

Hoodat, that is too funny! You better get a video of that performance!

 

[hoodat]

My son plays with one of the bucks and will get a piece of tough hay and they tug a war with it and if you do not do it first, Buttons will grab a piece of hay and start waving it around wanting you to pull on it. Can they eat the flowers on the clover? I have a lot of different types of grass growing in corners and behind things that have not been tilled or mowed. All these weeds came from horse manure. I need to take pictures so I know what I have. We have both white and red clover in the yard. What about the dandelion flowers, can they eat those?

The flowers are their favorite part. If I feed dandelions or red clover with flowers on them, they'll eat them first. I sometimes plant radishes and let them go to flower just as a treat for them. Zuchini leaves are too prickly for them but they gobble any of the flowers I give them from zuchini plants. Mine aren't too wild about mustard unless it is in flower, then they dive right in. They like them even better when they have immature seed pods on them. They can eat any kind of grass but lawn clippings from mowing aren't relished by them. They prefer grass in longer lengths.

Here is a link to a site where you can check the edibility of various plants.
http://www.feedipedia.org/

 

[bj taylor]

this thread is taking me much closer to getting my rabbits. armed with this information, I feel I can make a good start. of course i'll be doing my reading too.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

My son plays with one of the bucks and will get a piece of tough hay and they tug a war with it and if you do not do it first, Buttons will grab a piece of hay and start waving it around wanting you to pull on it. Can they eat the flowers on the clover? I have a lot of different types of grass growing in corners and behind things that have not been tilled or mowed. All these weeds came from horse manure. I need to take pictures so I know what I have. We have both white and red clover in the yard. What about the dandelion flowers, can they eat those?

The flowers are their favorite part. If I feed dandelions or red clover with flowers on them, they'll eat them first. I sometimes plant radishes and let them go to flower just as a treat for them. Zuchini leaves are too prickly for them but they gobble any of the flowers I give them from zuchini plants. Mine aren't too wild about mustard unless it is in flower, then they dive right in. They like them even better when they have immature seed pods on them. They can eat any kind of grass but lawn clippings from mowing aren't relished by them. They prefer grass in longer lengths.

Here is a link to a site where you can check the edibility of various plants.
http://www.feedipedia.org/

Thanks for the site. That is helpful. I picked a few of the clover flowers tonight. I am going Saturday to the Farmer's Market and to the feed store and check out the different kinds of rabbit food they have and change from Purina and keep increasing the greens. I do not see them stopping on the pellets yet. I went from 1-1/2 cups to 1, so the greens are going to have to go up a lot. They seem content and the droopings look normal right now.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

this thread is taking me much closer to getting my rabbits. armed with this information, I feel I can make a good start. of course i'll be doing my reading too.

Good luck with the rabbits. They are a lot of fun. I have noticed a big difference in our garden, trees and flowers this year and I am giving the credit to the rabbit manure and all the compost.

 

[bj taylor]

gardening with rabbits; that's so great to hear that you see improvement in your place and attribute it to rabbit manure.

 

[hoodat]

Consider rabbit manure a slow release fertilizer. It has to be broken down by the soil organisms to be useful. One thing you will notice is an increase in the earthworm population and that's usually an indicator of good soil.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Last fall we took compost we had been making and made a pile and started more compost. We sifted the litter boxes that have kiln dried pine wood chips and hay. We got the drooping and then underneath the hutch under the wire are boxes and we got all the droppings from those. We then took the lawnmower and ran over all our leaves and they went into the bag on the mower. We took compost from the piles and then put that on the garden, then put a layer of the shredded leaves and then the rabbit manure. Later towards winter we took the compost out of the bins and it was not finished, but we put that on top of the rabbit manure and started more bins. This spring if you took a shovel and dug in the garden you would get a shovelful of worms. We built a couple of new boxes. One we put lettuce and things like that. My husband put on the bottom some of the unfinished compost, then some cow manure, then compost and topsoil. The soil where the greens are is just wonderful. The other box we did not plant in until the other day. We were waiting for sweet potatoes to arrive. I went out and started turning that dirt over and it was UNREAL! Even my DH HUGE worms. One shovelful had maybe 20 worms in it. We have been making compost tea. We use finished compost and some of the unfinished and put in a bucket of water and let it sit a day and then pouring over flowers and trees, and now getting ready to use on the vegetables. The rabbit droppings are going on the compost pile and then in the fall we will put them on the garden. We do not put any on the garden during the growing season, but after being on the garden with the leaves and the compost they broke down and you could not see the were droopings, but I did put them around the rose bushes and fruit trees this spring.