Feed is the biggest running cost on a rabbit farm, and in Uzbekistan rabbit-specific pellets are hard to find and expensive. Most successful farms mix their own. A well-made home mix can match a bought pellet and even beat it. A careless one is exactly how bloat, diarrhoea and slow growth start.
The target: protein and fibre
A balanced rabbit ration contains roughly 15–17% crude protein and 14–16% crude fibre. Fibre is not optional: it keeps fermentation in the caecum working properly. A diet heavy in starchy grain and short on fibre is a classic cause of diarrhoea.
In a controlled trial in Tatarstan, a protein-balanced grain mix outperformed an industrial pellet. So the problem with farm feeding is not the lack of pellets; it is the lack of balance. Plain grain and hay thrown together by eye is not a balanced ration.
Local lucerne, grain and bran vary in composition. Ask an animal-feed specialist (zootechnician) to calculate a recipe for your ingredients once. Successful farms usually have one.
The building blocks
- Roughage: hay and lucerne (beda). The base of the diet all year and most of it in winter. It should be dry, sweet-smelling and free of mould and dust. Store it under a roof and off the ground. Weigh one bale, because every hay calculation depends on its real weight. A farm with 25 does needs roughly 3.5–4.5 tonnes of hay a year.
- Energy: grain. Barley stands in for oats, which are hardly grown in Uzbekistan; wheat and maize are also used. Feed only clean, dry, mould-free grain.
- Bran. Adds fibre and a little protein. Buy it fresh; stale bran spoils and clogs feeders.
- Protein: sunflower cake or meal. Sunflower, soy or flax meal are all acceptable for rabbits.
- Minerals. Feed chalk and a phosphorus source belong in a balanced mix; let the feed specialist set the amounts.
- Greens in season: lucerne, clover, dandelion, plantain, nettle and mulberry leaves. In Uzbek conditions green forage can be fed for more than six months of the year. Feed it slightly wilted, and never wet, frozen or spoiled.
Two local traps
Cottonseed cake. Thanks to the cotton industry it is cheap and everywhere in Uzbekistan, but it is dangerous for rabbits. It contains gossypol, a toxin that builds up with repeated feeding, and Russian feed-toxicology sources do not list cottonseed among the meals that are safe for rabbits. When a seller offers "kunjara" (oilcake), always ask which seed it was made from.
Poultry and cattle feed. Its fibre profile is wrong for rabbits, and poultry feed often contains coccidiostats that are unsafe for them. Do not feed chicken pellets just because they are pellets.
Also keep apricot, cherry and plum prunings well away from the greens pile, because these trees contain compounds that release cyanide. And watch out for the usual poisonous plants: datura, buttercup, hemlock, potato and tomato tops, rhubarb leaves, and ornamental garden flowers and their bulbs.
Change feed over 7 days
A rabbit's digestion depends on a stable community of gut microbes. A sudden change upsets it, and the result can be fatal bloat or diarrhoea.
- Introduce any new feed, whether a new mix, a different brand of bag, hay from a new supplier or the first spring greens, over 5–7 days, starting small and increasing gradually.
- For example: a small share at first, about half by mid-week, and fully the new feed by the end of the week.
- The 20–30 days after weaning are the most dangerous period, so do not change feed then.
- When you buy rabbits, ask what they were fed and start with that.
Pellets or home mix: the economics in general terms
- Feed is the largest cost. When prices in Angren were compared, a kilo of locally sold rabbit pellets cost roughly 2.5 times as much as a home mix.
- Pellets are convenient, consistent and easy to put in a hopper. Genuine commercial hybrids generally need full-ration pellets to perform as advertised.
- A home mix is cheaper but needs good ingredients, storage space and a correct recipe.
- One number matters more than the ration: how many kits each doe raises to weaning per year. A doe eats about the same whether she raises 5 kits or 8, so better kit survival lowers the feed cost per rabbit sold more than switching feed does.
- Growing fodder on a small plot rarely pays. A small lucerne patch returns very little compared with buying in bulk, and you may need the land for the shed.
Water
Water should always be clean and always available. A rabbit that stops eating or drinking is often showing the first sign of illness, so hand-feed at least once a day and watch your animals.
Checklist
- Target 15–17% protein and 14–16% fibre
- Hay or lucerne always available
- Sunflower cake for protein, never cottonseed
- No poultry or cattle feed
- Every feed change spread over 5–7 days
- Greens dry, never wet or frozen
- Apricot, cherry and plum prunings kept separate
- Grain and hay free of mould
Common mistake: Switching to a cheaper feed overnight because a good deal came up. Even a better feed can kill if it is introduced in one day. Buy the new feed before the old one runs out, so you have a week to mix them.
