"BrownThumb" wrote in message ...
"Ignoramus3274" wrote in message
...
I asked this question in misc.rural already, but want to run it by a
few more people. Can meat/fur rabbits survive if they are being fed a
diet that is mostly lawn clippings? I am upset that I waste so much
time and lawn grass due to all this mandatory lawn trimming, and am
thinking about having rabbits between months of May/October, or some
such, and feed them lawn trimmings. will it work?

I lived next door to rabbit-for-food owners for a coupla years. My
understanding from people who raise other livestock is that grass is
not varied enough for much of any animal, all by itself. I'd compost
the grass, use it to grow other things, feed the other things to the
rabbits. My neighbors fed the rabbits all of their edible vegetable kitchen
clippings.

My neighbor too, plus some hay, and the rabbits are fat and healthy.
They are a large family who eat their veggies, so they produce about a
gallon of scraps per day. Some of the stuff is obvious, like carrot
tops, but the rabbits eat bread and apple, potato and banana peels
too. They will happily eat discarded groceries, like half rotten
apples or past -its-prime lettuce. Anything except orange peels or
other weird stuff, like pineapple tops. They do love dandelions and
clover from the yard, but do not care much for clippings, though I
think they will eat them if they are the only green they get. If one
is to serve them scraps and pesticide-free, very fresh grass clippings
(cut grass goes bad in a day) perhaps a little high energy dry food
(like oats) will make their diet balanced. Rabbits really are the
cheapest meat to raise. Too bad the racoons like them as well.