How do you keep down the cost of owning rabbits?

Graciee said:

Oo I didn't know that about kale plants I grow lots of herbs and human food, but not much bun food other than so forage type things and herbs... Should I wait til next spring to plant so kale seeds? Or can I do it whenever indoors?

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You can plant kale now I've got baby plants growing because my older ones have had it for now.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/grow-your-own/vegetables/kale

It overwinters, and so did much of my other stuff, including celery, such to my amazement! (It continued through the snow and is still producing leaves for the buns )

Ah thanks MM and Omi very useful ima see if I can buy some seeds this weekend x

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I only spend on hay, pellets, litter and vets (in increasing expense), but with healthy buns that's not much. I probably spend £350 a year for them, but that doesn't include stuff like new non-destructible equipment, acute vet visits, etc., but does include destructible toys (a 3-pack of balls from Wilko every 3-4 months, a big willow ball occasionally) and treats (a pack of hay cookies at the same frequency). My OH forages along the canal on his way back from work or goes out special for them every day They get veg if we're eating it as well, but nothing special. I do spend more on toys and food but that ends up going to rescues.

Got a family contact for hay so not too much expense there. For pellets I keep an eye on Nottcutts' website as they reduce the 10kg bags of Science Selective to about £11 each fairly regularly and I buy three bags at a time which lasts about a year with my three.

As for veg I try to buy as much as I can from Tesco's really reduced veg corner and supplement it with veg scraps from me and my parents as well as a bit of full price veg. My Dad also has a veg patch so anything that is past harvesting for us to eat eg Brussel Sprout/Kale/Sweetcorn stalks then the rabbits get as well as anything else that is rabbit edible that we won't eat. Recently had a batch of Perpetual Spinach that went to seed and the hooligans seemed to like that over Cabbage.

Biggest expense is the vet bills mainly for vaccination luckily although Sylvester did cost about £100 this year to sort his tear duct out.

I also grow Rosemary, Sage and Lavender which they get when it needs trimming back. Want to grow more herbs but currently battling rather a lot of Convulvulus to put anything new in the soil.

That’s interesting about kale plants - I bought kale last year and it didn’t grow well where do you grow them, in the ground or in pots? although I have a good sized garden I don’t have any planting areas so I can only grow in pots. I would love to manage to actually grow something!

Casco said:

That’s interesting about kale plants - I bought kale last year and it didn’t grow well where do you grow them, in the ground or in pots? although I have a good sized garden I don’t have any planting areas so I can only grow in pots. I would love to manage to actually grow something!

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I grow Kale, spinach, tomatoes, chard etc etc both in the ground and in pots. I like to have some in pots near the house so I can get to them easily when I need them for the buns and for me Also the buns enjoy ripping leaves off when they decide I don't give them enough to eat!

I have 9 rabbits - I spend about £20 - £25 a month on hay, half that if I can get my friend to add some bales onto her horse delivery as she pays much less per bale for buying in bulk.

I buy big bags of pellets which easily last 6 months as I feed very little, its mainly the oldies who need it to maintain weight.

At the moment I probably spend £10 a week on veg/herbs but this year I've started growing things for the buns and hope to make this more long term. Not for money, but I'm enjoying it and the buns are certainly loving having it fresh from the ground.

I try and forage but I'm only comfortable picking things like plantain, dandelions, cleavers, brambles as I don't trust myself. I need to find someone to teach me so I can forage more confidently as I've loads of opportunity by my house.

Amy104 said:

I have 9 rabbits - I spend about £20 - £25 a month on hay, half that if I can get my friend to add some bales onto her horse delivery as she pays much less per bale for buying in bulk.

I buy big bags of pellets which easily last 6 months as I feed very little, its mainly the oldies who need it to maintain weight.

At the moment I probably spend £10 a week on veg/herbs but this year I've started growing things for the buns and hope to make this more long term. Not for money, but I'm enjoying it and the buns are certainly loving having it fresh from the ground.

I try and forage but I'm only comfortable picking things like plantain, dandelions, cleavers, brambles as I don't trust myself. I need to find someone to teach me so I can forage more confidently as I've loads of opportunity by my house.

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I wish I could come down and help you. We could forage together
I'm not with world's best forager but I went and learned from Twigs and that was enormously helpful

Casco said:

That’s interesting about kale plants - I bought kale last year and it didn’t grow well where do you grow them, in the ground or in pots? although I have a good sized garden I don’t have any planting areas so I can only grow in pots. I would love to manage to actually grow something!

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Personally, I would always grow Kale in the ground. Our Kale plants grow to about 1.5m and so as you can imagine the root is fairly large. If you did grow it in a pot, it would have to be quite substantial I reckon.

In pots I would grow Tomatoes, Capsicums, Cucumber, Lettuce, Coriander, Parsley, Thyme, Basil, Mint and Rocket. Out of those, if you want to sow now, I would pick Lettuce, Coriander and Parsley. If you can find yourself a plant of Lemon Balm, that would also be ideal. The rabbits will love it and also the plant will last for several years.

If your rabbits will eat meadow hay, buying baled hay is much cheaper:thumb: Readigrass and similar can be bought more cheaply in large sacks. However, Frosty went off baled hay, so I now have to buy posh hay for him. There is hardly any waste as he likes it so much more, and as I only have him, and he’s a diddy bunny the cost is manageable. Getting samples was a great money saver, as I could tell which he loved, which he wasn’t bothered about, and which he wouldn’t even touch! If you can store it, buying larger bags of hay works out cheaper than smaller packs. And often delivery is free over a certain amount which helps. I’ve found serving hay in troughs (aka extra long loaf tins I found in the charity shop) and a basket at the end of his litter tray helps cut down on waste too.

I’m practically down to zero waste hay now, if there’s any clean hay on the floor that gets swept into a bag and the goats eat it! But getting goats is not a money saver :lol:

I try to buy in bulk for hay and readigrass. I put £30 a month away into a 90 day account each month for vets bills. Colleagues recycle newspaper for me to use and I go whoops shopping a lot. Every dog walk results in a little more forage being brought home. I also visit the local market and ask it they have any "rabbit veg" this tends to be cauli leaves and "mis-shaped" veg or veg that is bruised /bumped on one side that I need to cut down - it costs me pence only

Omi said:

Personally, I would always grow Kale in the ground. Our Kale plants grow to about 1.5m and so as you can imagine the root is fairly large. If you did grow it in a pot, it would have to be quite substantial I reckon.

In pots I would grow Tomatoes, Capsicums, Cucumber, Lettuce, Coriander, Parsley, Thyme, Basil, Mint and Rocket. Out of those, if you want to sow now, I would pick Lettuce, Coriander and Parsley. If you can find yourself a plant of Lemon Balm, that would also be ideal. The rabbits will love it and also the plant will last for several years.

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I do have plenty space to create an area for planting, I just don’t have the time for the foreseeable future to actually do it but hopefully maybe I can do it next spring. I have mint, parsley and coriander growing in large pots - the mint is growing ok but not to the extent that there’s enough to feed the rabbits with! Parsley & coriander haven’t died but aren’t particularly shooting up :lol: last year I also tried baby carrots (mainly to get the tops to feed to the bunnies!) as well as kale. I bought them from the garden centre rather than growing from seed and I would probably have got more kale from the supermarket for the cost. I am just hopeless at growing anything other than weeds :lol:

Casco said:

I do have plenty space to create an area for planting, I just don’t have the time for the foreseeable future to actually do it but hopefully maybe I can do it next spring. I have mint, parsley and coriander growing in large pots - the mint is growing ok but not to the extent that there’s enough to feed the rabbits with! Parsley & coriander haven’t died but aren’t particularly shooting up :lol: last year I also tried baby carrots (mainly to get the tops to feed to the bunnies!) as well as kale. I bought them from the garden centre rather than growing from seed and I would probably have got more kale from the supermarket for the cost. I am just hopeless at growing anything other than weeds :lol:

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What I did was put loads of carrot seeds into an old recycling box full of earth and harvested the tops just as you did. I found that crowding the carrots meant more tops and they were very prolific.

I only started growing things last year and I'm pretty rubbish. I won't attempt herbs as I think they are too difficult. My kale is in pots on my patio as I find the slugs etc can't reach it so easily and I can also keep a watch for any butterflies who want to lay their eggs on it!

Yeah we do have quite a lot of slugs around. I also put a mesh barrier around the edge of my pots to stop bunny raids :lol: although they can’t get out at the moment until I finish the work I’m doing on the fence.

The butterfly eggs is something I hadn’t even considered until recently - my daughter has been growing sunflowers on her windowsill, my dad was watering my plants while we were on holiday and put her sunflowers outside to make it easier to water them. It would appear that a butterfly has indeed laid eggs on one of them and she is raging that one of her plants is almost destroyed and there are some holes in the others! It took a couple of days to realise what was going on, she kept finding caterpillars that hadn’t been there earlier!

Casco said:

Yeah we do have quite a lot of slugs around. I also put a mesh barrier around the edge of my pots to stop bunny raids :lol: although they can’t get out at the moment until I finish the work I’m doing on the fence.

The butterfly eggs is something I hadn’t even considered until recently - my daughter has been growing sunflowers on her windowsill, my dad was watering my plants while we were on holiday and put her sunflowers outside to make it easier to water them. It would appear that a butterfly has indeed laid eggs on one of them and she is raging that one of her plants is almost destroyed and there are some holes in the others! It took a couple of days to realise what was going on, she kept finding caterpillars that hadn’t been there earlier!

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Yes I know, pretty devastating if you don't cover them in fine net, and who wants to do that all the time?

I just give a quick look and remove any eggs.
I feel mean, but the rabbits tell me there will only be 'lacy kale' if I don't, so I have to