The Rabbit House» grow-your-own Archives – The Rabbit House

Making Winter Forage

Tamsin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:01:23 +0000

This time last year I was writing about all the rabbit safe plants that I found in my garden for Scamp to enjoy. I’ve been picking leaves again and Scamp’s been enjoying them, but I know shortly autumn will turn them all pretty colours and that will be it for tasty leaves until next spring. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was some way to store them up so Scamp could eat them all year around? Well, maybe there is. My experiment with making my own hay proved that it was possible to store tasty summer grass for eating later (I’ve made several more batches since), so why not do the same with other plants.

I started by collected a pile of tasty looking leaves. Look for green healthy looking ones without blemishes (or bugs) and collect them on a dry day.

Dandelion, thistle, strawberry, hazel, ginko, raspberry & basil leaves

Don’t forget to get your bunnies approval, there is not point going to the trouble of drying and storing leaves your bunny won’t eat. Scamp gives all these a pass on the taste test. I divided my pile in two, half for his supper and half to dry out.

Just checking the flavour!

The leaves for drying, the ones Scamp hadn’t eaten, I spread out on a tea tray on top of a couple of sheets of kitchen roll:

Then I popped them in the airing cupboard where it is warm and dry. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but it was surprisingly fast! In just 4 days they looked like this:

It’s surprising how much they shrink! The Ginko leaves (which are thicker) needed a couple more days but everything else was dry and crispy. But the big question is, do they still pass the bunny taste test?

The answer is yes, Scamp seems just about as excited about dry leaves and the fresh ones. So I’m going to be drying a lot more leaves to provide tasty, home grown, rabbit food full of vitamins and completely free!

Other was to Dry Plants for Your Rabbit

There are several ways to dry out leaves for storage:

Leave them somewhere warm and dry like I did … I put mine in the airing cupboard! It takes 4-5 days to dry them out.
Lay them out outside and let the sunshine do the work. The drawback is you need sunshine! You may want to stretch a bit of clear plastic above them to keep the rain off.
Use your oven. You can dry leaves in an oven on the lowest heat setting, or better yet, save energy and just use the leftover heat after you’ve cooked something. The downside is you can’t fit much in at once and something can be a little stinky. I doesn’t take long though (about 15minutes), we did this with Scamp’s first greens when he was a tiny baby.

Is my Rabbit too Fat? And other things…

Tamsin — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:35:56 +0000

Don’t worry, Scamp hasn’t been over indulging; he’s been helping me by modelling for an article on bunny weight. Have you ever seen the photoshoped pictures of models where they airbrush out the lumps and bumps, and drop them two dress sizes? Well it was Scamp’s turn! Here is the original:

And here is the ‘photoshoped’ version with the too fat and too thin versions added:

If you want to read the whole article it’s here: Is my Rabbit too fat or too thin? Monitoring your rabbits Weight

There are a few things I’ve been meaning to mention. First is a competition running on another site I manage for free seeds to grow your rabbit some dandelion, carrot and broccoli – good healthy snacks! Enter the competition here – also handy if your looking for bunny boarding.

Finally, I think this is one that most of you will have heard of, but I just wanted to add a plug for the Make Mine Chocolate Easter campaign. The are organising an amnesty with pet shops to discourage sales of rabbits over the Easter period as well as plugging rabbit welfare in general. They have some very snazzy posters you can put up to help get the message across. Anything that helps rabbit welfare, whilst encouraging the eating of chocolate gets thumbs up from me!

Oops, nearly forgot. I added little bookmarking icons to each post too, just in case you want to email, print or post something to social network.

Plants for Bunnies

Tamsin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:53:21 +0000

By this time of year we’re on top of the weeding so there is a bit of a shortage of dandelions, thistles etc. to add to the bunnies diet. So I was thinking about what other plants we had they can eat and once I started adding it up there were quite a few (and our garden isn’t that big!).

I found:

Apple
Hazel
Ginko
Rose
Raspberry
Blackberry
Strawberry
Grape
Nasturtium
Sage
Rosemary
Basil

I did find a little bit of clover and a baby dandelion.

Then I wondered, which would they actually want to eat? Non toxic doesn’t necessarily mean tasty. So I gave Scamp a little bit of each to see which he’d go for first. Can you guess?

See if you got it right…

That’s a yumm to strawberry leaves, ginko, apple, clover and rose, then he decided the pile of grass from earlier was a better option and skipped off.

What’s your bunnies favourite and do you have any other plant ideas?

Bunny Money Saving: How much is your lawn worth?

Tamsin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:15:55 +0000

How many rabbit owners cut their grass, throw away the clippings, and then go out and buy hay for their rabbit?

On the left of the picture is a bowl of grass – I’ve been cutting one each day since the grass started growing this spring. It’s totally free. On the right is a bag of hay, it costs £2.25 and the rabbits usually go through one of these about every 10 days. However I’ve noticed the last bag I brought is still half full and checking back I got it a month ago. Eating more grass means they eat less hay.

With a little bit of maths that means the bunnies hay budget has dropped from 22p per day to 4p. In other words that bowl of grass is ‘worth’ about 18p. That doesn’t sound like much but it adds up, that’s £5 per month (i.e. the cost of getting pet insurance) or if you prefer £65 per year – more than enough to cover vaccinations and some new toys.

So grass is good for your bunny and good for your pocket – are you convinced? What will you spend your savings on?

Note: Don’t forget to introduce grass gradually if your bun isn’t used to it.

mmm fruity!

Tamsin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:13:44 +0000

Look at these strawberries… I brought them as bare root plants a few months ago and they are now producing some very tasty strawberries. Home grown strawberries are soo much tastier that shop brought and so much more economical too. They were on offer so twelve plants cost the same as one tray of strawberries from the supermarket. Once they are done producing strawberries they’ll start sending out runners to create more plants which means even more strawberries next year – for free!

The strawberries aren’t the only fruit growing well. The raspberries and blackberries are beginning to plump up, and the grapes aren’t far behind.

The bunnies like our attempts at fruit growing too. Rabbit’s can eat strawberry leaves and tops.. and strawberries of course (if there were any left). I have to keep chasing Gypsy away from the raspberries.

Growing Carrots in Containers

Tamsin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:54:51 +0000

A few weeks ago I sowed my first carrots of the year and they are just poking their noses up now. I don’t have a lot of ground space so my carrots are in containers. I tried this for the first time last year and it worked really well. Lots of carrots for us to eat and lots of carrot tops for the rabbits to eat (and maybe the odd carrot too).

Here’s how you do it (photos from last year):

Something to Grow In

I use plastic storage boxes for my carrots but any deepish container will work eg a big flower pot, box or bucket. My storage boxes were see-through so I’ve taped black plastic around from an old compost bag, that way the carrots aren’t in the light. If you are really short on space you can grow small carrots in window boxes. You can also use a plastic bottle with the top cut off. You won’t get giant carrots but you can keep harvesting the tops for a healthy treat for you bunny.

Check your container has holes, mine didn’t so I use a drill to add holes to the bottom. Otherwise they will fill with water when it rains and flood your carrots!

Fill your container with compost or soil, any general purpose compost will do. If you have some to hand then mix in a bit of sharp sand. Carrots like nice loose soil to grow in, not heavy clay, so it’s easy for them to get their roots through.

Seeds and Sowing

If you try buying carrot seeds you’ll find lots of varieties to pick from. Read the packet to see what features they have. If your growing in containers avoid ones that claim to be really long show carrots. I’m growing Early Nantes, Chantenay Red Core (from the BBC), and Parmex. The later are round carrots (like a gold ball) and are meant to be great for growing in shallow containers or clay/stoney ground. When you are buying seeds it’s worth having a look at children’s seeds, often they have the same varieties but at pocket money prices.

To sow the seeds draw a line in the soil about 1/2″ (1cm) deep, then sprinkle the seeds thinly. I aim for one seed every inch. Draw the lines about an inch apart too. If you don’t mind fiddly sowing an alternative is to poke holes with a pencil and drop a seed in each. Again aim for a grid with the seeds 1″ apart in each direction. Don’t worry too much about planting them the exact distance apart though. If you get them too close you can thin them out and give the spare plants to your rabbit.

It will take the seeds 2-3 weeks to germinate so wait patiently. You can speed it up a bit by putting a bit of plastic over to keep it warmer. Take it off once they germinate.

Thinning & Harvest

If you managed to get your seeds about 1″ apart they shouldn’t need too much thinning at first. Once they start pushing again each other start harvesting them as baby carrots, taking out every other carrot to leave the others room to grow.

If you want a really long harvest period then sow your carrots in batches 3-4 weeks apart, then you’ll have some ready all summer. They keep well in the ground too so you can leave them in containers and although they won’t grow more there will still be carrots to pull up in autumn/winter.

If you cut the tops whilst they grow you’ll get smaller carrots, so try taking a few leaves from each instead of the whole lot if you are using them as bunny snack food.

So, anyone going to give it a go?

Bunny Food on the Window Sill

Tamsin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:40:57 +0000

In the quest for more leafy greens I’m experimenting with a bit of window sill growing. Two weeks ago I sowed timothy grass, dandelion and carrots seeds to see which would be most productive. The grass is off to the best start with quick germination and 3 inches of growth already. The carrots are slightly slower and the dandelion (the weeds that will grow anywhere) haven’t even shown their heads yet!

Poor bunnies, still a bit of a wait before there is anything to eat. Later on this month I’m going to be starting my proper carrots off and I’ll post some easy instructions in case anyone else wants a go.