milk-fed rabbits

A correspondent and veterinarian friend in CA sent this note:

Good evening Shawn and Beth

Hope all is well with you.  A few years ago, I had mentioned the possibility of extending your concept of feeding waste milk to other species, namely, rabbits.  It seemed like it might be a good fit with your whole concept of reducing purchased inputs by supplementing a home-raised diet with milk.

I still have not tried the experiment - we are in a busy stage of life with 21/2 children in diapers- but I learned a few things on that subject that I thought I would pass on.

1) Some time ago, an elderly "goat lady" type client was showing me around her rabbitry.  She told me that orphan bunnies will do well on goats milk, and since she has been doing this for most of her life, I find it believable.  

2) I took a page from your playbook and consulted the old-farming books, via google books.  Sure enough, feeding milk to rabbits brings up quite a few hits.  It also looks like cow's milk will work, as well as goat milk..

So, I just thought I would pass the info along.  I am not currently in the life stage to try it, but maybe you know someone that would.  I'm imagining a small rabbitry, bred on a less intensive schedule of maybe 4 litters/doe/yr, subsisting primarily on garden weeds and vegetable byproducts, with a daily infusion of raw milk/kefir to bring the ration up to par..  

For those of your readers who are on too small an acreage to be able to maintain cows and pigs, a combination of goats, chickens, and rabbits, with the chickens and rabbits both being supplemented with goat milk, could quite possibly allow subsistence on a very small plot of land.  Plus, it might be a useful option as well for those of us with more land, who are  looking for something to replace the corn-intensive Cornish Cross broiler.

Just a thought

Let me know if anyone tries it.

(The image is of jars of cheese curd on a cool pantry shelf - surplus milk put up in forms easy to feed to poultry - or rabbits.)