Winter Foraging

Suppose you have run out of pellets and have no access to more and it's winter. Hopefully you preserved feed from the previous summer such as hay (grass, alfalfa, tree foliage, twigs, bark), fodder beets, silage or grain for sprouts but you didn't and it's the zombie apocalypse (or insert other societal collapse). Now suppose there is 3 feet of snow. The ground is frozen and covered, so the only option is harvesting from trees. That leaves bark, twigs and buds.

Can our rabbits survive on that? Many herbivores do just that every winter. Rodents burrow under the snow and girdle the bark from young trees and eat the young stems and buds from last summer's growth. Snowshoe hares work above the snow and select the most nutritious browse they can reach. Deer browse what they can get at, even standing on hind legs to reach the tips of new growth. Our advantage is that we are built to stand on our hind legs and can come up with other ways to reach and harvest last years growth.

Don't despair, trees have their advantages, sending roots deep into the earth tapping water sources and minerals unreachable by the meadow plants normally harvested for livestock fodder. Tree roots can seek out new depths and go where other roots have not gone, whereas pasture plants compete with each other for the soil in the top few feet. Through the summer they store proteins and carbohydrates in their bark in preparation for the following Spring. 

Today Jordan and I went out for a foraging trip for the rabbits. We gathered some dormant Chinese/Siberian elm and Russian-olive branches, they are not yet in leaf.

Both of these are invasive tree species that grow everywhere in our area that they can get a foot hold. It might seem crazy to be gathering bare branches in the winter to feed rabbits but they really love them. A year ago I would have blown off the idea, assuming that bark and twigs would have little to no nutritional value. After feeding them through the summer and after further research, I've changed my mind. I'm not ready yet to say that they are a complete food but plan to do more feeding trials and see how well rabbits keep their weight on. This may be anecdotal but I've had no digestive problems or diarrhea since feeding Chinese elm and Russian olive branches.

This strip of Siberian Elm is behind a thrift store and strip mall.

These large Siberian Elm are bordering various commercial properties.

Along freeway frontage roads and railroad right of ways you can find lots of Siberian Elm and Russian Olive.

Can't resist the Russian olive bark.

Fresh load of elm & Russian olive

 I bought a book entitled "Black Elk Speaks" from a thrift store. He was a Lakota Sioux medicine man who lived through the time of Custer and Wounded Knee. Many people consider it a spiritual book but I found the description of how they lived interesting. In the winter they'd camp near groves of cottonwood trees. The women would go out and coppice the trees and bring back the bark and younger branches to feed their horses. He claimed that horses fed this way remained fat through the winter. Some references to trapper journals also say the same thing.

The trees we gathered are new introductions to the environment so they were not available during Black Elk's time. However I have seen references for elm being used for tree hay in Europe and Russian olive being used for livestock fodder in central Asia. Also did some googling and found studies that suggest the proteins get stored in the bark at high levels during the winter in many trees.

I'm not sure the real food value. I'll be doing further study and trials with my stock.

Kits enjoying bark, buds and twigs.

Afterward, use for kindling or chip for mulch