Planning - The Native American Winter Horse Feed Experiment

I'm finding many references to Native Americans and trappers feeding their horses cottonwood branches and bark during the winter. Louis and Clark witnessed prized horses kept in great condition through the winter on this diet. Time to put this winter diet to a test on domestic rabbits. I'm a bit skeptical of much success but if weanling rabbits can gain wait on tree bark, that's very valuable knowledge to have if any catastrophe happened during winter months.

I have a couple litters that will be ready to wean in a couple weeks. Here's the plan for my first experiment on this feed:

1) Choose two rabbits from each litter and place in grow out pen on their own. Keep fed with a steady supply of branches from cottonwood, siberian elm, aspen, russian olive and willow.

2) Two other rabbits from each litter will be weighed and monitored for comparison as the control group. They will be fed a typical diet with some pellets always available.

3) Weigh rabbits every three days.

4) Keep experiment going until rabbits reach 10 weeks or reach butcher weight.

5) End experiment early if rabbits lose weight or appear in poor condition.

Keep tuned, I'll be posting pictures at the start and weekly updates throughout the experiment.