How do you feed your rabbits hay?

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linsssey

linsssey

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Hey everyone! Quick Question!

How do you feed your rabbit(s) hay?. I have been using a hay rack, one of those plastic ones that attach on to the outside of the cage and the rabbit can pull the hay through the bars of the actual cage.

However little Melvin does not seem to be eating any. I have stuffed toilet paper rolls with hay and he seems to be having a lot of fun pulling it out and scattering it around his cage but I'm not really sure if he actually eats any of that either.

Also, when I buy hay, what qualities should I be looking for in it?

Any suggestions would be a big help! Thank you!
 
What else are you feeding and how much of each thing, and how old is he? If a rabbit is getting too many pellets, then it may be less inclined to eat hay. Also if he isn't used to eating hay, it may take a little while for him to get interested in it, and sometimes some rabbits just don't like certain kinds of grass hay, and you may just have to try different kinds til you find one that he likes.

Generally what you are looking for in a hay is a good green color and no mold. Mold has deadly toxins. Usually you don't have to worry about the petstore bags not being good, but a few people have on occasion gotten crappy hay in them. If you are getting baled hay, you want good quality horse hay, that is green on the inside of the bale, and has never been wet, and isn't moldy.

I don't much care for those hay racks that go on the outside of the cage, as I feel like my rabbits have a hard time getting to the hay. Unless you have really wide bar spacing for your cage. I either just place it on the floor, in a corner of their litter box, or small bin to hold hay. I feel that they eat their hay better if it is easily accessible, but that's just my buns. I made something similar to this litter box hay rack, for two of my rabbits, that seems to work well for them. They can't pee on the hay, and can't dig it out of the hay manger.

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f69/stormhaven-litter-system-step-step-instructions-48510/
 
I am not sure how old he is, but I assume that he is under 6 months. I give him 1/3 cup of an alfalfa based pellets each day but he does not eat all of them. I do not know that name off hand as my dad bought a large bag of them for the other rabbits and I brought a half of it to my apartment for Melvin.He also is given an occasional small treat of romaine lettuce(usually every other day). I purchased a small bag of alfalfa hay and one of timothy hay and have been mixing the two together (about half and half) I do not know much about his past, as we found him in a box next to a dumpster. So I am not sure if he has ever been given hay before, although the box he was found in had a very poor quality straw-like hay in it.

Unfortunately I have limited access to rabbit foods and hay because there are only two stores that sell them near my apartment and I am a little iffy about buying baled hay that is not filtered because I don't want it to have any bugs.

Peeing on his hay was one of the concerns that I had with placing it in his litter box, but perhaps I will try next to it and see if he does anything other than playing in it. I have grids at my parent's house that I had used for my late guinea pigs. Next time I go home I will see about making one of those systems!

Thanks so much for the advice!
 
We use a wire rack that hangs inside of the hutch--placed by the litter box so they can "lounge" and nibble--input near the place for output as it were. It's similar to the ones sold by Drs Foster and Smith. Since we live in the desert, I buy orchard grass from them for my bunnies too--less waste and dust.
 
I have a corner litter pan that I sit next to their large rectangular cat litter pan. It can be attached to the cage bars. I also give them a cardboard play box that I put hay in as well. Another option I use is a Puff kleenex box once I have used the Puffs, I stuff it with hay too. My buns have plenty of hay holder options & places around their xpen.
 
linsssey said:
Unfortunately I have limited access to rabbit foods and hay because there are only two stores that sell them near my apartment and I am a little iffy about buying baled hay that is not filtered because I don't want it to have any bugs.
Click to expand...

as long as you make sure that you're buying horse-quality hay, it won't have mold or bugs and should be perfectly safe to feed to rabbits (it's also a *fraction* of the cost of the pet store crap).

I got a wire rack in the kitchen storage department of walmart, cut some of the bars to make the holes larger and zip-tied coroplast to the back of it then hung it on my rabbits' pen for hay... I'll try to get a picture of it later today.
 
Try decreasing the pellets a little, maybe to a 1/4 cup, for a few days, just to see if that gets him eating his hay.
 
Combo methods. I have a trough/hay rack feeder I keep fully stocked. She'll pull hay from that when particularly hungry. I also stuff toilet paper rolls full of hay and she spends a lot of time throwing them and munching. A layer over the litter box also helps, I've found. She'll lay in the box, munch, pee, flop, munch, pee, etc. All else fails, adjust their eating schedule to give them smaller amounts of food at separate times of the day. Maybe that'll encourage him to graze on the hay?
 
Every rabbit is going to be a bit different, but here's what i do

In SoCal, so I luckily have a large varieties of hays to choose from. I give a mixture of timothy/oat/meadow in all litter boxes and have a pile on a towel in their eating area.

Since my rabbits are on a steady diet of 45/45 veggie/hay and 10% pellets diet, I sprinkle that 1/2 cup of pellets into the hay on the towel. With the hay and pellets, they have a foraging feast through out the day(natural habit in nature) and insure they get a healthy balance. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, it keeps them busy and less destructive on other areas of the apartment we still consider the "human" area. LOL

hope that helps,
 
For Conan I got a hay rack and hay in a corner of his litter box. For Xena she just has hay in a wire office bin hanging over her litter box. He eats his hay, but Xena devours hers usually.
 
I used to see people suggesting to put hay directly in the litter box. I too wasn't crazy about the idea of them peeing on it. However once I tried the suggestion, I found I had nothing to worry about.

I LOVE the ease of keeping hay in their litter box. They simply won't eat soiled hay, so that's not a concern. I refresh the hay 2 (or 3) times per day. Any pee seeps down to the wood pellets underneath, so they are never sitting directly on wet litter.

Here is how I set it up.

litter box set up b.jpg
 
I put hay in lots of places for Bandit. In his hutch I put some in his sleeping quarters (often a pile in addition to his wire hay ball which he likes to throw around). I put a pile at one end of the outdoor section of his hutch, then at the other end is his rectangular litter tray, 3/4 of the length of the litter tray is litter, and at the one end I fill it up with hay. He loves being able to sit in there while eating, it must be a rabbit thing. As for his pellets, he gets them partly as treats, partly with his meals, but I often scatter them in his hay so he has to forage.

If you rabbit really just isn't eating any hay, I would suggest perhaps trying a different variety or brand, it could be that it's a little off or he just doesn't like that type of hay. Best of luck.
 
here's where this thread went! I got a pic of my hay rack. I decided I like the wider openings on the top better, I just haven't gotten around to modifying the bottom:

DSCF1436_zps6ec4862e.jpg
 
I agree with the others about using a few different 'delivery' methods.

I put some in their litterpans, and I have an old oatmeal can right now that I've removed the plastic ring from and the bottom (so it's a tube). I stuff it with hay. I also have a hay rack hung above the litterpan.

I got some hay and the hay rack from this place. GREAT quality hay, cheaper than getting it at the pet store. And the rack is pretty nifty. I would def buy from them again. I only have to refill my hay rack every other day and my 2 mini rexs eat quite a bit of hay. So if I go away for the weekend, I don't worry about them running out.

http://bunnybale.com/

Also, maybe try hay cubes too. I can get a 50lb bag at Tractor Supply for around $15. I get the timothy/alfalfa cubes, and that amount will last forever. You just have to keep it someplace dry. My guys love to gnaw on the cubes. It satisfies their need to chew on stuff, and they get to eat some hay too.

I like the idea of sprinkling the pellets on top of the hay to give them something to do.
 
Thanks everyone for all the tips and tricks!

This weekend I was able to find some grass-type hay and i mixed that in with my timothy and alfalfa. I placed the mixture in the litter pan to see if that would entice Melvin into eating. I also filled some toilet-paper rolls with just the grass hay. Over the weekend he did not touch they hay in the litter pan but did seem to nibble on the hay in roll if I held it up like a treat.

This morning I decided to use the foraging trick that someone mentioned, by placing the hay on the floor and mixing pellets in. I just came back now from class to a happy bunny munching on hay! I am so glad that it worked.

I am still going to look into making a hay rack or purchasing the one from home-depot that someone mentioned, to see if I can hang it over the litter pan to reduce some of the mess and waste but at least now I have a bunny that will eat hay!

IMG_1495.jpg
 
ewww, bunnybale.com ships via UPS >< UPS and Fedex are SUCH rip-offs, I have no idea how they even stay in business.

for anyone who lives in [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]CA, NV, OR, WA, UT, ID, AZ, NM, CO, WY, MT, TX, OK, KS, NE or SD (though they list SD twice which makes me wonder if there's a state they left off) and has a bunny that won't eat feed store hay (my picky little bunny butts won't eat coastal, the brats), I recommend trying Sierra Valley hay[/FONT][FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif] - when I was ready to give up on my bunnies EVER being good little hay eaters and suffering with feeding stupid oat hay (which involves picking out all the oats)[/FONT][FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif], someone on RO mentioned Sierra Valley hay. I figured it was worth a shot and ordered a box of oat hay (because it was WAY cheaper than the oxbow oat I'd gotten through the feed store, which was $27 for 9 lbs) and a box of orchard/alfalfa hay. I expected them to shun the orchard/alfalfa like they had the dozen or so other hays I'd tried... but to my surprise, they started devouring it as soon as I put some out! I'm not thrilled about the alfalfa part since they're about 10 months old now, but it's only 20% and it's better than them not eating hay.

anyway, the sierra valley stuff looks and smells SO fresh compared to pet store hay and even feed store bales. it's $33.49 for a 20 lb box if you live in a "west coast" state (which, luckily for me, includes texas) and 42.95 if you live in the midwest or on the east coast (shipping is included in the prices). last time I ordered, I asked if I could buy a small sample each of their 1st and 2nd cut timothy and 2nd cut orchard or maybe get the samples in place of the 5 extra lbs you get free if you buy two 20 lb boxes - they gave me very generous samples of all three for free in addition to the 5 extra pounds. the customer service is great and the guy who answers emails and such for them is *really* nice.
[/FONT]
 
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