Another Hay question.

[spoh]

How often do you change the hay that is in the cage? Let me explain a bit, we get Lucy's hay from two horse farms. She does like it and does fine with it, never has any problems. Once or twice a day I put a rather large chunk in her cage, she picks through and gets out the "good stuff" first and then only eats the left overs if absolutely necessary. SO if put in a large chunk and she has quite a bit left at night time should I add more or encourage her to eat the stuff that she really doesn't want to. She reminds me of the Bambi movie and the part where Thumper says " just eat the flower, it's the good part" I feel like I waste quite a bit of hay because of her foraging habits. Should I assume that because she is leaves so much that she doesn't like the hay or have I just spoiled her so that she knows I will give her more of the "good stuff" anyway so why eat the other?

Joy

 

[Flashy]

I've also found that mine prefer fresh smelling hay, as opposed to hay that smells of them, so they get smaller amounts of hay more often, than giving a big lump of hay that only get half eaten.

I give mine a big load of hay, and then give little bits in the day so they always have stuff to eat, and they generally eat about 95% of the little bit that I put in by the time I give them more (when I say a little bit, I just grab a handful of hay, whereas I would normally give maybe ten handfuls for bedding).

I'm not even sure if that makes sense :/

 

[Marietta]

My bunny does exactly the same: he prefers to eat the hay freshly put into his house and not theone that hasbeen lefttherefor hours. However, I'm not even sure that it's the fresh smell that entices him to take a bite (he's also so picky and spoilt rotten!), because sometimes, in order to check on him, I pretend to put fresh hay in his hay rack, whilst I onlypush outthehandful already there; he then jumps right on it and starts eating! Go figure!

Marietta

 

[maherwoman]

I think you guys are ON to something here!

I don't have the time to give them several small helpings of hay throughout the day, but we buy 120lb bales of hay for $20 here, so we're able to go ahead and give each about 1/2lb of hay daily. They eat quite a bit of it, and what they don't eat isn't a huge waste, due to the low price we pay for the hay. We put their hay on top of their litter in their litterboxes, so we throw all hay out every other day.

It's funny, too...I can hear them get all excited behind me as I face away, getting the first helping of hay for the day...it's so cute! One moment, they're asleep...the next, they're wide awake, hopping around, this one dancing (SweetPea), that one trying to look as cute as possible (Flower), the boy looking at me with a wounded look like he's not had hay EVER (Fiver), while one sits posing as beautifully as possible, while you can FEEL her going "HURRY UP!!" (Maisie), and then you have the one that sits there and GLARES at you for taking so long to get to her (Trixie, hehe!).

They're so funny!