Rabbit doesn't eat much hay

[michellexgix]

My rabbit doesn't seem to eat much hay. I feed him 'medow hay' as its all I can find but I am looking for timothy hay. He is 8ish months and I have him for 2ish months. He gets a bowl ful of veggies in the morning, which is just less than a cupful. He gets wide amounts of vegetables. His dry food was a mixed type food but he slected fed so I changed it to 'Supa Burgess Excel' within the past 4 weeks.

He will eat the hay is I randomly pop it on top of the cage or if I put it up to his face but he wont go up and eat much of it.

How can I get him to eat more hay?

 

[SOOOSKA]

Hi have you tried to put some hay in his litter box? All of my rabbits eat TONS of hay when they are in their litter boxes.

My one bunny Daisy Mae use to eat some hay then I put a container of hay right in her litter box, she eats so much hay now.

Susan

 

[michellexgix]

Well his litter box is more like his bed LOL.. he doesnt poop or pee in it no matter how much old droopings and old wet bedding thats in it he will still lie on top of it. The hay rack is right side that. I will try and put some directly in to it so.

 

[tonyshuman]

Maybe he needs two litterboxes--one for poo and one for laying in. I know some bunnies really like a bed of hay, but they usually don't lie in poo if they can avoid it.

 

[Flash Gordon]

yea i didnt think they liked to lay in their own poop either until i caught Doodle 6 months ago running in a neighborhood...He lays in his litterbox ..no matter what i do ..ive given him two boxes he will poop and pee in both and still lay on it...i have to change his poop box sooner then the rest....the only thing thats cute about him doin it is he rests his head on the edge of the box and sleeps ..its so sweet....back to the question...cut back on the rest of the food and he will eat more hay....

 

[pamnock]

I wouldn't worry about the hay. There are many sources of fiber for your rabbit: pellets, vegetables, limited fruits, dark leafy greens.

With the diet you are feeding him, he's getting plenty of nutritous fiber and doesn't need the dry hay.

 

[michellexgix]

ok thank everyone.. Yah I tried giving him a bed but nope he prefers the box full of poop and pee haha! I think I am going to take it out for a day before I clean the cage next, hopefully then he will use the other as a bed and keep using it when the litter pan is back in.

 

[Pipp]

pamnock wrote:

I wouldn't worry about the hay. There are many sources of fiber for your rabbit: pellets, vegetables, limited fruits, dark leafy greens.

With the diet you are feeding him, he's getting plenty of nutritous fiber and doesn't need the dry hay.

:yeahthat:

Pipp won't even eat a strand of the stuff. Can't get her to eat grass, either. She gets a huge variety of veggies instead and is probably healthier for it.

She's healthier than on her previous mainstays of pellets and oats (but never oat hay), that's for sure.

She had molar spur issues before she got her pellets cut back and veggies increased), so she gets an extruded pellet (which has a longer fiber) and I make sure she eats kale, carrot tops, parsley and other harder 'chewy' veggies that I think are good for dental wear along with the leafy greens, herbs, cabbages, carrot, etc.

I am going to try the grass thing again tho...


sas :bunnydance:

 

[michellexgix]

Yeah my guy gets loads of veggies.. loads of ones to help his teeth and hard ones for them too.. The hay is there if he needs it anyhow..

 

[tonyshuman]

I agree that bunnies can do ok without hay but you want to make sure there's nothing going on that's making them not eat hay, like tooth overgrowth. That can be quite painful and cause bunnies to be picky about what they eat. However, since he's been like this for most of the time you've had him, and he's so young, it's probably not teeth. Just something to think about.

 

[michellexgix]

Thanks, his teeth are fine.