I will share what I know for New York City.
- Rabbit food pellets
Whiskers: My favorite pet supply store in the entire city. Located in East village and Astoria, Queens. They carry Oxbow pellets in all sizes and varieties, even the Organic pellets which are usually hard to find. Oxbow pellets are cheaper here in-store than I can find online in 10lb bags.
Petco: No shortage of Petcos in NYC! Kaytee and Zupreem brands are readily available in local Petcos
Petsmart: Unfortunately none in NYC, but there is one out in Valley Stream. Closer ones are actually in NJ, closer than the closest one inside NYS. I hear they are opening one soon in East Harlem. Carries Kaytee, Zupreem, Oxbow in select stores.
Happy Feet Pet Shop (midtown west): Carries Kaytee pellets.
Petland Discount: Located all over the tristate area. I don't so much like to buy things from Petland Discount because they sell rabbits. They sell Kaytee pellets usually, not much variety but will work in a pinch.
- Hay
Whiskers: Oxbowalfalfa, brome, oat, and botanical hay available in 15 and 40 oz packages. Oxbow timothy hay is sold here in any size from 15 oz to 50 pounds. They do order for you directly from Oxbow if you need something and they don't happen to have it in stock. And Whiskers delivers to Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan free.
Petco
etco sells Kayteebrand hay in 15 or 40oz bags and their own Petco brand bags in up to 64 oz bags. Quality that I have seen of Petco brand hay is ok in terms of freshness but the pieces of timothy hay are really limited to about 6-8" in length because of the way they package it.
Happy Feet Pet Shop (midtown west): They sell small 15 oz bags of hay but the brands are not ones I recognize. They supposedly sell Sweet Meadow hay (which members order from SM directly and love it) in small bags of 15 oz. but they were out of stock when I went there.
Petland Discount: Carries Kaytee timothy hay typically, varies by individual location.
- Litter (wood pellets, other cat litter, etc) & Bedding
Depending on what you like to use, the possibilities in NYC are endless. Yesterdays News (recycled compressed paper pellet litter) is available in most mega supermarkets and many small grocery stores. They are also sold in almost all of the pet stores I have ever been in. Carefresh is carried in most pet shops, and in Petco. Feline Pine is a popular compressed pine pellet (don't use the scoopable kind for bunnies), and available in your local Pathmark,
Target, and Petco. Petco also carries its own brand of wood pellet in the cat litter aisle next to Feline Pine. They all usually go for $5-9 for a 5 lb bag if you are going to buy them from pet stores. Feline Pine is cheap at
Pathmark in the city, at $10.99 for 20 lbs regularly.
- Medical needs (syringes, probiotics like Benebac/BioSponge, gas meds, etc.)
I have had luck finding
baby gas meds (simethicone) at all local drug stores, including RiteAid,
Duane Reade, CVS, Walgreens and the like. Look in both the gas medication aisle and the aisle with the baby care stuff like digital thermometers. It's not too hard to find simethicone in the 5 boroughs, thankfully.
Petco: carries syringes as well as
Benebac for Small Animals, both in tube and powder form.
Whiskers: Oxbow Critical Care is available! For a reasonable price, too.
- Grooming essentials (brushes, nail clippers)
There's probably a thousand places you can get a pair of guillotine style cat clippers or just scissor type cat clippers. Petco and Petland Discounts definitely carry many kinds and brands of these. Same goes for brushes!
- Housing essentials (cages, xpens, NIC panels, flooring materials, litter boxes, dishes & the like)
NIC panels are tough to find in NYC. I recently heard of one family successfully finding them in Bed Bath & Beyond located in the Chelsea area of Manhattan!
My flooring of choice (because my bunnies are not chewers, thankfully) are foam children's playmats. You can get them at a lot of places, including Toys R Us for about $25.Cheap rugs and such are easily purchased at places like Target, but you can also find them cheap at
Jack's 99 Cents World.
Petco usually carries puppy exercise pens ("xpens") in-store. They run about $65 for the short ones, and incrementally go up as the pen height is extended.
- Bunny safe toys and treats
Whiskers: My go-to spot for bunny nonessentials as well. They carry Busy Bunny.com willow baskets, grass mats, willow tents, etc. They also have the Oxbow papaya plus tablets and Oxbow banana, hay, and strawberry dried treats. What I like about Whiskers is they don't carry the junk food that places like Petland and Petco do (Yogies and other sugary treats).
