Hay Eating Help

[SierraMist]

Hello Everyone!
We just adopted a new bunny and much to our surprise he’s only 7 months old. (We didn’t know his age because we didn’t see his cage and then Nova picked him as her bondmate so we couldn’t say no, not that we would say no). Anyway, Jedi is not eating his hay, which is making mushy poops and weird snapped poops. He eats it if we put it in a tp roll. I even got him alfalfa hay as a treat to encourage hay eating.

Does anyone have any thoughts on stuff I can do to encourage healthy hay habits?

[Vincent]

There are several things to help with hay eating

First you could try switching hay oat hay is pretty popular among buns, or you could try field hay or meadow hay

But if that still doesn’t help, cut down his pellet amount by a bit and he should get hungry enough to eat his hay

Usually one of these help!

Oh and I hear if you put their pellets in their hay and mix it up that might help them eat the hay more but I’ve never tried that

[Luna]

Great advice Vincent . Also, is his hay in a feeding rack? If he’s eating hay when it’s put in other places, he might not be eating the hay in the rack if it’s hard for him to pull the hay out.

[DanaNM]

It also wouldn’t hurt to have his teeth checked! 

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Wick & Fable]

Hay variety helps some rabbits. For Wick’s hay areas, I take the leftovers from the day before, throw them in my hay container and mix it all up with new hay from the hay bags, then plop it back in Wick’s hay areas. I think scent of fresh hay over old hay helps encourage eating.

Wick just recently began getting orchard hay, and now I mix it in his hay regularly because, when mixed in, it encourages him to eat a lot more. Wick also enjoys oat hay. His preference is Oat Hay Seeds > Orchard Hay > Oat Hay > Timothy Hay. I play off this when I see his hay habits get more selective (which occurs when I spoil him with veggies).

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[SierraMist]

So, we use a plastic tub with a hole cut in it because I developed asthma because the hay dust and I guess I’m allergic to buns ? But I’m not gonna get rid of them, obviously, so the hay has to be enclosed. We think the new bun didn’t like his tub or he’s to young to realize, since it’s different than what he had at the shelter. He was eating his alfalfa hay when it was in his bowl and he eats the orchard hay. So now we dumped the hay in half of the litter box (since we’re working on litter training too) and we added oats and alfalfa to the hay. So we’re hoping that helps with all the problems. But we might have to try the reduced pellets because that might work. I’m not worried about his teeth because he got checked before he came home 2 days ago and he’s eating everything else.

[Vincent]

If your allergic to hay oat hay can help a lot for allergies, one of the more alergy friends hays so maybe you could try finding that one anyways might help you both!

But yeah otherwise I’d lower the pellet amount but just make sure it’s semi easy to reach

[Author]

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