Orchard Grass

[PaGal]

Can young buns eat a mixture of timothy hay and orchard grass? Will it upset their stomachs?

I have had the bun on timothy which is what the breeder had him on. His pellets are alfalfa based. My neighbor who is a farmer gave us a horse sized bale of hay that he just cut which is a mixture of the two.

 

[missyscove]

Timothy and Orchard are both grass hays with very similar nutritional profiles. I like to offer a variety of grass hays when I can. I think that offering several types helps them use their teeth to chew in different ways and gives them a little more excitement in their lives.
Lots of buns do seem to prefer orchard to timothy, so be warned he may never go back

 

[majorv]

I wouldn't turn down a fresh cut bale of timothy/orchard mix, especially if it was free. Since the young ones are getting an alfalfa based pellet then I don't see anything wrong with using this mix. I've used both, as well as coastal/grass hay. I haven't found ours to be that picky, but I feed the different hays and grasses at different times...kind of a rotation.