picky hay eater

[Apebull]

Twigs will eat hay and seems to enjoy it. That's not the problem. The problem is he won't eat it unless it over 8 inces long at least. I swear if its little bits of short hay he won't eat it. It has to be LONG. My mom buys bails of hay (she has lots of critters that use it) so when I need hay she just stuffs a flake into a big trash bags and sends it over. Well most of it seems to be all short and the really log stuff is only on the outside of the flake.

So does anyone else have this problem or do I simply have a spoiled hay eater?

 

[JBun]

Usually the longer stuff is also thicker stems and more fiberous. So it might be that that he likes. It's cut later and so the stems are thicker and longer. Earlier cut is shorter and softer. Some of my buns are picky too. I feel like I end up throwing out half of their hay. You could try and select a bale yourself and try and get one with the thicker stems.

 

[Imbrium]

have you tried oat hay? I dunno if that's an option for you, but I've found that it's quite long (at least, the oxbow hand-picked stuff is) - I actually have to take a pair of scissors to it to make it easy to get just a small handful out of the bag because of how long the strands are. (keep in mind, if it's a late enough cut to have actual oats in it, you'll want to pick those out since bunnies shouldn't have all those extra calories/carbs)

 

[Nancy McClelland]

We've had a lot of luck with Orchard Grass.