Rabbit eating Hay for the first Time.

[VanillaMarshmellUwU]

So my rabbit Caramel(4 months old) will be eating hay for the first time, the hay I will be using is star grass hay and I know that I must be using Timothy or alfalfa but star grass hay is the only hay I can afford right now and our farms here does not sell hay so I ordered online. The hay just arrived 1 day ago and I'm introducing it to her slowly and lowering the amount of pellets... And so far she's eaten least of eat but when I hand feed her the hay, she will sometimes deny it, but I'll try my best and search in the internet. I will be litter training her soon but she needs to get use to eating hay. So any advice?

 

[Hermelin]

Let your bunny search and pick the hay, lay hay in a litter box and your bunny can find the yummy straws she want to eat.

She will naturally eat more hay when she have less pellets.

There will always be hay that you throw away

 

[VanillaMarshmellUwU]

Let your bunny search and pick the hay, lay hay in a litter box and your bunny can find the yummy straws she want to eat.

She will naturally eat more hay when she have less pellets.

There will always be hay that you throw away ☺

Okay, but I have not yet start little training her today, the playpen haven't arrived yet. But thank you very much for the support and wonderful advice I will make sure to do that when I'll start litter training her. Thank you.

 

[Preitler]

I know that I must be using Timothy or alfalfa

No.

Any grass hay is ok, Timothy and others are just commercially farmed single species grasses with good marketing and being cited over and over again , but any horse grade hay will do. Here that way of farming grass like grains, without any other plants in it, is pretty much unknown or not practiced, everything that grows on the meadows goes into the hay.

There are huge quality differences, those farmed grass hays marketed for pets are quite good, but buying bales from local farmers is way cheaper, even if there's more waste.

Just make sure there's always fresh hay, putting the hay rack to the litterbox is a good idea, they like to eat and poop. Also, wasted hay serves as litter.

 

[VanillaMarshmellUwU]

Tha

No.

Any grass hay is ok, Timothy and others are just commercially farmed single species grasses with good marketing and being cited over and over again , but any horse grade hay will do. Here that way of farming grass like grains, without any other plants in it, is pretty much unknown or not practiced, everything that grows on the meadows goes into the hay.

There are huge quality differences, those farmed grass hays marketed for pets are quite good, but buying bales from local farmers is way cheaper, even if there's more waste.

Just make sure there's always fresh hay, putting the hay rack to the litterbox is a good idea, they like to eat and poop. Also, wasted hay serves as litter.

Thank you for the reply and I'm not litter training her yet, her playpen hasn't arrived yet and I don't have a hay rack either I just put hay in her food bowl and I also found a small basket with holes so I also used that and put hay in it. So is it okay for me to use it? Or is it not a good idea.

 

[Preitler]

Anything goes, as long as she takes a liking to the hay, gets to it easily and doesn't trample it right away (would need lots of refills, they don't eat it once trampled and soiled). A cardboard box, fixed to the wire of the cage and with some fist sized holes (size depending on the stiffness of your hay) cut in it could temporarily work as rack.

"Litter training" is a little misleading term, we take advantage of a natural behaviour by trying to make the bunny use that spot we want by making it more convinient, putting their hay supply there is one way to do so. No play pen necessary for that.

If your farms don't sell baled hay, maybe farm feed stores do.

 

[Hermelin]

I know hay can be hard to find in the philippines and get it to some places, I know none of my relatives use hay (my grand parents are farmers). They often use fresh grass and leafy greens to feed there animals. If we skip the other animals that eat rice and left over food

But as long you find any grass kind of hay it will work or use fresh grass. Hope everything go well to provide your bunny with hay and that she will find a liking to eat it.

 

[VanillaMarshmellUwU]

Thank you Preitler and Hermelin, I will try my best and so all your suggestion and I hope that my bunny will start eating hay.

 

[helena]

No.

Any grass hay is ok, Timothy and others are just commercially farmed single species grasses with good marketing and being cited over and over again , but any horse grade hay will do.

It is not okay for Caramel to have alfalfa hay once he passes five months. I'm not sure about the horse hays. I've just always given my bun timothy hay. The reason he can't have alfalfa past five months is because it has too much calcium for what he needs.

 

[Diane R]

Join this FB group - they can help you with local info on where to get hay etc. Rabbit Lovers Philippines