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Forum DIET & CARE Can I feed only Oat hay?

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    • meow1
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        Sunny just transitioned from alfalfa to timothy hay a few weeks ago. For a long time now, I also give him a handful of oat hay a day, too.  Well, he hardly eats this timothy hay. (still eating on his last bag of alfalfa pellets, then moving him on to timothy pellets)

         

        Can I feed him oat hay as his main/only source of hay instead of timothy?  He doesn’t like orchard or the oxbow botanical either.  He really loves his oat hay though!!


      • BinkyBunny
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          Oat hay is still a great fiber source, but it is higher in calories, so you’d have to watch it to make sure your bunny wasn’t getting overweight or having loose stool.

          Since your bunny is still in the transition stage, there is no reason to give up on Timothy. It can take months for a bunny to get used to new foods. It can be especially difficult when people are used to feeding Alfalfa based pellets and have to transition to Timothy based pellets. Bunnies will normally leave the Timothy pellets alone for the first two weeks (while the Alfalfa pellets are being weaned out) before they start getting hungry enough to eat the Timothy more. So the same thing could happen with the Timothy.

          So my suggestion is keep the Timothy in the mix and give it some time.


        • Kokaneeandkahlua
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            Ditto BB There are many differnt kinds of hay-I grab whatever is available and mix it with timothy for my buns and that works like a charm. It’s often the condition of the hay (nice soft green stalks vs. yellow thin ones) that works. There is beautiful soft timothy and terrible yellow alfalfa-so the condition is a big factor too in what they’ll eat. So maybe the timothy you have isn’t the bees knees but don’t rule out all timothy I belive the later the cut (1st vs. 2nd, 3rd etc) the softer and nicer it is. Also, farm fresh hay, if you can buy in bales from a farmer-may be better received. I can’t say enough good things about ‘herbal hay’ which is a nice timothy with lilac and lemon etc. in it. Smells like tea, my bunnies go CRAZY for it


          • meow1
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              I’ve got some oxbow western timothy, and some American Pet Diner Timothy Gold. Same results with both.

              Should I restrict the oat hay for a but until he starts eating his timothy happily? Or is there a substitute for timothy (being the main hay source)?


            • Beka27
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                The substitute for tim hay is pretty much orchard. Those are the two that can typically be fed in larger quantities, over the lifetime of your bunny. Keep giving it, maybe try small bags of different brands and different cuts.


              • jerseygirl
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                  Oat hay is still a great fiber source, but it is higher in calories, so you’d have to watch it to make sure your bunny wasn’t getting overweight or having loose stool.

                  Binky Bunny, is it a lot higher in calories? I asked on the forums one time about oat hay, if it were fattening or not. It seemed there was confusion. I was under impression it isn’t.

                  In Australia, rabbits are fed predominately cereal hays (oaten, wheaten, barley) as that’s what is most available and good quality. Meadow grass is hard to get in good quality and you have to be careful it doesn’t have noxious weeds so most opt for the cereal hays. There’s also yhe legumous hays available.

                  Meow, some other grass hays to try are blue grass, lovegrass (teff), rye grass and brome. Not certain if any of those can be fed exclusively though…


                • meow1
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                    oooh I really hope I can get rid of the timothy hay. He really does not like it, plus I’m starting to think the timothy hay is messing with my allergies and such. I compared oxbow’s oat and timothy hay online a minute ago. All the mins and maxes are the same (protein, fat, fiber,), too bad they don’t have a max on the fat content!


                  • LoveChaCha
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                      timothy does trigger lots of allergies that aren’t nice to us humans. i’m allergic to it.
                      there maybe a reason behind your rabbit snubbing the timothy. hay comes in different cuts, there is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cuts and some rabbits have preferences.
                      i feed orchard a majority of the time to my rabbit because timothy puts me out on the couch with a itchy runny nose and eyes. i have no issue with it. the one that i have is not dusty at all, but the business went out : ( orchard smells really nice to a rabbit also


                    • meow1
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                        He currently has oxbow western timothy and American pet diner timothy gold ( not sure of the actual difference), and he doesn’t like orchard or botanical blend, either!lol


                      • Dee
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                          The problem I had with oat hay is that BunBun just ate the top of it- the grain part. He stopped eating his regular hay too, and since he wasn’t getting the long strands that bunnies need to keep their guts moving, he started having stomach problems. After he went into GI stasis, I finally figured it out and got rid of the oat hay. But as long as a rabbit is eating the whole stalk, it shouldn;t be as harmful as it was to my BunBun.
                          I get my hay from Sweet Meadow Farm- they have a local branch near me so I go there- but you can order it online too. It really smells amazingly fresh and it’s not dusty at all. Oxbow’s a good brand, but I’ve gotten some really dusty hay from them.


                        • meow1
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                            Sunny doesn’t like the oxbow oat. I get the mature oat from binkybunny. There isn’t any grain part that I can tell. It all just looks like “stalks”


                          • Monkeybun
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                              With him having just gotten off alfalfa, he’s probably wanting the sweeter hay, such as oat. Keep trying with orchard grass, its a fav around here. He’ll get used to it And orchard seems to better on peoples allergies than timothy


                            • meow1
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                                From the first time I ordered from binkybunny and have gotten free hay samples, each time I give him a new hay, he likes it, so I order some. Then, he doesn’t like it! Is it weird that he likes them at first, and THEN doesn’t like them?


                              • BinkyBunny
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                                  Posted By jerseygirl on 03/26/2011 05:36 AM

                                  Oat hay is still a great fiber source, but it is higher in calories, so you’d have to watch it to make sure your bunny wasn’t getting overweight or having loose stool.

                                  Binky Bunny, is it a lot higher in calories? I asked on the forums one time about oat hay, if it were fattening or not. It seemed there was confusion. I was under impression it isn’t.

                                   

                                  Honestly, I don’t know how much higher, I have just been told that is is bit higher in calorie (by my vet and by the distributor), however, what is a “bit”….I don’t know and will be more diligent about clarifying. I can’t remember that discussion (excect vaguely). IF you have time, could you post that link here or send it to me? It would be good to review that discussion. Even if it is higher in calorie, I don’t think it would be a problem unless a bunny is beginning to become overweight. I guess it would also depend on what else the bunny’s overall diet consist of and how much exercise a bunny gets.

                                  NOTE: If we are able to find that original discussion about Oat Hay, please make sure to respond in this thread not in the original thread.  thanks


                                • Kate Monster
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                                    Kate and Spence get oat hay. Having timothy hay around didnt just give me a sniffly nose but cause my first asthma attack in ten years. So no timothy hay here. I’ve tried other hays, but oat hay is the only one that they eat in large enough quantities. I had to stop feeding them oat hay to try out the other ones, if they had both they ignored the other one completely. But when I just fed them orchard hay that ate an ok amount of it, but not as much as I think they should. So, oat hay it is. They’ve been on just oat hay for a month or two and so far no problems with runny stool, obviously weight is a little harder to judge over a relatively short period of time.


                                  • Kate Monster
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                                      Here’s a link to a different conversation when I asked the same question awhile back:  https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tab…fault.aspx


                                    • meow1
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                                        Thanks Katemonster for the link!

                                        I forgot to mention that I did shoot an email to the vet’s office before getting so many replies on here, but since it’s the weekend I hope to hear back .
                                        from the tomorrow.

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                                    Forum DIET & CARE Can I feed only Oat hay?