switching types of hay?

[Lani]

Oreo just loves her timothy hay but me, not so much. I am beginning to suspect that I am allergic to the hay due unbearable itchy/red eyes when I’m in the room with her and especially when handling the hay. I know there are other types of hay I can give her but I am wondering if anyone else has switched hays because of allergies and if so, what did you switch to? Did it help or do all hays seem to be equally as irritating?

Also, is it ok to just introduce a whole new type of hay once we finish the bag of timothy or should I get a new type now and mix it in with the timothy in order to transition?

[Monkeybun]

You can introduce the new hay whenever, but you may want to while she still has the timmy, in case she doesn’t like the new stuff.

[littlemissflip]

I’m highly highly highly allergic to Timothy hay (it was one of my highest scores on my allergy prick test!), but… I still feed it to my bunny. We also feed him orchard grass and oat hay, and I THINK I have a bit less of a reaction to those hays, but I really haven’t tested it out properly, because I’ve never cut the timothy hay out of his diet completely. I’m allergic to grass pollens across the board though, so…

I have noticed that the young oat hay that I purchased on this site doesn’t have flower heads, so presumably it would be less pollen-y and therefore cause less of an allergic response. So that might be something to consider.

I’ve basically just medicated (and now I’m doing allergy shots) to deal with it, because I have a host of other allergies (including dust mites) too, so the Timothy hay isn’t the only trigger in my environment.

Miraculously, I’m not actually allergic to the bunny (or my cats) itself… just that pesky hay!

[LoveChaCha]

Oh yes, I can’t stand Timothy Hay. Hate the stuff -_-;; I am an avid orchard grass user and it does NOTHING to me. Even oat and meadow are great too

OH! Is OREO bun a black otter bumba ?? I must see more pictures please!

[Lani]

Posted By LoveChaCha on 03/25/2011 04:25 PM

OH! Is OREO bun a black otter bumba ?? I must see more pictures please!

I’m not sure, I got her from a shelter and all they could tell me was that she’s a dwarf mix. I’ll post some pics in my Welcome thread and you can give me your expert opinion

[Lani]

I started switching to orchard grass to see how she’d react to it. For the past few days I’ve put a mix of timothy and orchard in her litter pan and she started a very strange behavior of sorting her hay. She pulls out all of the stiff “stalk-y” pieces and pushes them out of the box, everything else gets to stay. She will eat the pieces that she deems worthy

My only concern is that after the sorting is done, her general interest in the hay seems to have decreased a bit. She still eats it and there hasn’t been any change in her size or amount of poos. Anyone experienced this before? I wouldn’t be surprised if she is suddenly a picky eater since she’s picky about just about everything else but I’m curious if anyone’s seen this type of thing before

[Kate Monster]

Timothy hay is so bad for my allergies that it started causing asthma attacks, which is an issue I haven’t had in more than ten years! So Kate and Spence get oat and orchard hay. I might try some others down the road, but having found hays that don’t bother me and that they like I’m not too excited to try it out. Kate sometimes plays with her hay, not to that extreme degree of sorting, but she will pull pieces out and toss them to the other side of the litter box. Not all of the pieces are worthy of being in Queen Kate’s belly!

[LoveChaCha]

I have this same issue too.

BB actually told me that there are different types of Orchard grass. Some are crisp and green, some are very flat and leafy. My bunny prefers the flat and leafy types.

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