Hay – at a loss what to do!

[MerlinsMom]

I’ve been browsing this forum for a while and trust me I have read plenty of topics on how to get your rabbit to eat more hay, but I am still at a loss what to do to help my bun! Please bear with me, this might be a long story…

We got Merlin at the end of october this year, when he was aged 8-10 weeks. From the start he was brilliant, did everything a normal rabbit should do, was litter trained in a week and was never any trouble. He is a house bunny, insofar as he lives in a hutch in the front room where we spend most of our time. He comes out to have free run of the room when we get home from work. We never fed him unlimited pellets as I was always aware that a rabbits diet needs to be comprised mainly of hay, however due to the fact he was a baby we tended to give him 50g of pellets twice a day, we never had any problems with the amount of hay he ate, it was always a healthy amount. I bought Timothy hay to start with and always stuck to that. About 3-4 weeks ago my local store had run out of Timothy hay so I had to buy the only alternative they had which was just generic hay I think.
My problem is that he won’t eat it. I have since gone back and got the Timothy which he always ate fine before, but now he won’t eat that either! I am very conscious of the fact that he needs to eat hay to wear down his teeth and as a crucial part of his diet but I am totally stuck.
I have read a lot of topics where people have suggested various types of hay to try, the main one being oxbow. My problem is that I’m in the UK and I can’t seem to find oxbow hay over here. I recently bought something called Excel Herby forage hay but have yet to try him on it.
I’ve tried many tricks to get him to eat the hay: if it’s in his litter box he just urinates on it, I’ve tried two different hay racks but he either digs it all out to sit on or he won’t take it at all. I don’t understand why he all of a sudden won’t eat it! He barely gets any pellets at all but I’m wondering it is still too much… At the moment he’s having a dish of greens/veg in the morning plus fresh hay and then 50g of pellets and fresh hay in the evening. Is this still too much and he’s not eating the hay because he’s not hungry? I don’t want to cut the food down further without some advice as I’m worried he’ll start losing weight!

Any advice is much appreciated!

[Bam]

My rabbit isn’t big on hay either, so this time of year I give him apple-tree twigs to chew. He loves those and chewing them keeps his teeth fine. He consumes the bark of several twigs and small branches each day so it’s best if you have an apple-tree of your own to cut from.

I picked a lot of leaves and grass and herbs during the summer and used a mushroom-drier to dry it. I’ve been feeding it to him since october or so. But ofcourse that’s a project for next summer since nothing of any nutritional value grows on the ground this time of year.

I also feed my rabbit Cuni complete (Versele-laga) pellets, they are grain-free and good for the teeth.

If I take away the pellets and give him just hay he loses weight. And eats carpet and paper and cables. So that’s not an option.

[Sarita]

Well Oxbow is not a type of hay, it’s a company that supplies hays of different varieties. Not sure about generic hay either, that was most likely forms of various grass hays.

I guess my question is, is he not eating the hay at all? or just less?

[sleepy538]

i notice you said he gets hay in the evening. he really should have access to hay at all times. have you tried timothy hay cubes? my rabbit loves to gnaw on those. they’re not much for the hay intake, but help keep the teeth down i’d suppose.

[MerlinsMom]

He gets given fresh hay in the morning and the evening so there is hay available at all times.
I think he is eating some hay, just nowhere near as much as before. He used to get through about five or six large handfuls a day but now it’s probably about one or two. He’s still eating everything else normally.

[LBJ10]

How old is he now? You talk about when he was a baby and then skip to 3-4 weeks ago. Is he a teenager now?

[Sarita]

If you’ve just introduced greens, he may be filling up on that – I really wouldn’t worry too much – just keep offering him the hay free feed as normal.

It sounds like you are only giving him about a 1/4 cup of pellets – you can certainly cut down a bit on that or maybe feed half in the morning and half at night to see if you can encourage more hay consumption.

[MerlinsMom]

He’s now almost five months old and was neutered on the 17th december (if that makes a difference lol)
I wonder wether I’m giving him too many greens so maybe I’ll try cutting those down as well as the pellets. I’m just conscious that he’s probably still growing and I don’t want to take away too much food and cause growth problems :s

[LBJ10]

Ah, I see. That makes sense. How big is he going to be? It’s possible he’s getting close to the point where he doesn’t need quite so much food for growing.

[Snowytoshi]

How much vegetables do you give him? Toshi was around five months when I got him annd he had two cups of vegetables, 1/4 cup of pellets, and ate his hay like a horse 

[MerlinsMom]

He’s going to be just a medium sized rabbit I think, he’s possibly got some English spot in him so possibly similar size to that.
He gets a large handful of kale (enough to fill his feed bowl) and then a small handful of either parsley or baby spinach. He gets the odd slice of apple as a treat (once a week). Totally turns his nose up and carrots or anything carrot flavoured lol.
He also has loads of apple branches to chew on as otherwise he eats his hutch!!
If i cut his pellets a veg down, how much should I do it by? He gets 50g of pellets once a day, could I safely cut that in half and give him 25g?

[Sarita]

What you may want to do is to try and expand his veggie selection. And I would see if giving him half of his pellets in the morning and then half at night might help him to increase the hay consumption.

[Snowytoshi]

I know quite a few rabbit owners who don’t even feed pellets, so just so long as you don’t cut them down too quickly it should be fine.

Edit: my apoligies for the misinformation. That is what I have been told by many people online, my shelter, and several websites.

[Bam]

Oxbow is a brand of rabbit-feed, they have various types of hay, my rabbit will eat some western timothy-hay but not the hay-cubes. Oxbow also have alfalfa hay but that is not always recommended since it’s rich in protein and should be given instead of pellets if at all.

I found a British webshop that sells the timothy hay http://www.vetuk.co.uk/rabbit-supplies-rabbit-bedding-and-hay-c-649_652/oxbow-western-timothy-hay-p-2745

If your rabbit is going to be a big one it’d be terribly expensive to give him Oxbow hay though.

[Sarita]

Actually Kale is not high in calcium – spinach is high in oxalates.  I am posting the most recent vegetable list and article by Dr. Susan Brown from House Rabbit Society which dispels any of that information and I highly recommend you read the whole article:

http://www.rabbit.org/care/veggies.html

[MerlinsMom]

Thanks for the link, I actually just read that earlier from another thread and was surprised to discover that spinach and parsley arent as good as I thought. I will definately be cutting down and finding some others that he likes.
I think I will try splitting his pellets in half and feeding those twice a day to see if that helps for now.
Please keep the advice going though guys, it’s great to know I have many more options to try lol

[Sarita]

Well, I don’t think it’s not that they aren’t “good” for them but just that they should be fed in moderation due to oxalic acid content.

[Isabelle]

Dutchess goes through various phases of hay eating, it depends on her diva mood and how much greens I’ve given her. She used to down the hay faster than I could give it her, practically a pile as big as she was, between 4 months and 1 1/2 years old. In the past year she eats less hay, and is perfectly healthy. I give her a base of timothy hay, some grass hay, then a little alfalfa hay as a ‘topper’. She eats the litterbox full every few days or so, and tends to eat the alfafa first, so perhaps try a little of that if you can get it. I buy her the Kaytee brand of hay, since it’s about the only hay I can find. She gets 1/4 of a 1/4 of a cup of pellets a day with fresh veggies and some treats, and has mainted her weight 4.2-4.7 for the past two years or so. Try weighing him (weigh yourself without then with if you can’t weigh him by himself) to make sure he isn’t losing weight. I didn’t have time to read everybody’s post up there, but maybe try and make sure he doesn’t have any dental problems, if he has a vet visit coming up that could be something to ask for. Watch if he eats his greens/pellets on just one side of his mouth or anything, hay could poke a tooth that hurts and decrease his desire to eat it.

[MerlinsMom]

The vet checked his teeth when he went to be castrated on the 17th dec (11 days ago) and said they were fine, there’s unlikely to be a problem in that short amount of time is there?
I’m reluctant to try alfalfa hay as I don’t want him to get hooked on it as I know they’re not really supposed to have it as adults, I think I might try the excel herby forage hay though and fingers crossed he likes that…

[Isabelle]

No, there shouldn’t be a teeth issue then. I think alfafa hay is fine to feed, as long as it’s not the bulk hay you give. I just Dutchess a small handful only, every few days. If you mixed it in with a good amount of timothy hay it might stimulate his apetite. I only buy tiny bags of it myself, and you could gradually decrease and stop giving it as/if he takes up with timothy again. Think of it as a treat, rather than the basis of his diet.

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