My rabbits won’t eat hay!

[Taylah]

About six weeks ago i noticed on two of my 1.5 year old rabbits one male, one female, that there was a large abscess under their chins so i immediately took them to the vet to which he explained that both of their teeth were overgrown so he put them under, drained the abscess and grinded their back teeth. When i went back to pick them up later that day he told that i should put them on an all-grass and hay diet with no pellets and to bring them back in three weeks to grind their teeth again. I went out and brought timothy hay, oaten hay and meadow grass as well as going out the back and picking a lot of grass and storing it in a zip lock bag in the fridge, both of my bunnies were on antibiotics so at first i wasn’t expecting them to eat a lot but i put in lots of grass and all three types of hay anyway, however, after the dose of antibiotics was done my males abscess was considerably smaller and he was eating the hay but not the backyard grass i had to take my female back another two times because her abscess was still oozing out pus so she was on another two rounds of antibiotics before it started to clear up and during this time she was eating little grass and little of the oaten hay. I could visibly see both my bunnies losing weight from not eating much and i was very stressed about them not eating any of the grass and only some of the hay i felt like i was the worst person in the world so after spending a long night researching rabbit food guidelines and countless sites of safe veggies and herbs and food to avoid i went out the next day and bought oxbow pellets and lots of safe veggies and herbs and gave them one cup of veggies for breakfast and proceeded to give them hay and grass hoping they’d start eating it and at night i gave them 3 tablespoons of pellets to start them off until i could see they’d gained weight (i plan on dropping it to 1 tablespoon) so about two weeks ago i took them back to the vet to get their back teeth grinded again and he weighed them and they’d lost 300 grams in three weeks but he was very adamant about them staying off pellets until i went back after he had done he’d told me they’d lost too much weight and gave me his blessing to put them back on pellets while still offering grass and such. It’s now two weeks later and they’ve gained about 150 grams and look a lot healthier but now the male is not eating hay at all and the female still won’t eat any of it either they both stick their nose up at the backyard grass even though my 3rd rabbit who has no health complications loves eating the grass and hay she doesn’t like to eat any pellets. The male picked at the timothy hay yesterday but hasn’t visibly eaten any of it since, I’ve cut back to two tablespoons of pellets at night with one cup of veggies in the morning but I’m at a loss of what to do to get them to eat the hay I’ve cup up an apple and rubbed it on the hay but that didn’t work for long and i also shove the veggies in amongst the hay hoping they’ll accidentally eat some of the hay and realise its yummy but that hasn’t worked either I’ve gone out and bought five different kinds hoping they’d like one of them but have had no luck with them any advice as to how to get them to eat hay would be greatly appreciated as theres a good chance their back teeth will get long again and i can’t go through this again the surgery was very pricey and i love my buns i don’t want them to be in pain again and also my female used to love chewing on her mineral block but since this second go at teeth grinding she hasn’t touched it which is also worrying me.

[Mikey]

Rabbits should have a diet of 75% timothy hay, or hay similar to timothy hay. They should only have 1/8th cup of pellets for every 6lbs of rabbit. Pellets add on a lot of weight to rabbits, so if you fed them mostly pellets and not enough hay, that would explain why theyre losing way to fast now that their pellets have been cut. Slowly cut back on the amount of pellets they get until they are at the amount they need, so they dont lose weight too fast. Im not sure how to get them to eat more hay if theyre not used to it, though. Im sure another user will log in and help you with that. Good luck! ((((healing vibes))))

[Mimsy]

You might try getting a little alfalfa and mixing it through the hay. Most buns love it, though it’s fattening and too high in protein for them to eat a lot of, but it might entice them to eat the hays. If there is certain herbs they like, you could also get some dried versions and sprinkle them into the hay as well.

Did your vet say they are under weight or if they were over weight when you first brought them in? It is important for buns to eat regular meals all day, so I don’t blame you for worrying, I would too.

Instead of feeding the pellets in a bowl you might get one of the treat balls and put it in there so it can help ration how much they get at a time. Bunnies really need hay to keep their teeth and intestinal tract doing right. Your vet was right about the pellets not being so great, it can just be difficult to break them from if they are used to being free fed pellets.

Good luck.

[Bam]

It is of course super-important for your buns to get fiber, fiber, fiber for their teeth so you get them in order. You can also give apple or willow twigs. But you might have to be a little bit more gradual about the shift to hay only. You never want a bunny to loose weight very fast. 

Buns can be tricky with hay, I’ve had to try so many different hays with my buns. They like oat hay and orchard. They prefer third cut of meadow hay. For a while I made them home-made hay-cookies, but the risk with that is of course that they get too much calories (depending on what you put in the cakes to make them stick together). There are many types of hay a bun can eat and all except alfalfa (and clover) are great for them. As Mimsy says, alfalfa should only be used as a treat or hay-topper with adult buns. There are other hay-toppers as well. Here’s a chart with nutritional values of many types of hay: hay chart 

I feed my buns hay in small wads several times a day, it’s like “new” hay is always tastier than “old” hay. (They always have hay, but they tend to only eat it when I top it up.)

[Taylah]

My vet didn’t seem too worried about their weight when I first brought them in the male, Thumper, was 1.5kg and the female, Oreo, 1.8kg but the second time they came in Thumper was 1.2kg and Oreo 1.5kg but since they’re getting veggies in the morning and pellets at night (I’ve dropped them back to 2 tablespoons) the male is 1.360kg and female almost 1.650kg and my main concern at first was fattening them up but now that they’ve put on a bit of weight I’m a little worried that once I start reducing the pellets they’ll result to starving themselves again, I do still give them fresh hay and grass throughout the day everyday, I was hoping that they’d eat that during the day but have had no luck with meadow, Timothy, a mixture of oat, wheat and barley, and oaten hay. They both aren’t too big on herbs Thumper doesn’t like any of the herbs I’ve tried with him so far which is part of the reason I’m hesitant to try botanical hay although they did love alfalfa when they were babies so I’ll try mixing little bits of it into it the hay

[Bam]

The HRS does say that bunnies that starve themselves when they are put on hay only should be getting a gradual shift over from pellets, so I think you were very right to put them back onto sth else than just hay.

What type of hay a bun likes is really mysterious, there’s no way for a human to figure that out without test-feeding. My buns won’t have anything to do with botanical, other buns here like Q8bunny’s Chewie devour botanical.

It really can be tricky, I can only encourage you to keep trying and don’t give in.

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