Goodness, 1 month is way to early to be separated from her mum! They should be with mum for at least 8 weeks. Did you give her any homemade milk substitutes for mother’s milk? I suppose it matters not now, since she is already 3 months and no longer needs the milk.

Do you allow her unlimited pellets or do only feed them at certain intervals? If she is allowed unlimited pellets, you should gradually decrease the amount she is getting to encourage her to eat more hay. Pellets are packed with all other sorts of yummy stuff, and they cause quite a riot with my bunnies when they smell them coming! If she is not on unlimited amount, how much do you give her per day? While young bunnies do need the additional nutrition to grow into healthy adults, I personally think it is more important that she starts eating hay. As you mentioned, stasis and teeth will be an issue if she isn’t eating hay. Even just going overnight with barely eating can start to cause some issues.

Have you tried oat hay or orchard grass? Both of my bunnies love these. They are on a regular diet of timothy hay (the young one gets alfalfa as well) and I use orchard and oat hay as a “treat” hay, just to give them some variety every few days. You may want to try those types of hay as well. Are you able to get a hold of good quality hay? At first, I purchased hay from a pet store and my bunny did eat it, but she eats so much more now that I buy from Small Pet Select. She gets super excited even over plain timothy hay.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but I put my young bunny’s pellets in a treat ball and close it pretty small so that he’s got to work a little to get them out. I do this because 1) he was eating them way too fast, I was worried he might choke 2) I work 8 hours a day so that way it takes him longer to eat them then just gobbling them up before work and not having any more until I get home. Maybe you could try something like that rather than just giving her all the pellets to devour immediately. At least that way she could keep some food in her gut constantly, helping to avoid stasis since she won’t eat the hay.

I understand your frustration! It can take a lot of trial and error to find a hay that is truly irresistible to a bunny. I would try a few more different types, see if you can get a sampler pack or something so you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money in case they don’t like it. Then, at least for the time being PUT IT EVERYWHERE! So that she’s never more than a few steps from some hay. It sounds extreme but hopefully once she’s developed a taste for it, you can start just putting it in a few places and she’ll make the effort to walk over lol. I would also think about trying hay cubes, they can be fun to destroy and it might spark an interest in the actual hay too. 

How much pellets is she getting? 

Not sure what part of the world you are in, but I think the freshness and quality of the hay make a big difference. Mine have turned their noses up at the small bags of hay you get at the pet store. 

I order mine from Sierra Valley Hay, and it is amazing. They have a bunch of different types and cuts, so hopefully you will be able to find one your bunny likes. My buns come running when they hear me getting the box out. 

I agree that decreasing pellets should help, but yes do so very slowly since she is so young.

Not sure whether this is helpful or not but maybe try and be more specific with the times you are giving pellets and veggies. My bunnies are great at eating hay regardless of the quality. My strategy for getting them to eat hay was always based on me likening it to when you wean a baby off bottles of milk and onto solid food, they will always want the bottle over the food the same way bunnies go crazy for pellets. So what I do is give their pellets first thing in a morning and then their daily veggies straight after. I know they have had their fill for the day then. So they are then free to eat their hay whenever they are peckish and want to graze. I don’t give anything else until about 7pm at night which is usually a little bit of something to treat them, it would be nowhere near as much as the veg I give in a morning but just something they look forward to. Then they again have as much hay as they want to eat throughout the night, which seems to be when they eat the most as the box is always empty. I think you should really reduce the amount of pellets you give and see what happens. You can always give another smaller scatter at bedtime as a treat, I do this occasionally too.

You also mentioned urine on the hay, this shouldn’t be a problem if you are regular changing out the litter box and tipping up hay frequently. Do not wait until all the hay is eaten because they are not likely to eat some of the pieces, like you say if it is dirty.

Posted By Dailymadness on 7/29/2017 9:17 PM

Sorry for the late reply. I give a bowl size of pellets. The saucer ones that you get at any store that accommodates to pets. So not big of bowl at all. Fills 1 cup. I refill it twice daily depending on if she finishes it or not by the time it’s bed time. I have 3 different hay spots right now for her to chose from. Also I can’t get good quality yet but when I can I certainly will. I will also try putting it in something to peek her interest. She seems to eat it more while it’s over her litter box but I don’t want to do that because of how dirty all the fallen hay will end up. Paranoid about her eating urine soaked hay and or getting urine scaled from being in one soaked spot all day.

You could try cutting down a little on the pellets and see if that encourages more hay eating. 

I put hay for my monsters directly in their litter trays. They never liked hay racks. It doesn’t seem hygienic but it’s how they like it!  They don’t eat anything that has been peed on though and I completely empty and clean the trays every day

my baby bunny doesn’t eat much hay either, she loves her pellets but doesn’t finish them in one day either. I’m going to switch her to timothy hay after she finishes her bag of orchard that she was raised on.

Posted By Dailymadness on 7/29/2017 9:17 PM

Sorry for the late reply. I give a bowl size of pellets. The saucer ones that you get at any store that accommodates to pets. So not big of bowl at all. Fills 1 cup. I refill it twice daily depending on if she finishes it or not by the time it’s bed time. I have 3 different hay spots right now for her to chose from. Also I can’t get good quality yet but when I can I certainly will. I will also try putting it in something to peek her interest. She seems to eat it more while it’s over her litter box but I don’t want to do that because of how dirty all the fallen hay will end up. Paranoid about her eating urine soaked hay and or getting urine scaled from being in one soaked spot all day.

Eating the most hay while in the litterbox is pretty typical. It’s how we “litter train” rabbits really. They poop the most where they eat hay.  If you have a lot of hay available, I’d keep offering it there and let the hay that falls into the box become litter. It soaks up the urine a bit. You can remove the soiled hay daily. If there is a litter material wicking away most the urine, there shouldn’t be an issue with urine scald. Rabbits are good at keeping themselves clean. If there is still fresh, clean hay there, they shouldnt try eat any soiled hay. 

I suppose I have advantage of being able to buy bales of hay very cheap, so I top up the hay often and a lot gets thrown out. It’s a bit tougher to do that when you have to pay a lot for hay! 

Eating hay mostly at night is pretty typical also. At least, it is for my rabbits.

I agree about trying to reduce the pellets also.  I know it’s usually recommended to give unlimited pellets when they’re young but you’d want them eating lots of hay also.  To be honest, I never gave unlimited pellets to my rabbits when they were younger. They seemed to do fine. 

Im curious about what type of hay she had when she was keen on it? And was she also on a different pellet then?

Posted By ColorfulBun on 7/30/2017 9:22 AM

my baby bunny doesn’t eat much hay either, she loves her pellets but doesn’t finish them in one day either. I’m going to switch her to timothy hay after she finishes her bag of orchard that she was raised on.

How much pellets would you say you put out for her each day?  Shes a baby, but you could probably cut back on pellets some if she’s not eating hay. Especially if she’s leaving pellets anyway. 

Interesting she isn’t as keen on orchard hay. Its a good grass hay and one that often bunnies will take too if fussy about timothy hay. Maybe your girl will be the opposite. : )

I fill a small kid’s yogurt cup full of her pellets and pour it into her bowl, it fills to the brim. Now that I’ve had her for a while she’s settled in and is eating almost the whole bowl every day.

Maybe, I’ve been giving her some Timothy hay by hand for bonding and she seems to really like it.

Sprocket is on alfalfa hay at the moment still as he is just 4 months. I am trying to already introduce some other hays with little to no luck. I have those pressed timothy hay cubes and he eats that but if I put out actual timothy hay he wont touch it. so now I have literally all they hay types available trying each one and he is not a fan of any of them. But my Rookie was not a hay eater at all unless it was alfalfa so with him I had to mix alfalfa with all the other types of hay to get him to eat some. I predict that is what will happen with Sprocket too. I am just waiting on his alfalfa bag to be finished so I can put a little of each hay and mix it all up into one and see if he will eat it. I also sprinkle in some pellets into the hay bowl so at the very least as he digs he eats the hay too.