Picky with hay

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This topic has 2sd replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 2 months ago by Moonlightbunny66.

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- 09/09/2020 at 8:57 AM
  Moonlightbunny66
  Participant
  694 posts
  Muffin and Pinky keep leaving a ton of the harder stalky hay parts in the litter box and hay racks. It was Oxbow Timothy hay. They like to eat all of the soft parts. They’ll eat the hard parts when I hand feed it to them. But they pick out the soft parts in their pens. So I’m left with a ton of the hard parts. I just use them to put over the wood pellets in the litter box.
  
  But I don’t want them to have so much hay waste, hay is expensive. I’m planning on getting hay from a farm feed store that’s a mix of a bunch of different kinds of hay. I‘m not sure how much alfalfa and clover is in it though. I had to get some Kaytee Timothy hay, which seems a lot harder/tougher than the oxbow one I had. Since I ran out of hay before I could get farm hay.
  
  What do you guys do when they leave the hard parts? And is there a better kind of hay that I can get that has less hard parts? Like I want them to eat the hard parts since I think it’s higher in fibre right? And what do you guys do with the hay dust at the bottom of the box? I think I’ve seen people use them for making treats.
  
  Thank you.
- 09/09/2020 at 1:01 PM
  ThorBunny
  Participant
  824 posts
  I think every bun tends to like different softness of hays.
  
  Thor sounds like your buns though, she always picked out all the leaves and left the stalks! While more fiber is better for them, my understanding is that encouraging general hay consumption is best. So we switched to 3rd cut Timmothy hay (the higher the cut number, the softer the hay in general). We get from SPS, but many brands have 3rd cut. Since making the switch, she eats a LOT more. She also used to get stasis events coinciding with pre-molt times a few times a year, these have stopped since the switch (knock on wood!)
  
  TLDR, if they only eat the soft parts you can try switching to a softer cut of hay?
- 09/09/2020 at 2:10 PM
  Moonlightbunny66
  Participant
  694 posts
  Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I just want them to get all the nutrients they need. I’m hoping the hay from the farm feed store will be good.
  
  I can’t seem to find where it says what cut it is on packaging from stores or online.
  
  Thank you!
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