Hay tips?

[Silverpaws]

Hi guys. I have a hay conundrum and would appreciate any tips or ideas.

My buns are free roam. My current set up for feeding is: I have taken the bottom of an old cage (think a big plastic tray a few feet big) and put a litter tray in it and i also have the hay rack in there. When I put out hay, i pop it on the rack and let the rabbits go a it. The reason the standing hay rack is in the cage is because my buns like to burrow their faces in the hay and throw it around as they eat. If i put the rack in the cage, any flyaway hay just goes in there and not on the carpet, and they can eat it later. Right?

However. My rabbits will eat hay but they mostly love throwing it on the floor of the cage, and though they are both litter trained, you know how bunnies like to poop while eating! The hay on the bottom of the cage is getting soiled, and they ignore it. I’m getting frustrated, it feels like a good half of a bag of hay just gets wasted because it ends up on the cage bottom instead of being eaten.

Any tips? Where am I going wrong here??

[litheandgraphic]

Have you tried any other brands of hay / types of hay? You can try a different brand of Timothy hay, or you can try botanical or orchard grass hays and see if those will be of more interest to the bunnies.

[rabbyrabby]

Before I bought my bunny, I bought one of those pet store “hay feeder” things which basically just held the hay in it.  It’s wooden and looks quite nice.  

But yeah, I put the hay in there expecting him to just eat it from there.  

Nope.

He digs it all out and spreads it around the cage.  He picks out the fluffy parts and ignores 70% of it.  Maybe this is just natural?

[Silverpaws]

Yeaah I just bought 3kg of new hay and a pack of dry grass so we’ll try that Funny-looking-rabbit (your signiture makes me giggle every time!)
and rabby rabby, at least i’m not the only one! I guess they like have grass under foot to dig about and stuff. But I just end up going ‘cmooooon!! That stuff costs 10 bucks a pack, EAT!!’

[litheandgraphic]

Hahaha, rabbyrabby, this is actually very common. When I first got Theodore I gave him a hay rack and he looked at me like I was nuts. He had no idea what to do with it. Not to mention they’re super messy!

As for the selective eating, he also may not be crazy about this brand, cut, or type of hay; perhaps try another.

[Silverpaws]

I swear they go through phases. Last month it was ALLLLL about timothy hay with apple and carrot. They dried grass and peppermint. Then timothy hay. And now they’re of it again. Rabbits! DIvas!

[litheandgraphic]

Indeed they are. But that’s why we love them. Cx

[bob marley]

maybe try a different variety of hay.

[jerseygirl]

Do you gave anywhere local that you could by hay by the bale?
If more economical, you might not feel so bad about the wastage. Which is unavoidable sometimes. They like to forage and toss random pieces about!
Sometimes mine will stand on outside of litter box and pull bunch of hay out to eat. grrr…

[Author]

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