How much hay?

[babybella]

My Bella has always been a big eater, and until recently almost all she ate was hay, with just a few fresh veggies/herbs per day. But now that the weather is cooling off (we live in a desert) she spends a lot of time roaming the backyard, and her diet has changed a lot. We have a pretty big garden and she’s allowed to eat anything she can reach from behind the fence, so she munches on everything from grass to grape leaves to cilantro. Almost all of it is green and low-sugar so I think it’s pretty good for her, but since she’s filling up on that she doesn’t eat nearly as much hay, and that worries me a little. I still give her two or three handfuls per day, and she seems to eat most of it, but is that enough to keep her digestive system running the way it should??

[Sarita]

You should give her unlimited hay.

[babybella]

I do still give her as much as she will eat, I check it at least twice a day and add some if it looks like she’s getting low. It’s just that I haven’t been needing to add as much lately, because she’s not eating it as often as she used to. Should I trust her to just eat as much as she needs? Or should I be limiting the amount of other food she gets so that she’s hungrier and eats more of her hay?

[Beka27]

In total, what does she get each day? What quantity of veggies and pellets?

[babybella]

Her vet told me not to give her any pellets because some of the minerals that they add to them were causing her some problems (or something like that, I don’t remember for sure but he recommended I cut them out of her diet entirely). I have no idea how much veggies she eats, I let her run free in the yard for at least an hour or two per day and she spends the whole time nibbling. So I don’t really know how to measure that! I realized, though, a lot of what she eats out there is bermuda grass, which is also a type of hay right? So maybe I shouldn’t be worried anyway. And as far as how much hay she eats, I give her two or three big handfuls every day and she usually eats most of that. I know “handfuls” isn’t a really precise measurement but I don’t know how else to describe it haha. Does that sound about right?

[BunnyHugger]

Hay is dried grass! Do give her unlimited timothy or other grass hay, unless she’s under seven months. Then she should get alfalfa hay. When the first few pounds of hay I picked up at the feed store turned out to be not to my rescued bun’s taste, I picked tons of grass for him. The fresh stuff is better for them, anyway. You’re doing your bun a service. And remember the water content of grass makes it much larger in volume, so their tummies get full faster.

Give unlimited hay; I don’t know what you mean by three handfulls. Do you measure it and wait till she cleans it all up? Don’t. Bunnies will eat in the middle of the night, and she needs the hay there for her. It’s not “feed” like giving a dog a bowl of food. Put hay in her bed, they love sleeping on it. Put it in her litterbox, they love eating and pooping at the same time LOL

Make hay toys with paper towel rolls and egg cartons. Bunnies are foragers. In the wild, they roam about 2 acres thoroughly a day. They stretch, eat, run, eat, flop out, poop and eat, flop out, run the Bunny 500, eat and drink, flop out, eat some more. It’s never ending.

If you spread their feed out, they’ll eat when they feel like it, in the right amounts. I created a hay toy in the Toys section that incorporates most of my bun’s daily pellet ration. He loves tearing at the hay and finding the pellets, then making both hay and pellets scatter. Sometimes I scatter alfalfa pellets in his bedding hay. He goes crazy getting at it. His house is two connected cardboard boxes, and he loves alternating between chewing hay, finding pellets, and chewing cardboard.

I don’t know how you buy your hay, but if you’re measuring it, I suspect you’re buying very small quantities, like the pet store sells for ridiculous prices. Go to a feed store and buy half a bale, or find a farmer/horse barn on Craigslist who’ll sell you a full Hefty bag. I pay $3 per flake of hay at the feed store, which is about 2-3 lbs., and buy three-four flakes at a time. I keep the Hefty bag (contractor weight—very tough) in my storage room, and put a shopping bag of it on top of Borys’ cage, so I can replenish him any time. Which is constantly. Those pet store packages are only 24 oz., so you feel you have to conserve it.

Buns are messy, and you have to go along with it. When you do it right, there will be hay scattered throughout your home and in your underwear.

If the vet says Bella is healthy and she’s the right weight, then she’s doing fine with eating. I check my bunny’s weight daily while I groom him. I gently feel along his spine and ribs. They should be very lightly padded with flesh, and the hindquarters quite fleshy.

[babybella]

I buy timothy hay in compressed bales from one of the local feed stores. One bale usually lasts her about a month (I use it for bedding too though, which she won’t eat. She only eats it if it’s fresh and very clean). I don’t measure the hay to limit it, I just try to pay attention to how often and how much I add to it. I never let her run out.

She does seem really healthy and happy though, and her weight is where it’s supposed to be. So I won’t worry about it anymore, I know I just tend to get a little over-anxious Thanks for all the advice!!!

[BunnyHugger]

You’re welcome!

She won’t eat her hay bedding? Are you sure she’s a rabbit

My naughty boy will happily eat the hay that’s fallen out of my bra and gotten trampled under my desk. And cardboard. Lots of cardboard.

[JackRabbit]

Stores hay in bra?

[babybella]

Haha I know, she’s a very unusual rabbit. She also loves being held, and is surprisingly fearless – she actually terrorizes my dog But yeah, in spite of all that I’m pretty sure she’s a bunny!

[babybella]

Haha I know, she’s a very unusual rabbit. She also loves being held, and is surprisingly fearless – she actually terrorizes my dog But yeah, in spite of all that I’m pretty sure she’s a bunny!

[babybella]

(sorry, not sure why that posted twice)

[BunnyHugger]

Jackrabbit, if you carry 1/2 a full sized bale at a time and work with horses, you too will have hay in your bra 😀

[BunnyHugger]

BB I wish I could buy compressed bales. No such thing around here. I’ve found a couple of sources of gorgeous Timothy in full size horse flakes, though.

[drwil]

You can give her an entire field of hay. Too many veggies can cause loose stool…that’s when you should back off the wet stuff and make her eat hay.

[gingerg]

Babybella,

I read that a good rule of thumb is that your rabbit should eat about her body size (volume, not weight of course) in hay per day. I think my rabbits mostly get there most days (it’s harder to tell now because they pull all their hay out of the hayfeeder and toss it around their litter box, so they trample some of it down). 

[Author]

Messages