Needs more hay!

[S. Witherspoon]

I only recently read into how much of what rabbits should be eating every day. My bun is a free eater, but after that I immediately restricted her pellet consumption, and replaced her big feeder with hay. I admit that it probablyrics wasn’t the best idea to change her diet so abruptly. When I woke up yesterday, I noticed she did not touch her hay and all of her pellets were gone, so I put some hay into the bowl her pellets were in as well as kept it in her main feeder. It’s possible that she ate some hay froM the bowl, but I cannot be too certain since she the her bowl across the cage (she usually does this when she wants veggies, since that’s the bowl we put them in.) I did finally cave in and put some pellets in the bowl as to not starve her, and she also had some baby kale this morning. However, I came to the realization that she never eats very much hay, as it always filters through the bottom of her cage and into the litter pan below.

That being said: do you have any tips on what I could do to make her eat more of her hay?

[hportland]

So had she been eating hay before? And if so, did you switch brands? Most rabbits will highly prefer pellets and veggies over hay, but will eat the hay if they are still hungry. What you could try doing is offering her a little piece of it and try to get her to eat it. That will show her that it’s edible. Make sure the hay smells good, too! And try to keep the majority of it in a place where it won’t come into contact with water or her urine/feces. Most rabbits will not eat spoiled hay. So try keeping it away from the litter pan (although it is recommended to put some in the litter box to tempt her into spending time there).

You could try experimenting with brands, as well. Oxbow is the one that is most recommended by people here, from what I’ve noticed. You could also leave just hay in her food bowl fora full day, she will likely get hungry enough to eat it. Hay is important because it helps rabbits’ digestion and also wears their teeth down. How are her teeth looking? You may need to get them trimmed if she isn’t wearing them down :/

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