Not sure if bunny is eating hay…. maybe?

[rachillchill]

 I have hay available to my lionhead Cookie in a few areas. She spreads it around, so it’s hard to tell if the amount of hay is less or if it’s just spread out. She LOVES eating her daily salads, and I do provide a small amount of pellets every day… I’ve been lessening the amount of pellets gradually to try and get her to eat more hay, and I don’t think the salads are excessive either – a few leaves of kale/lettuce/cilantro (I change it up) with a piece of carrot on top, for breakfast and dinner. I’m talking maaaaybe a measured cup of greens twice a day. I never actually see her eat the hay. It’s SweetMeadow hay, so I think it’s good quality. Am I feeding her too much fresh greens? I mean, she’s not a tiny bunny, so with her weight I didn’t think a total of two cups of greens a day was inappropriate. Is it safe to assume that if tasty hay is available, she will eat it if she is hungry? 

[Bam]

How does her poop look? If a bun isn’t eating hay, the poop tends to be dark and moist and small. Ideally poop should be golden brown and when you break one open, it should crumble. There are of course individual differences and type of hay can also result in various colors of poop, some hay gives very light brown- golden poop and some gives darker poop. Here’s a guide to bunny poop with good pictures:
http://www.bunssb.org/bunnies/guide-bunny-poops/

You could also weigh her weekly, if she only eats a little bit of pellets and greens and no hay, she’d lose weight. It’s often very difficult to see with the naked eye if a bun is losing or gaining until a change in weight becomes very marked.

She could be eating hay during the night. My bun does that. He has his “hay station” in my bedroom, so I can hear him crunching away at night. (Love that sound).

[Sirius&Luna]

Does she never eat it in front of you when you top it up?

My buns will always rush over at hay top up time, and immediately start eating. I also tend to see them nibbling at various times when I go into their room.

You could try leaving small piles of hay regularly, so it’s easier to see if it’s being consumed. It’s also worth trying different varieties – even though you think it’s good quality, buns can be very sensitive to small changes in hay that are invisible to human noses!

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