My Netherland DWARF eats so little HAY.

Is this course for concern ?

Where as my Lop eats and doesn't stop eating his hay, my Dwarf hardly will touch his and the same lot can last for weeks...

I think nethies can be very prone to teeth problems so it's very important they eat hay, what else are you feeding? Have you tried different types of hay?

My nethie Tarquin is the same. Whereas Bella's pellets and veg are gone in minutes, Tarquin takes hours to eat his. Bella's hay needs topping up twice a day, but Tarquin's lasts days. I know he eats it - when he's out of his cage and with me he stuffs his face with it - and I make sure he has lots of different types - timothy, oat, orchard, meadow and dried grass - so I hope he gets enough to keep his teeth ok. I limit his pellets as I think - like a lot of bunnies - he'd eat those before his hay. How much food do you give?

Rebec

guiness loves his hay which is great news lol then again guiness loves food of any kind :lol:

my rabbits only eat fresh hay. I give them a handful twice a day and that lasts them about 4 hours and then they go in the run, so they don't need hay then. I used to feed mine ab-lib pellets and they didn't eat any hay, but now they are down to one and 1/2 handfuls morning and night, and they eat hay during the day and night.

If not eating much hay is a recent thing you may want to him checked out for dental problems, in hindsight the first sign of Remus' molar spurs was that he didn't eat so much hay. He's a small nethie cross harliquin so can definately confirm that nethies and crosses are prone to nasty teeth issues. Since he had the spurs treated he's been eating more hay, although not nearly as much as I'd like ideally!

Lily eats hay like theres no tomorrow, but choci I have to tempt him to eat his 'normal' hay with treat hays like alfalfa:roll:

vikki:wave:

How much pellets does your nethie get a day? I would cut back the pellets to encourage them to eat. Weigh them first so that you can monitor if they are loosing weight.

Hay comes in many different varieties, some rabbits are fussy others are not, some prefer soft hays others harder hays. I have had many rabbits whom I have fostered who prefer a soft hay from a nice bale of hay brought from a farm, rather than the harder types of hay. A bale of farm hay costs around £5, sometimes a little more or often lesss depending on where you live.

If you have a rabbit who does not eat hay experiment with different hay types, there are many hay companies who do sample bags. The hays sold in shrink wrapped bags in many large pet stores and supermarkets are often poor in quality when compared to other hays which can be bought. Do compare them and try new ones to see what your bun likes .

If you find a hay yours likes, you can often mix it with other hays to try and tempt them to eat more.

I would get his teeth checked, particularly his molars as hay is often the first thing they stop eating when they develop spurs as they cannot manage the normal side to side grinding needed to break down roughage.

My giants don't eat much hay and they have loads of varieties on offer. The only way to tempt them is to sprinkle some crushed alfalfa over their hay, then they wolf it down, but obviously the alfalfa needs to be given scarcely as it is too high in calcium.

Thank you for all your replies..

I feed less than handful of pellets a day..... hard to judge in mind actual quantity while I sit here at work...

I tried all sorts of hay too... I have meadow hay at the moment.

Buggie Jay said:

Thank you for all your replies..

I feed less than handful of pellets a day..... hard to judge in mind actual quantity while I sit here at work...

I tried all sorts of hay too... I have meadow hay at the moment.

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I think that generally they find Timothy Hay very attractive, I would give that a go Bobbin goes wild when I get the bag out, buzzing around it as if it's a female rabbit! Awww, hormones!

Get all my hay from Melbicks, what it turns out to be depends on what they have at the time. :roll: .. never known something consumable to change names and quality so quickly and so often.

I bought 3 new rabbits a month ago, and the previous owner fed straw not hay :roll: so I'm having to trick them into eating hay - I stuff a toilet roll with hay and make sure theres plenty of hay hanging out of the ends, they then chuck the toilet roll about and in doing so nibble at the hay! Its the only way I can get them to eat it - nightmare!!

Buggie Jay said:

Get all my hay from Melbicks, what it turns out to be depends on what they have at the time. :roll: .. never known something consumable to change names and quality so quickly and so often.

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There's a pets at home or Notcutts 2 junctions down the M42 near shirley, both of which have timothy hay.
Alternativley there is a horse supplier (Hungry Horse) nearby where I get dried grass from which my buns love.

I would reduce his pellets to the bare minmum. Then as already said try different hays, what i used to do with my buns (and it do it now with my guineas) is to buy a bag of compressed stuff from a pet shop, and then add some dried herbs, and a few big handfuls of different hays.
Also if you can make sure that you nethie has access to nice lawn grass as that will count towards his hay intake