Hay eating,age of hay in tray (should be in either behaviour or health or diet but..)

Guys,

Somethings really getting to me. I guess since im looking after the pennies a little more now, I've been watching what the bunsters are eating.

It's really noticeable how much hay goes to waste when I do a tray (with Ginger's kidney issues, she pees about 1000 times a day so I change them more often than a lot of you may) as once they decide its not 'fresh' any more, they won't eat it. I get that some of it will be pee covered and so not tasty, but not all of it, as they both only use corners to pee in.

In the past 4-5 days I've actually stopped giving quite so much fresh hay - leaving it an extra few (2-3) hours before topping it up and I've noticed, they do eat the other stuff if I leave it long enough, but I don't want it to be too long that it increases tooth growth as Ginger has a history of bad dental issues but how long is acceptable?

I know the unwritten rule of thumb is "unlimited fresh, good quality hay" but do you think it's alright for me to do this continually? It's not like im starving them.... there are 3 different locations in the room with hay if they want it.

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.

Would buying a farm bale be an option and then mixing it with the posh stuff? I buy a massive bale for £7, I don't need to worry about wasting money because I get so much for a small price

Georgeypudding said:

Would buying a farm bale be an option and then mixing it with the posh stuff? I buy a massive bale for £7, I don't need to worry about wasting money because I get so much for a small price

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I do that, the baled stuff goes in the litter trays and I put some h4p hay on top of that hay, the rest goes in the hay rack and tubes etc

Georgeypudding said:

Would buying a farm bale be an option and then mixing it with the posh stuff? I buy a massive bale for £7, I don't need to worry about wasting money because I get so much for a small price

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I also do this but right now the buns are sulking as they just have baled stuff as STINKING YODEL have my H4P order! Grrrrr.

Sometimes if I fluff it up it fools them into thinking it's new and they eat more.

Georgeypudding said:

Would buying a farm bale be an option and then mixing it with the posh stuff? I buy a massive bale for £7, I don't need to worry about wasting money because I get so much for a small price

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Aly&Poppy<3 said:

I do that, the baled stuff goes in the litter trays and I put some h4p hay on top of that hay, the rest goes in the hay rack and tubes etc

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Unfortunately not, I have nowhere to store a bale, nor the time or inclination to try another hay and it affect Ginger so badly again, last time, we ended up nearly losing her when trying poor quality hay

Do they eat the hay that you put in other places as well as the stuff in the litter tray? I would maybe top up the other places more than the tray if they do :wave: then any that they don't eat from the other places can go in the litter tray when you change it.

Can you put more in a sort of "rack" slightly above ground level so that it doesnt get covered in wee and less in the trays etc? I know that they like to sit on it and eat it at the same time but if it is the same area but slightly higher would this work for them?

GrahamL said:

Unfortunately not, I have nowhere to store a bale, nor the time or inclination to try another hay and it affect Ginger so badly again, last time, we ended up nearly losing her when trying poor quality hay

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I have a bale taking over my kitchen right now! I have to keep moving it about to get in drawers. I wish farms sold half bales!

I wouldn't say all baled hay is poor quality though.

I guess we just have to accept that whatever you try the buns will pull all the hay down and pee all over it and that's life!

The bales I get are better quality that the hay I tried from Dust Free Hay. Only problem is it tends to be a bit dustier than bagged hay that has been shaken out and bagged so I shake it when I fill up a tub from outside. Could you get one of those big storage boxes with a tarp over and have that in the garden? If you're worried about quality then they sometimes do bags of baled hay if that makes sense so you can try before commiting to a bale.

Or if baled really isn't an option then just refill the racks instead of the trays? I don't use racks (can't find one that Nutmeg can't get into :roll but I fill trays up twice a day and they carry on eating it nearly all that time. I know mine don't wee as much in quantity as Ginger but Nutmeg does a lot of small wees. I also do the floofing thing if it gets a bit trodden down.

Doughnut only likes the fresh stuff as she distributes it all in her tray and sits on some and pees and poops on it, so doesn't eat it. I've then noticed she seems to cover it over like a dog and then sit on that bit, so more wasted.

I get through a lot of hay but she tends to love the Wilkinsons timothy hay, which is better for me as I don't get such bad hayfever. I put the bag down for her when I'm at home and she eats out of that so stops me having to keep refreshing. She does dig some out and goes inside the bag but if it's a fresh bag she obviously can't get in. I wonder if it would be worth putting some of yours in a bag where they can just get to the front parts so you don't have to keep going round the trays and putting fresh stuff in.

What hay do they get? Obviously the Wilko one isn't great quality!

Lots of nose rubs to Ginger and Biscuit.

GrahamL said:

Unfortunately not, I have nowhere to store a bale, nor the time or inclination to try another hay and it affect Ginger so badly again, last time, we ended up nearly losing her when trying poor quality hay

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hmm :? as long as they aren't running out of hay then in theory they should be fine but Ginger is such a special case. I'd try some racks, maybe forage too? Or (I'm not sure how keen you might be on this) you could fashion a litter tray like these http://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/121037/Default.aspx so that they hay isn't sitting in wee constantly

I also was wondering this actually only last night, I change their litter trays every other day and yesterday I threw away loads of good hay, they had picked out the bits they wanted to eat and left the rest.

Not really so much of an issue for me as I can get, and store, nice farm bales. It's actually more of a problem for waste disposal for me, but did make me think.

my hay bales were also of a better quality than pet shops etc, it was just really fresh

we do chuck a lot away though, i guess they are going to have to learn not to be fussy :lol:

I'm fortunate as we make our own hay at the farm and have a barn full of bales of it, however one of our horses and my bun are sensitive to dust. But the quality of the hay we have baled is always a million times better than any stuff ive ever bought in the shops. although with the horse we still have to soak it. :shock:

I don't think leaving the hay in a bit longer will be an issue for your buns, I know we love our little ones dearly, but they are animals after all, they're probably just a bit spoilt so prefer it to be totally fresh, but a few hours old isn't going to do them any harm!

I found wastage was a big issue here, so now we have less hay but more often, for example we have two trays upstairs Oll and Boo have 3 handfulls each in each tray, when that starts to get thin i add more and also have 'tufts of hay tied together with sstring and hanging from the cage roof we have gorgeous golden poops here :wave:

catherine09 said:

I also was wondering this actually only last night, I change their litter trays every other day and yesterday I threw away loads of good hay, they had picked out the bits they wanted to eat and left the rest.

Not really so much of an issue for me as I can get, and store, nice farm bales. It's actually more of a problem for waste disposal for me, but did make me think.

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I tend to change them say Mon morning, refill Mon eve, Tues morn, Tues eve and then change again Weds morn. (When I say refill I put a LOT of hay in which then they eat and the rest gets squashed and then there is room for more). They eat plenty as evidenced by their golden crumbly poos and they never sit in wee as evidence by their clean feet (apart from Nutmeg who wees elsewhere on the lino and then sits in it :roll

I go through a bale a month and empty a 80L box of hay/poos every week.

Have you tried hay racks that are off the floor? I used to waste loads of hay, cos when its on the floor, they just dont eat it (altho they pull the hay out of the litter trays onto floor, then eat it til its gone :roll: ), but I got them a hay rack, and they eat pretty much all of it now! The stuff they pull out of the hay rack (its ings in the rack) i put in the litter trays - litter tray hay never gets wasted cos its peed on so goes in bin anyway, thats not wasting it - cos its their toilet.
I use a £16 bag of ings every two months (a bag lasts two months) and a bag of sussex packed hay for litter trays (its £4 for a big bag at farm shop) which also last about 2 months, so £10 a month, which i don't think is too bad, for two rabbits.
If their litter trays aren't too bad, I just empty the wet megazorb - they tend to eat the hay and just have megazorb. I never chuck clean hay that they're just refusing to eat cos its older than half a day (they've soon learnt that they have to eat it) - they tended to pull it out of rack then not eat it cos it was on the floor - but i leave it now, and they eat it.
I ws filling morning and night then they have a separate one for when they in garden / in house - they reguse to eat this if its more than a day old, so i put it in their shed, and they don't notice! they were wasting about a rack full per day at one point - it was silly!