How much hay do you use a month?

[tulsi]

One of my wonderful friends lets me have a bale of hay every month. In the last three months my six (now eight) rabbits and three guinea pigs got through almost four bales oops. They are not eating it all by any means. Soooo much gets wasted (hence the ).

How much hay do you reakon would be enough to give each rabbit daily to give them unlimited supplies?

Do you find hayracks are more economical?

I use newspaper, straw and hay in their trays. I have recently cut down on veg slightly but still give each rabbit at least a fist full of pellets a day. Is that too many? (5 lion head x, 1 mini lop - the belgian hares need quite a lot cos one is only young and they move around all the time)! Also Mairwen at cottontails (what a great place) told me exactly what they have been having.

So, does anybody else have rabbit hay wastage problems?

 

[catherine09]

Double post

 

[catherine09]

I have 4 rabbits and 5 piggies and I get through bale every 2 weeks...but I still find there is a lot of wastage. I put the old hay in the garden waste bin

I don't use hay racks as my guys just pull it all out into the trays anyway so their trays get filled to the brim with hay twice a day

 

[Kirotea]

My two have got through a 10kg bale from timothyhay plus a few 2.25kg bags of meadow hay in a month. They have a hay feeder above their main litter tray in their base and a bundle to the side of it. Any uneaten stuff I keep and put in the litter tray after I empty it out. I find that they spill stuff out of the feeder into the litter tray below as well which keeps topping up the hay in the tray but then they eat hay from the tray too. Their second litter tray gets filled with meadow hay and they will sit in there and munch but I find they've eaten the majority of the hay in it by the time I empty it but they seem to leave some in the bottom to sit on.

Mine only have a handful of pellets between them but that might be a bit stingy. On week days they have them hidden in hay in a paper bag folded to try and keep them occupied for a bit but they destroy it in seconds! At weekends they have them in a treat ball.

 

[Jackaroonie]

I get a 4ft bale which lasts my 4 bunnies and 6 piggies 3 weeks usually, sometimes less. I also too waste quite a bit oops

 

[ripminnie]

I have 5 bunnies and use two 9.5kg H4P bales a WEEK :shock: skint doesn't come close!!! Wish I could find decent farm bales!!!

 

[tulsi]

Thanks for your replies. My friend was horrified at how much hay I had used in three months and said a lady he knows of with 7 rabbits uses about half that :shock:

I will buy some timothy hay for pets as a top up. (Got some ordered anyway as I had thought that he wasnt up for giving me any more cos of my 'rediculous' hay usage).

 

[tonibun]

I use 12 bales a month = £80. I don't think you can help wasting quite a bit. I am just hoping all this wet weather isn't going to be detrimental to the hay this year.

 

[parsnipbun]

On a very rough guess about 12 or 15 bales - but we live next door to the hay farmer so its £3.50 a bale and collect by wheelbarrow!!

 

[Tracy]

I have 11 rabbits and 6 chinchillas and use almost a bale a week.

I line the rabbits' litter trays, haylofts etc with megazorb and cover it with a thick layer of hay. I clean out all trays in the morning and then top up their hay again in the evening. I do have a lot of hay wastage, but mine won't eat out of hayracks, they prefer to eat their hay from their litter trays.

 

[GrahamL]

Approximately 2x 10KG H4P bags of Timothy & Rye when I had both B&G

Now its around 1 bag.

 

[JemimaH]

I have 3 buns at the moment (soon to be 2, though) and used to waste a lot, but then I added up the cost of how much we were spending on hay per month and thought 'this is ridiculous', so I cut down. I now don't place hay on the floor of the enclosure - stops it getting damp/wet and having to be chucked away the next day. It goes in a little plastic box for Alfie and a wicker basket for Rosy Posy. They eat it straight from there and thankfully don't use it as a toilet, as I'd originally thought! I give them a few handfuls of fresh each night on top of what they've already got, and only chuck it away once it isn't fresh and they don't want it any more, if you know what I mean? They get a couple of handfuls in their litter trays when I've just refreshed them, just to encourage them to use it, and I replace the litter trays every 5-7 days (more frequently in summer!) so that's not much hay being used very often either. Dee's the same but she's indoors so her hay doesn't get damp anyway.

I'd say 1 - 1 1/2 of the PAH own bales? It's hard to visualise! We definitely don't get through two bales p/m, it's probably closer to one and a half than one.

 

[Amy104]

I use a bale a week for 13 buns and 2 piggies. I think a little bit of wastage is inevitable especially if like mine they like it in their litter trays. They probably would still eat it, but I'd feel Yuk if I didn't change it daily.

 

[esupi]

9.5 kg Hay for Pets Ings Hay lasts my 4 about 3 weeks. Three of them are small rabbits though (<2 kg).
I have just started using a Manor Pet Housing hay bar for the indoor two and my initial observation is that I'm wasting less - they've only had it about a week though so we'll see what happens as they get more used to it.

 

[Rupert & Tia]

I have two bunnies and get through a 9.5kg bag of ings every 6 weeks and a big pack of easy pack hay every month.

 

[tabithakat64]

My three are in love with the meadow hay from the local pet & garden centre.

They have a hay ball, hay in their litter tray over litter, a hay rack and hay in their bedroom overnight and a larger than bunnie ball split into two in the run in the day (one lot goes in their grass house).

I recycle anything uneaten that is not wet into the corner of the run where they wee so there's less wastage and find I'm going through two and a half large bags a week. But by moving hay to be weed on that I'm not removing much that isn't soiled.

I'm really happy that they are loving this hay so will keep using it even though it's expensive.

 

[klw]

A coarse farm bale lasts my Frenchies about a month or two months and a fine-hay bale will last about 2 months. It's used mostly as feed plus a little bedding in 10' hutches, but not in litter trays and there's very little waste.

 

[chloemurray]

I used to use around three 9.5kg Hay for Pets bags when I had 3 bunnies, and so much of it was wasted. Now, I've got it down to a fine art and even though I have 5 bunnies now I never use more than two bags a month. I monitored exactly how much they were eating, whether they ate it from their litter tray, hay racks or off the floor (I used to have hay all over their set ups) and soon realised how much they really needed. They were only eating it from their litter trays so now they get a massive pile in the morning (about three times the size of their bodies), and another massive pile in the evening when I do their pellets. I know that's enough for them as there is still a little bit of wastage Saves me at least £16 a month, just by having a proper look at how much they were actually eating. :thumb:

 

[tulsi]

I used to use around three 9.5kg Hay for Pets bags when I had 3 bunnies, and so much of it was wasted. Now, I've got it down to a fine art and even though I have 5 bunnies now I never use more than two bags a month. I monitored exactly how much they were eating, whether they ate it from their litter tray, hay racks or off the floor (I used to have hay all over their set ups) and soon realised how much they really needed. They were only eating it from their litter trays so now they get a massive pile in the morning (about three times the size of their bodies), and another massive pile in the evening when I do their pellets. I know that's enough for them as there is still a little bit of wastage Saves me at least £16 a month, just by having a proper look at how much they were actually eating. :thumb:

Very useful post.

I am hoping to be able to use a bale and a big bag of hay for pets timothy hay each month. I have recently started giving grass which they all love.

 

[weeble]

My 6 rabbits and 2 pigs go through a bale every two weeks