Looking for Hay substitute: living in the tropics

warlepus

warlepus

Young Bun
Hi there. I'm a bit of a new bunny owner. The cute fluffball in my siggy was a bun I ended up taking home with me late July this year. Anyway, we live in the tropics where most of the hay recommended on almost all rabbit guides are hay from temperate counties. The ones that are readily available here are Sudan Hay (bagged, dried and probably unpalatable as Levi won't eat them).

I was wondering what kind of hay substitute I can use? Like supplementing a diet with grass or some such instead. We have no winter here so almost anything you recommend will grow all year round.


ATM, Levi is being fed some alfalfa based pellets (as recommended for his age by the shopkeeper) and water spinach. He has Sudan hay as well but rarely touches it/usually just tips his bowl over and tosses it.

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.
 
:thumb: It might be worth you using the search facility as I recall other bunny owners in the Phillipines facing the same dilemma so there may be an answer there. Good luck
 
Im not an expert, so don't take my word for it until someone more experienced comes along. But I would think that most types of grass should be ok for your rabbit. Some rabbits eat more grass than hay, and its essentially the same thing, so as long as grass is introduced slowly (so it doesn't upset his tummy) you should be ok replacing most of the hay portion of the diet with grass.

In the UK you can buy all sorts of grass seeds - timothy grass, meadow grass, lawn grass etc, so maybe take a look somewhere that sells seeds near you and get a good mixture growing (that would probably help make sure the rabbit gets a wide variety of nutrients)

The plus part is, that with your climate the grass (I think) should grow really quickly so you might be able to feed fresh grass daily, then make one or two cuts to make your own hay.

Other than that, there is a safe foods sticky somewhere, maybe grow as many of the plants as possible from that list to give your rabbit even more variety.
 
Here in Florida (subtropical) different types of bermuda i.e coastal, and bahia, grow very well. I imagine they grow these hays in the Philippines for horses and cows because they can stand the heat and humidity so if you could find a supplier for livestock you might find some that way.

I don't have any experience with any of these though, I feed mine timothy that gets shipped in from the Midwest.
 
We have a bunny in china that now lives with my inlaws. Can't get rabbit food or hay there at all as rabbits are bred for meat and no pets like it is there. She was fed on grass and carrots as that's all you can get and she's happy and healthy

This is her with some vegetable leaves from someone's garden :lol:
1zzi892.jpg
 
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Fresh grass would be fine :) Introduce it gradually so your rabbits stomach can get used to the new food but after that it can be used as a complete replacement for hay.

Alternatively, do you have any horse stables near you? They are often a good source of good quality hay.
 
@ luvabun: Er, what search facility if I may ask?

@ Tamsin: Unfortunately no. I live in the city and horses here are usually the ones you see from those races.


I think I'll try planting grass but in the meantime, what variant of grass would be good and how do I add more nutrients to patch up Levi's diet?

Or are the pellets nutritious enough?
 
The pellets are there to fortify a domestic rabbits diet - so as a replacement for the large quantities of low nutrition food they eat in the wild. The grass and hay is more important to wear down teeth and as such avoid dental issues. So there shouldn't be anything you need to feed them in addition to these, unless your vet finds a deficiency.
 
Race horse will usually still eat hay - so it might be worth checking if there is a horse/agricultural supplier tucked away near you somewhere.

Hay or grass is important for the bulky fibre which wears down teeth and helps move food through the gut. Normal lawn grass is fine, I don't know what varieties you'd have where you are.

Do they grow grain near you? Oats/barley that are still green can be used instead of grass too. You could also try growing those from seed to add a bit of variety.

Rabbits safe weeds would help a bit but I don't know what plants you'd have locally that would be okay.
 
Tamsin said:
Race horse will usually still eat hay - so it might be worth checking if there is a horse/agricultural supplier tucked away near you somewhere.

Hay or grass is important for the bulky fibre which wears down teeth and helps move food through the gut. Normal lawn grass is fine, I don't know what varieties you'd have where you are.

Do they grow grain near you? Oats/barley that are still green can be used instead of grass too. You could also try growing those from seed to add a bit of variety.

Rabbits safe weeds would help a bit but I don't know what plants you'd have locally that would be okay.
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I'm not sure what they feed the race horses since I keep seeing this mesh of stuff that looks like brownish oatmeal instead of grassy things. I live in the city. Not sure if oats/barley grow here since oats/barley aren't our staple grains. Ours is rice.
 
RavenMoon said:
The pellets are there to fortify a domestic rabbits diet - so as a replacement for the large quantities of low nutrition food they eat in the wild. The grass and hay is more important to wear down teeth and as such avoid dental issues. So there shouldn't be anything you need to feed them in addition to these, unless your vet finds a deficiency.
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Uhm... I have 3 types of pellets here. The plain ones for meat rabbits (no idea what it contains but I wager it's the one with more veggie oils), some alfalfa based pellets and the muesli type pellets good for hamsters/rabbits/guinea pigs (we had a storm last month so he ran out of food and I had to buy this one). Not sure which of these is the most complete/best for him.
 
warlepus said:
Uhm... I have 3 types of pellets here. The plain ones for meat rabbits (no idea what it contains but I wager it's the one with more veggie oils), some alfalfa based pellets and the muesli type pellets good for hamsters/rabbits/guinea pigs (we had a storm last month so he ran out of food and I had to buy this one). Not sure which of these is the most complete/best for him.
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You need to find out the individual nutritional information for each brand - it will be on the bag. Generally speaking, the muesli will not be suitable, especially if it is not a specific rabbit one. But you need to look at the different brands of pellets available, and compare fibre, protein, fat and vitamin levels, before you know which is best.
 
This might help you....its written for guinea pics but seems many relates to bunnies :) They have timpothy hay at some pet shops. Sea and Land Pet Shop seems to have hay??! No idea if that is anywhere near you
http://dindeen.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/guinea-pig-food-in-the-philippines/

Maybe contact some people from this place here and see if they can ship hay to you....unless this is near you? http://www.tiendesitas.com.ph/village-pet.asp?vid=5 , although looking at the pics, the animals dont seem to have hay and it looks awful in some places :(
 
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nessar said:
You need to find out the individual nutritional information for each brand - it will be on the bag. Generally speaking, the muesli will not be suitable, especially if it is not a specific rabbit one. But you need to look at the different brands of pellets available, and compare fibre, protein, fat and vitamin levels, before you know which is best.
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Yeah, I'm aware. Unfortunately, except for the alfalfa pellets, majority of rabbit pellets here are sold in their unpacked forms. Basically you just see the pellets not the ingredients.

I keep reading so much stuff it's hard to follow which is right. Some sites claim plain pellets are the best. Others say don't get the plain pellets as they're too high in fat if they're feed for meat rabbits, etc.
 
Kermit said:
This might help you....its written for guinea pics but seems many relates to bunnies :) They have timpothy hay at some pet shops. Sea and Land Pet Shop seems to have hay??! No idea if that is anywhere near you
http://dindeen.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/guinea-pig-food-in-the-philippines/

Maybe contact some people from this place here and see if they can ship hay to you....unless this is near you? http://www.tiendesitas.com.ph/village-pet.asp?vid=5 , although looking at the pics, the animals dont seem to have hay and it looks awful in some places :(
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Hi there. Yeah, I can get some Timothy hay but Levi was grown by a breeder from the province. He was used to fresh veggies and seems to ignore the hay. The Sudan hay is being tossed off like confetti and I worry as he hasn't even eaten 1/10 of the bag. The Timothy hay will be 3-4x the price of the Sudan hay and I don't want it going to waste. :/
 
warlepus said:
Hi there. Yeah, I can get some Timothy hay but Levi was grown by a breeder from the province. He was used to fresh veggies and seems to ignore the hay. The Sudan hay is being tossed off like confetti and I worry as he hasn't even eaten 1/10 of the bag. The Timothy hay will be 3-4x the price of the Sudan hay and I don't want it going to waste. :/
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Some rabbits just aren't good hay eaters and you have to kind of train them to eat hay well. My buns were like that and it took awhile to get them to be good hay eaters. Unless he loves timothy, a lot of it probably will go to waste until you get him to love hay. The most cost effective thing would be to get a bale of hay (coastal or whatever they grow over there) from a farmer or something outside of the city if you can do that.
 
William said:
Some rabbits just aren't good hay eaters and you have to kind of train them to eat hay well. My buns were like that and it took awhile to get them to be good hay eaters. Unless he loves timothy, a lot of it probably will go to waste until you get him to love hay. The most cost effective thing would be to get a bale of hay (coastal or whatever they grow over there) from a farmer or something outside of the city if you can do that.
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Hay isn't really something we grow here. We mostly grow rice here and farm animals tend to eat grass from farm lands. Not sure what kind but it's usually the variant that grows up to a person's knee height.

I'm considering substituting it with veggies or other high fiber foods.
 
Do you have names for any of the brands? I'm veering towards the alfalfa based ones on a total guess, purely because the meat ones I'm thinking won't exactly be geared towards longevity, and muesli isn't ideal particularly since its not rabbit specific. Without more information its hard to tell.
 
RavenMoon said:
Do you have names for any of the brands? I'm veering towards the alfalfa based ones on a total guess, purely because the meat ones I'm thinking won't exactly be geared towards longevity, and muesli isn't ideal particularly since its not rabbit specific. Without more information its hard to tell.
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The alfalfa are jolly pet products brand. It's some Chinese brand. 16% protein, 20% fiber, 3% oil, 7% moisture, 1.5% calcium, 1% phosphorous.

Those are on the English version of the ingredients so I'm hoping they didn't leave something out of the translation.

They're muesli type too, but Levi eats everything regardless so I'm not too worried about selective feeding.
 
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