{"id":14,"date":"2007-06-20T22:13:01","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T21:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therabbithouse.com\/blog\/?p=14"},"modified":"2010-01-10T08:35:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-10T07:35:56","slug":"5-ways-to-get-your-to-rabbit-eat-more-hay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/20\/5-ways-to-get-your-to-rabbit-eat-more-hay\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to Get Your Rabbit to Eat More Hay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Considering at least 80% of a rabbit&#8217;s diet should be hay (or grass) there is a worrying number of rabbits owners that report their bunny eats little or no hay.  The high fibre content of hay is essential for maintaining a healthy gut and teeth, as well as providing a boredom busting activity for your rabbit.<\/p>\n<p>Many common and potentially serious health problems are caused or exacerbated by the lack it of, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gut  Stasis<\/li>\n<li>Excess Cecotropes (sticky poop)  which can lead to fly strike<\/li>\n<li>Overgrown teeth which can result in tooth abscesses and gut stasis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, below are my top 5 tips for turning your rabbit in to a hay eater.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Feed Tastier Hay<\/strong><br \/>\nHay is a bit like apples. It comes in lots of different varieties and flavours.  Some people like crisp Granny Smiths others like sweet Cox&#8217;s, and cooking apples taste horrible (unless cooked). Likewise some rabbits can be quite fussy about the variety of hay they like.<\/p>\n<p>When choosing hay avoid the finely chopped,  brownish plastic packed varieties you find in a lot of pet shops. Look for green, long strands that smell nice and aren&#8217;t too dusty. Hay sold at feed shops and farms, for horses  to eat, is usually good and a lot cheaper then pet shop bags.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxbowhay.com\/index.sp\" target=\"_blank\">Oxbow<\/a> do a wide range of different hay&#8217;s you can try your rabbit with. You do not have to stick to one variety, mix and match to keep your rabbit&#8217;s interest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Put Hay Where Your Rabbit Sits<\/strong><br \/>\nRabbits prefer to munch hay while they are resting and while they are using their litter tray\/toilet area. Putting the hay in these places will catch your rabbit at the time he&#8217;s most likely to eat it. If you don&#8217;t want to put hay in the litter tray then hang a hay rack above it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Incorporate Hay into Toys<\/strong><br \/>\nMost rabbits like to play and throw toys around. Incorporating hay in to play activities can encourage them to pull, bite and chew at the hay. A willow ball or cardboard tube filled with hay can be hung from the cage or thrown around by your rabbit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Add Garnish<\/strong><br \/>\nYou can make hay more interesting to your rabbit by mixing in food they like best. This could include dry food, fresh vegetables or dried (bunny safe) herbs. Whilst searching through the hay for the good bits hopefully they&#8217;ll eat some hay too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Feed Less Dry Food<\/strong><br \/>\nMost rabbits have bad hay eating habits because they eat too much dry food. A healthy adult rabbit should only be fed a small quantity of dry food (50g per average size adult rabbit per day is plenty). Dry food tastes good but it doesn&#8217;t provide the fibre levels and chewing action needed to keep your rabbit healthy. Reducing the amount of dry food you rabbit gets should help encourage them to eat more hay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A change in eating habits can indicate teeth problems and should be investigated by a vet. If your rabbit stops eating hay, starts dribbling, has longer than normal front teeth or chews differently to normal then a visit to your vet is needed. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Considering at least 80% of a rabbit&#8217;s diet should be hay (or grass) there is a worrying number of rabbits owners that report their bunny eats little or no hay. The high fibre content of hay is essential for maintaining a healthy gut and teeth, as well as providing a boredom busting activity for your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[25,76,23,22,26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therabbithouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}