Hay For Rabbits: The Basis For A Healthy Diet

Written by Abi Cushman

Picture a food pyramid for rabbits. What do you see at the base? If you chose bunny pellets, you wouldn’t be alone.

But the most important ingredient to a healthy bunny’s diet is hay. Fresh hay should be provided to rabbits at all times so they can graze when they please.

Fiber for Digestion

Rabbits have digestive tracts that are specially adapted to break down fibrous vegetation. Hay provides the fiber necessary to keep their digestive systems healthy and motile.

A disruption to a rabbit’s digestive cycle can cause gastrointestinal (GI) stasis, a condition in which the contents of the digestive tract become compact, and the rabbit has difficulty passing the mass through.

Providing unlimited, fresh hay helps deter this serious, potentially deadly condition.

Roughage for Dental Health

Not only is hay necessary for good digestive health, it also wears down rabbits’ teeth, which continuously grow.

Regular hay consumption helps prevent rabbits from developing sharp hooks on their teeth known as molar spurs. Molar spurs can be very painful, causing rabbits to stop eating. Once this happens, GI stasis can occur.

What Kind of Hay

For baby bunnies, alfalfa provides the high caloric content necessary for their development. Once rabbits reach seven months of age, gradually switch them over to timothy, orchard grass, and/or oat hay.

For people with allergies, look for the second cutting of hay. When harvesting hay, the first cutting is a coarser hay that includes a lot of stems and seed heads (and inevitably, a lot of pollen).

The second cutting consists of a softer hay that includes more leaves and fewer stems and seed heads, thereby reducing people’s allergic reactions significantly.

Where to Buy

You can usually find bags of hay at most pet stores. However, the absolute most economical place to purchase hay is direct from a local farm.

Check Craigslist’s farm/garden section or your local classifieds to find a hay farmer. You can purchase hay in bulk (by the bale) for a fraction of the cost of a pet store bag of hay. One bale (stored in a cool, dry location) can feed a single rabbit for months.

If there are no farms in your area, you can order hay as a “Subscribe and Save” on Amazon. Buy timothy hay on Amazon >

About the Author

Abi Cushman is a veteran house rabbit owner and a contributing editor of My House Rabbit. She currently shares her home with one mischievous dwarf bunny named Otis.

When she's not writing about bunnies for My House Rabbit, Abi writes and illustrates funny books for kids, including Soaked! (Viking) and Animals Go Vroom! (Viking). And yes, there are bunnies in them. Learn more at abicushman.com.

Disclosure:

We participate in the Amazon Associates program, which means we earn a small commission (at no cost to you) for any qualifying purchases made through links in this post.

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