Is 1st cut or 2nd cut hay better?
Hay is often cut three or more times each season. The first cutting in any cut will have thicker stems, perhaps have flowers (usually called tassel), and is the highest in fiber of any cut. The second cutting is softer, greener, has a higher protein but lower fiber than first cutting.
Is third cutting hay good for rabbits?
Third cut is a very soft and heavy leafy hay. It should be a darker green than 1st and 2nd cut. It's higher in protein and fat content and lowest in fiber content. This hay should be given as a treat or you can mix it sparingly with 1st or 2nd cut hay if your rabbit is a picky hay eater.
What is the difference between 1st 2nd and 3rd cut hay?
To begin with, 1st cutting is the first hay cut from that field for the year. It tends to be more coarse and have more grasses in it. 2nd cutting is usually greener in color and has a sweeter smell. And lastly, 3rd cutting is very thick and rich.
Can bunnies eat first cut hay?
Early 1st Cut Hay for Bunnies, Rabbits, Chinchillas, Guinea Pigs, Gerbils, Hamsters, Mice, Rats, and Tortoises and other small animals is a beneficial compromise of protein, fiber and fat and is positioned between regular 1st cut hay and 2nd cut hay analysis and texture.
Is 2nd or 3rd cut hay better?
Third Cutting It is also leafy and soft, so the horses will find it appealing. However, it lacks fiber compared to first and second cuttings, and horses need a lot of fiber, plus it can be difficult for them to digest. You can solve that by mixing some third cut hay with first or second cuttings.
Do rabbits prefer first or second cut hay?
Premium 2nd cut Timothy hay is preferred by most grass eating small animals (Bunnies, Rabbits, Chinchillas, Gerbils, Hamsters, Mice, Rats, and Tortoises). 2nd cutting is called “second” because it is the hay that is harvested after the 1st cutting.
Why is second cut hay more expensive?
Second cutting hay is generally higher in nutritional value to the livestock that will be eating it. This is for two reasons, time of year and regrowth of the plant. Second cutting hay is made later in the year, when the weather is more likely to be cooperative. Not always, of course, but more likely!
What month is first hay cutting?
Optimum conditions for first cuttings can generally be expected around May 15th in the south and May 25th in the north. Though different cuttings provide different levels of nutrition (a topic for a future blog), the most important determination of hay quality is its state of maturity when cut.
Does second cut hay have more sugar?
Generally, later cuts of hay are usually more fibrous with lower sugar and protein content. Grass that is more mature when it is cut for hay will also show the same trends.
How do you know if hay is good for rabbits?
Types of Hay to Feed Your Rabbits. As I mentioned before, orchard grass and timothy hay are the main types of hay fed to rabbits. Whichever type you end up feeding, you want to make sure it's fresh and high-quality. This means it has a nice color, has a nice fresh sweet smell, and is dry, but is not very dusty.
Can you overfeed a rabbit with hay?
There's no such thing as a rabbit eating too much hay. Rabbits' teeth grow constantly. Grazing on hay helps to keep their teeth short. If your rabbit isn't eating enough hay, it'll have to have its teeth filed down by a veterinarian.
How many times a day should I feed my bunny hay?
Timothy or other grass hay should be offered daily in UNLIMITED AMOUNTS. It is important that hay be available at all times. Rabbits tend to eat small amounts of food frequently throughout the day and withholding hay for long periods of time can lead to intestinal upsets and/or GI Stasis.
What does 3rd cut hay mean?
3rd cutting refers to the hay harvested off of a field that has been cut for the third time this growing season. Most regions of the country that get multiple cuttings of hay will be able to get three or even four cuttings of hay per year.
What happens if a rabbit eats too much hay?
There's no such thing as a rabbit eating too much hay. Rabbits' teeth grow constantly. Grazing on hay helps to keep their teeth short. If your rabbit isn't eating enough hay, it'll have to have its teeth filed down by a veterinarian.
What percentage of hay should a rabbit eat?
80%To ensure your rabbits have a healthy balanced diet, you should: Provide a constant supply of good quality fresh grass and grass hay (this should comprise about 80% of the overall diet) – e.g. Timothy, Oaten, Wheaten, Pasture, Paddock, Meadow or Ryegrass hays.
How do you know if hay is good for rabbits?
Types of Hay to Feed Your Rabbits. As I mentioned before, orchard grass and timothy hay are the main types of hay fed to rabbits. Whichever type you end up feeding, you want to make sure it's fresh and high-quality. This means it has a nice color, has a nice fresh sweet smell, and is dry, but is not very dusty.
Why Do Rabbits Need Hay?
Let’s start with the reasons why your rabbit needs hay in the first place. Hay is crucial to a rabbit’s overall health and well-being. Hay should be fed free-choice when your rabbit is in its enclosure, out getting exercise, and be available in the carrier when traveling. It needs to be available 24/7. Rabbits enjoy eating hay and it helps to maintain their dental and gut health. Hay can help with the following:
How to help rabbits with kidney stones?
Lower calcium levels. It is easy for rabbits to end up with too much calcium in their diets through pellets and other sources. Excess calcium can lead to the formation of kidney stones and other calcified deposits in the body. Reduce the treats and use more hay. Hay encourages foraging behavior.
What is Timothy hay?
They class it as sweetgrass hay, which suggests freshness and great enjoyment for your pet. They also work to compress the bales tightly for a lot of hay in one package.
Why is it important to feed rabbits fiber?
Fiber is important for improved gut health and regularity. Hay-free diets don’t offer enough and this can lead to many health problems for your pet rabbit. Digestive stasis. This is a dangerous condition where the gastrointestinal tract stops functioning properly due to a lack of fiber and other nutrients.
What are compressed bales of hay?
These cookies take large amounts of hay and compress them down into tiny bundles. It is easy to place them in the hutch and let rabbits gnaw on them. These are said to have over 20 different plants with quality hay and 54% fiber.
What is the most popular form of hay?
First up, we have one of the most popular forms of hay – Timothy Hay. This one comes in three forms and you can choose between them for the best fit. They are:
How to keep rabbits from getting water?
Don’t forget about their water. Fresh clean water is essential for health and hydration. Try and use a ceramic bowl where possible as this is a cleaner, more rabbit-friendly approach. A water bottle can be trickier to use and get jammed. They also carry risks of plastic leaching into the water.
How Much Hay Should I Feed My Rabbit Each Day?
Hay should make up about 80 % of a rabbit's diet, but they should have unlimited hay available at all times. In the wild, bunnies spend most of the day foraging and grazing. The constant chewing of hay is what keeps their digestion working properly, and their teeth trimmed.
Do Rabbits Eat Hay or Straw?
Rabbits eat hay, not straw. The difference between hay and straw is that straw has lower nutritional value and will not substitute fresh grass in your rabbit's diet like hay. Although it is completely safe for your pet to chew straw, rabbits should have access to unlimited hay to ensure a nutritionally sound diet.
Do Rabbits Eat Grass?
Because in the wild rabbits are grazers, grass is the most natural food your rabbit can eat. Ideally, you would keep your bunny outside in a pen and allow them to graze freely.
Why is dried grass greener than hay?
Dried grass (also called barn dried hay) has been dried quickly to prevent loss of nutrients. It looks a bit greener due to the drying process and contains more protein than hay. It is closer to fresh grass in nutritional value and should, therefore, be introduced gradually if your bunny has a sensitive stomach.
What is the best food for a rabbit?
As grazers, rabbits are used to spending a lot of time eating and enabling this behavior for your pet rabbit will also prevent behavioral problems. Hay is a low-calorie food that keeps your pet healthy while they continuously chew on it.
What is the purpose of fiber in rabbits?
Fiber is vital for your rabbit's gastrointestinal health. Their digestive system works fast and relies on indigestible fiber (long roughage) that keeps the food moving together with water. The fiber is not broken down, but it encourages peristalsis, which are muscle contractions that move the food forward in the digestive tract.
What percentage of rabbits eat hay?
Hay makes up about 80-90% of a rabbit's daily food intake. Therefore, it is the most important food in your bunny's diet and needs to be the right kind and of high quality.
What type of hay should I give my rabbit?
ORCHARD GRASS HAY: Orchard grass hay is the king when it comes to higher fiber with less protein. This offers rabbits a higher effect of gut mobility and better maintenance of the intestinal tract, therefore reducing the risks of GI Stasis and other such problems. It is for this reason that the most highly recommended brand of hay is an Orchard Grass / Timothy mix, as the two combined will offer a well-balanced nutritional content for rabbits. As with all types when taking into consideration the content of nutrients, when cut at select times, you can expect an average range of: Crude Protein 9 – 11% … Crude Fiber 28 – 32% … Calcium .1 – .5%
What is the nutritional value of oat hay?
OAT HAY: The nutrient content of Oat Hay can vary greatly depending on the age of maturity when it is cut. Its best suggested to cut while the leaves and stems are still green and the grain is still soft to ensure a higher amount of digestible energy and protein but should be noted that it has low calcium content. Furthermore, if the cutting was done past the maturity level noted above, it then has the nutritional value of straw, and has the possibility of carrying a high nitrate content as well; as such, both would not be a good consideration for rabbit-use. Considering all of the above noted factors, you can expect an average content, produced from a *prime-cutting of Oat hay to be: Crude Protein 7 – 9% … Crude Fiber 27 – 31% … Calcium .25 – .75%
What are the two types of hay?
Essentially, there are two basic classifications of hay; one is Legume, the other is Grass. The Legumes include Alfalfa and Clover and the Grasses include Timothy, Orchard, Bermuda, Brome, Oat, Barley, and a few others. Additionally, the Oat and Barley varieties are also known as cereal-grain hays. Let’s look at Legume Hay.
What is the best food for a rabbit?
One of the most vital parts of a rabbit’s diet is hay. Understanding the real differences between Alfalfa Hay, Timothy Hay, Orchard Hay, and various other blends make the difference in your bunny having a healthy, long life. Even more important than choosing the right brand of pellets to feed your rabbit’s, is the vitality ...
Is Timothy hay high in fiber?
There is also a higher level of copper and zinc found in this variety. However, the effectual loss of protein in Timothy hay could be significantly less than what is found in Alfalfa hay. Otherwise, this variety is high in fiber, generally easily to digest, and tends to have a higher vitamin content that the other grass-varieties of hay.
Is barley hay the same as alfalfa?
BARLEY HAY: When compared to Alfalfa, Barley hay is not as nutritional. The biggest difference is in the protein content, as Barley hay has on the average of only about half the amount of protein. Notably, the fiber content is reasonably comparable between the two.
Is clover hay good for you?
CLOVER (red and white): While Clover hay is quite compatible with Alfalfa in protein and calcium content, the big problem is that is has a reputation for being too rich and having higher amounts of soluble sugars and carbohydrates, which are known accomplices of producing colic/gas related GI problems.
How Much Hay Do Rabbits Need To Eat Each Day?
Hay should make up about 80% of a rabbit’s diet, but that doesn’t really help us with quantity. Of course, quantity is always tricky for rabbits because they vary in size so much. The Save a Fluff Rabbit Rescue suggests a ball of hay of similar size to the rabbit’s body.
What is the best food for rabbits?
Once the oat plant turns yellow /brown it loses a lot of its nutritional content and is best used for bedding. Oat grass (and other grain hays like wheat or spelt hay) can be helpful if you are trying to wean your rabbit off a muesli type feed that contains grains and corn.
Why do rabbits have spurs?
If a rabbit is fed a diet that is low in this fiber , the teeth wear unevenly and sharp edges ( spurs) can form which can cause pain and lead to loss of appetite. This can progress to stasis of the bowel as the digestion grinds to a halt. 3. To provide the perfect nutrient mix for health.
What do rabbits eat?
Rabbits are clearly well adapted over many thousands of years to eat grasses and herbs. It’s no surprise then, that hay contains nutrients at just the right levels for a rabbit to thrive. These include 12% protein, less than 2% fat and 14-20% fibre for maintenance (16%, 2-4% and 14-16% respectively for growth).
How does a rabbit digest food?
A rabbit’s digestion of food relies on a system that moves food through their gut very quickly. It is the long roughage ( indigestible fiber) found in hay and grass that is essential (along with water) in keeping the food moving. Nutrients are absorbed from the food as it passes through the gut.
What is the first cut of hay?
The cut of the hay refers to when it was cropped in the growing season. So, the first cut is when the hay is cropped having grown from seed. The first cut can vary a great deal in quality.
How many molars do bunnies have?
At the back of their mouths in their cheeks, bunnies have 11 molars at each side – 6 in the upper jaw and 5 in the lower jaw. All these teeth are worn down by the act of grinding and chewing. It is the indigestible fiber in hay that helps this process and keeps the teeth worn and healthy.
What is the best food for rabbits?
The main diet for a rabbit is either fresh grass or hay. Some people may not be able to provide a fresh forage diet for their rabbits, so the next best option is hay. Timothy hay is the best choice for an adult rabbit, while alfalfa hay is ideal for bunnies once they are weaned and up to six months old. At that point, transition your rabbit from the alfalfa because it is too rich at this point.
Why do rabbits eat hay?
These include preventing dental issues by keeping their teeth from growing too long, maintaining intestinal health, and providing the right amount of fiber, protein, and other vitamins and minerals.
What is timothy hay?
Timothy hay is grass hay that is a cool-season crop and can withstand harsh winters . It is different from a legume because it has long, hollow stems with spikelet flowers. Timothy hay contains less protein and other minerals compared to alfalfa hay, but it provides the appropriate amount needed for adult bunnies. There is plenty of fiber and protein in timothy hay to keep your rabbit healthy and happy. Typically, timothy hay is affordable compared to other hays, and it is the most popular feed choice for rabbits.
What is meadow hay?
Meadow hay is a mixture of grass hays that offers a variety of textures and flavor for your rabbit. There can be other plants included in the mixture, as well as debris and stone. If purchasing this hay, it would be wise to know where it came from and what is included; otherwise, you won’t know for sure what you are feeding your rabbit. As such, the protein and calcium content can vary depending upon what type of grasses are grown. On the upside, meadow hay is usually more affordable.
When to harvest alfalfa?
Alfalfa is a legume from the pea family that is high in minerals and provides plenty of energy. It is harvested starting in the spring or early summer, and you can grow several cuttings each season from one field. This hay is perfect for the first six months of life (after your bunny has been weaned). It provides high amounts of calcium and protein that is essential for growth, but if fed exclusively to an adult rabbit, it can cause urinary stones due to the high calcium content.
Is orchard hay good for rabbits?
Orchard hay is another cool-season grass that is more tolerant of drought than Timothy hay. It grows in tufts, with long stems and cattails that mature late in the season. Some rabbits may prefer the softer texture of this hay. It is high in sugar and fiber and low in protein. The price will vary with different companies and can range from affordable to expensive. You can also find this as a healthy addition to a hay blend.
What is the best hay for rabbits?
2. Kaytee Natural Timothy Rabbit Hay – Best Value. Check Latest Price. High-fiber, low-protein timothy hay can be expensive, but not from Kaytee – it’s easily the best value hay for rabbits for the money, and it’s suitable for hamsters and guinea pigs too.
What is rabbit hole made of?
Since it’s made from alfalfa instead of timothy or grass hay, it’s got a higher protein and calcium content, with correspondingly less fiber.
What kind of hay do bunnies eat?
Grass hay: includes sweet grass hay, orchard grass hay, and timothy hay. This is the closest to what your rabbit would eat in the wild. It can be supplemented with grass from your garden, but if you do that, make sure to cut it with scissors — grass crushed by a lawnmower will just upset your bunny’s stomach without providing nutritional value.
What do rabbits eat?
Did you know that grass and hay should make up three-quarters of a rabbit’s diet? In the wild, rabbits eat anything they can get their paws on, from grass and wildflowers in the summer to twigs and evergreen needles in the winter. They’re infamous for invading vegetable gardens to chow down on leafy greens. Domesticated rabbits have different needs ...
How long does a rabbit's bag last?
You’ll find it an easy, reliable way to get the proper amount of fiber into your furball’s diet, especially since a single bag can last one rabbit for months .
Can rabbits eat alfalfa hay?
Compared to Rabbit Hole’s alfalfa hay at #3, this is almost unforgivably dusty, especially since it sells for about the same price. Rabbits get that, and often won’t even eat this as a treat. Some do like it, though, so if you’ve found your baby bun likes alfalfa, it’s at least worth a try.
Does alfalfa hay help bunnies grow?
According to Living World, alfalfa hay encourages all your bunny’s natural instincts, including foraging, nibb ling, and burrowing . Its high calcium and protein content helps your rabbit grow, but its lower fiber makes it less suitable for adults.
