I have two rabbits that are probably 6 months old now. The current method I've been using for feeding them is to just buy a 90oz bag of hay, grab a relatively large handful, and place it into each of their pens. However, this seems to generate a lot of waste, although I'm not sure if it's actual waste. At the end of the day, when I go to give them another handful, there is still a significant amount of hay left in the pen. Less than half/a quarter of what I put in, but day after day it builds up.
Some of the excess hay gets eaten randomly throughout the day, but most of it seems to end up as bedding/padding, and not for eating.
To counter this, I thought it might be a good idea to divide the hay bags when I get them into equally-sized, ready-to-eat bundles. With the Western Timothy Hay, this seems like no problem. All of the hay is pretty straight, and so getting a certain volume/weight, tying it together with natural rabbit-safe string (like jute, or hemp), and storing several of them in a container might make feeding time super easy, and would allow me to tune the amount to give them, without having to worry about potential waste.
But other hays aren't so straight. As it turns out, the Alfalfa Hay that's available to me is almost a dust like consistency (maybe this is called compressed hay?). There's solid sticks of hay in there, but they're typically very fragile, and bend very easily; making tying them together with string almost impossible.
Additionally, rabbits should have some portion of their diet dedicated to high-quality pellets, and fresh vegetables; both of which also don't fall into an easy-to-tie form.
So I thought maybe I could make a Bento box (or leaf) for them. Some sort of healthy but sturdy container for the stuff that's harder to keep together, like loose hay, pellets, or chopped veggies. That way, when I get a new bag of hay or pellets, I can prepare the servings in advance, and drop different varieties in there, without having to decide what and how much right at feeding time.
What are some rabbit-safe leaves that
- are large enough to wrap a day's serving in
- sturdy enough to not break when being folded over and tied
- shelf-stable enough to prepare several days/weeks in advance
- won't significantly contribute to waste (as bedding, or maybe that's less of an issue than I think)
