Hay waste

[grrrayson]

Gulliver almost always picks through a lot of his hay. Sometimes more than others. My girlfriend drew an analogy of a four-year-old picking through a bowl of Cheerios to find the 3 "special ones."

I've tried to identify his criteria but it's not clear. He loves the fuzzy parts of the Timothy hay, which I've come to use almost as treats, but other than that I can't see any great preference. Sometimes I'll pick up a piece that he's sifted from his cage floor and hand it to him and he'll eat it.

I generally hate waste although hay is cheap enough it doesn't really matter. Should I just clean up the hay he throws to the side and replace it? Should I try to recycle it? Should I keep trying different brands or kinds of hay until he eats it all? (I've been giving him Oxbow Timothy and alfalfa.) I've done some searching and found some related issues but didn't quite find an answer.

Keep in mind that he eats a lot of it and I'm not concerned that he isn't eating enough; he just throws a lot aside.

Thanks!

Grayson

 

[GorillaJTA]

Welcome to the wonderful world of chins. They will dig all their pellets out to find that special one at the bottom or all of their hay to find the piece that fits their hand just right. And they will make a mess in the process. I usually just vacuum the hay up and put in fresh, since they might have peed on it anyway.

 

[Chintastic!]

Anyway, yes they are messy little buggers. If they pulled it out in a big pile and you can see that they havnt been "sitting" in it, then I usually put it back in the box, but if it is like flattened out and looks/feels/smells soiled I toss it.

I recently broke a vacuum sucking up hay. It got caught in something or other and over heated, smoking up the room. My dad is "attempting" to fix it, but who knows! lol This was the vacuum that I bought special because it was for "pets." This is also the one thats filter got clogged with chin hair and it smoked too....

 

[mishellyshel]

try less hay. and maybe instead of giving a lot one time a day, give less 2 times a day.

sometimes it takes a while to find a balance and the difference in chins regarding the amount of hay they consume is baffling. i have some boys here that at night their hay box is empty and there is little left in the cage and others that appear to have taken it all out and eaten hardly any. like maybe they had a party at night and were using it as confetti!

 

[Marie5656]

Trixie does the same thing. Rather than throw out what she has chosen to remove from her hay rack, I collect it all up in a bag, and once a week or so, I throw it out under the fur tree in our yard for the squirrels and birds to use as nestin materials...along with my dryer lint.

 

[Maia]

I know I have a pet vacuum that doesn't suck up hay very well either. I usually have to pick it all up by hand. At least the vacuum does well with poops and (usually) hair.

My chin goes through phases of "oh boy loose hay" and "oh boy hay cube!" I switch them up every once in a while. Last time I gave him a hay cube it had been like a month and he acted like I was giving him a treat!

 

[grrrayson]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

I live in an apartment in the city and I don't think putting hay in our yard would be appropriate, although I like that idea a lot...perhaps I could go stash it in a park somewhere. I do have a unique rapport with squirrels; sometimes I can get them to follow me down the street for a whole block.


Gulliver is really good about doing certain things in certain places, so the hay that ends up thrown aside does stay quite clean. I've tried putting some back in the hay box but he doesn't eat much of it.

Also, I've been giving him loose and cubes at all times; I'll try alternating.

With the 'less hay twice a day" practice, should I clean out all the old hay before giving the second hay stash?

Thanks again, everyone!

 

[mishellyshel]

By giving less hay hopefully you will have less waste. But I usually give fresh when I clean out their cages.

 

[javachin]

Mine do the same thing. I gave up on putting it back in the rack since they'd just stare at me with this look like, "Really? Try harder tricking me...silly human." Sometimes I wonder if its just confetti to them...lol...

 

[DevnChip]

Chipper's a stinker that way too. I recently started giving him hay again because I saw and made one of those fleece bags to hang on the side of the cage. I think he likes pulling it out. The confetti theory. I used to just put a handfull on the floor and he seemed to just spread it around. I know he does eat some of it because I watch him eat half a piece when I fill it. Then he drops it and pulls another, eats half and drops it and so on. The pieces I clean up are clean and only about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long. I tried putting it back in the holder and got the same look. "Really? I am done with that you know." Then he pulls it all out again and I toss it when I do the sweep of his cage the next morning. Sometimes there's less of it, sometimes not.