Easy to Fill Hay racks

[lpmorgens]

Hi all!

I am quickly adding cages and rabbits to my new breeding program and am finding that I am opening and closing cages a LOT... Some of my rabbits don't mind, and others scamper away every time.

Anyhow, I have purchased those sifter feeders, cut the wire and then inserted them from the outside of the cage to 1) Give the rabbits more room in the cage and 2) make it so I just have to open the top of the feeder to pour more food in... very quick and easier to fill without spills.

I have also trained all my rabbits on the Lixit water bottle (top fill) system, which is also nice. I don't have to open doors or remove bottles to refill. I just open the lid on top, and add water. Then, once a week, I give the bottles a good cleaning, just as I would with the regular rabbit water bottles.

Now, comes hay.... opening cages to cram hay into those racks that keep falling down is a pain. I would very much like to replace hay, again, from the outside of the cage. We are going to make a bunch of cages just as soon as our wire arrives, and I am seeking ideas for building in an "easy-to-fill" hay rack. Any ideas?

I know this all sounds like I don't want to spend too much time on my rabbits, but please, know this is NOT true. I would rather spend my time socializing them and playing with them, than to fill trays, etc. All of our rabbits get lots of outside cage play time, and we sit with them and enjoy playing with them. I just want the feeding system to go a little more smoothly, so I can have MORE time to enjoy my bunnies.

Thank you!!!

 

[shazza]

i've seen lots of people cut pieces of wire meshing and clip it to the outside of the cage. the rabbits pull the hay through the bars of the cage. kinda like this:

i personally bought the hay feeder jfeeders from bass and i quite like them. it saves space and doesn't look quite as cluttered on the front of my cages

my only complaint is i sometimes need to pull the bits of hay the rabbit didn't eat out of the pellet hopper so their food can fall through, but it's much less work than dealing with hay bags or inside the cage hay racks.

 

[hotzcatz]

I saw a hutch setup once where there was a V shape at the top between the rabbit 'holes' in the hutch and the hay was just stuffed in there from the front. I think they used wire hoops - kinda like a wire Quonset hut type of construction side by side. The hay was between the two holes so when you're adding hay into each space, it's feeding two bunnies.

 

[lpmorgens]

Thanks, All.

I took a traditional hay feeder and weaved a cut piece of plastic cutting board (the cheap semi-transparent cutting board sheets you get at Dollar Tree) through it, and it kept the hay from falling out...

 

[FCLady]

I took a solid, plastic vegetable storage bin. On the outside of the cage I faced the largest opening towards the rabbit. The smaller opening faced upward and wired the bin to the cage. I wasn't sure how the rabbits could get all the hay; somehow they manage to get 90% of the hay out of the bin. 3 bins for $6 at Walmart.

 

[Nymphadora]

All these suggestions are great!

Here's what I've personally done: buy the bigger plastic pencil trays at the dollar store (solid bottom, slotted sides), cut one of the sides off, and use zip ties to secure the remaining three sides to the cage.

When I fill up the "hay racks", I just stuff a fistful or two of hay into the opened "top" that I made by cutting a side off. Super easy, and not hard to replace a zip tie if one of the little monsters decides there hasn't been a large enough supply of hay one day (it's surprisingly only happened to me once so far).

opcorn: