02/23/2026
How can you tell if your rabbits are eating enough hay?
The best day-to-day indicator is their droppings.
Healthy droppings should be:
• plentiful throughout the day
• large (even in smaller breeds)
• dry and round
• easy to crumble between fingers
• full of visible ground fibres
These show that long-stranded fibre is moving properly through the digestive system — supporting teeth, gut health and normal caecal function.
When rabbits arrive in our care having eaten little hay, droppings are often very small, hard and sparse. Once we switch them onto a hay-based diet using our feeding method, we soon see droppings change — becoming larger, more frequent and much easier to crumble. It’s one of the clearest signs of improving digestive health.
Many guardians worry about reducing pellets or other foods because they’re scared their rabbits won’t eat and could go into stasis. This fear is completely understandable — but in healthy rabbits without dental pain, hunger naturally encourages fibre intake.
A healthy rabbit that feels hungry will eat hay when hay is the main food available.
When new rabbits arrive showing signs they haven’t been eating enough fibre (based on droppings), we:
• place multiple hay piles around the enclosure
• sometimes add a very small amount of dried forage mixed into the hay to spark interest
• closely monitor droppings — especially the number — to ensure the digestive system keeps moving
Without easy calories constantly filling them up, rabbits naturally begin investigating and grazing the hay. We have never failed to transition a rabbit onto a hay-based diet using this approach — some just take a little longer than others, before they are tucking in with gusto.
As always, if hay intake is low, your rabbits should first have a dental check with an experienced rabbit-savvy vet to rule out molar spurs or pain before making dietary changes.
If you’d like more guidance on building a balanced rabbit diet around fibre, you can read our full guide here:
👉 https://www.nibbles.org.uk/post/what-can-rabbits-eat
