Small Animal Feeding Guidelines

Small animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and degus are herbivores that thrive on a grass-led, plant based diet.

For small herbivores that are designed to thrive on a plant-based diet, encouraging adequate forage consumption is key. Ensuring they are eating sufficient quantities of hay and fresh grass is essential to ensuring digestion and dental function and can also be an excellent opportunity to create fun enrichment feeding ideas.

• Present hay in various feeders including hay balls, hay tunnels, paper bags/cardboard filled with hay and in various locations around their housing. This will encourage natural foraging behaviours and can be ideal to promote activity for those that may benefit from increased exercise. 
• Experiment with a buffet of forage choices! The forage ration can consist of a mixture of different hay types for example timothy and meadow hay.
• Try mixing in fresh vegetables and their dry food in with the hay ration to encourage foraging behaviour. 
• Ensure you are feeding the recommended amount of the dry food and not overfeeding so that your small animal is motivated enough to consume sufficient hay. 

How to choose the right hay for your small pets

There are many small animals including rabbits, guinea pigs, degus and chinchillas that require a forage-based diet and some which just require a small amount in their diet like hamsters and gerbils. Depending on which of these animals you have will have a bearing on the forage choice. 

Further to this, there are two main factors to consider when choosing a type of hay, what it provides in terms of nutrients and also what it offers in terms of its functional role for maintaining healthy dental and digestive function.

While you can just choose one type of hay, it is very common for small pet owners to feed a combination of hays - for example ryegrass and timothy – this can not only help to satisfy both nutritional and functional requirements but also may offer additional enrichment.

From a functional point of view, the overall fibre level and type of fibre is also important for small animals. Insoluble fibre content (fibre which cannot be broken down) is key for helping to maintain digestive and dental function. This is where the timothy and meadow hays are particularly useful as they tend to have higher fibre contents in comparison to ryegrass hay. While ryegrass will provide sufficient amounts of fibre, you may find animals like rabbits and guinea pigs in particular, thrive with additional fibre sources provided alongside this. 

Hay storage instructions

Hay should be stored in a cool dry place. Any changes to the diet must be undertaken gradually over a period of 7-14 days. Keep a close eye on weight and condition, and use this to inform feeding choices. If you have any questions at all, please contact your vet or our nutritionist.