This is a specific conversation about Rabbit food and hay — getting the diet right — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
You're thinking ahead, which is exactly the right approach with Blanc de Hotots — they're a breed that can be prone to dental issues, so building strong habits now at 18 months really does matter. Here's the core principle: hay should make up around 80% of your rabbit's diet, not as a nice extra but as the actual foundation of gut health and, critically, the mechanism that keeps teeth worn down correctly. Pellets are a small supplement — a tablespoon or two per day — not the main event. So tell me: what are you currently feeding, and how much hay is she getting relative to everything else?
She gets a big bowl of pellets morning and evening, some fresh veg, and hay is always available but honestly she doesn't eat much of it. She goes for the pellets first and then ignores the hay.
inparticular.ai
That's a really common pattern, and it's the pellets causing it. When pellets are freely available and unlimited, rabbits will fill up on them — they're calorie-dense and easy to eat — and then have no appetite left for hay. The solution is to cut the pellets back significantly: for an 18-month-old healthy rabbit her size, you're looking at about 25–30g of pellets per day total, not two full bowls. Once pellets are limited, hunger drives her back to the hay, which is exactly where you want her teeth and gut spending their time. What hay are you currently offering her?
Just the stuff from the pet shop in a big plastic bag — I don't actually know the brand. It smells fine but she's not very enthusiastic about it.
inparticular.ai
That's likely low-grade mixed meadow hay — it does the job but it's not particularly appealing to rabbits and the fibre quality can be inconsistent. For dental health specifically, the hay type matters: you want long-strand timothy hay, because the coarse fibres create the right lateral chewing motion that grinds the molars properly. Short or dusty hay doesn't give the same mechanical action. I'd switch her to Oxbow Western Timothy Hay — it's consistently high quality, long-strand, low in protein, and most rabbits who've been ignoring supermarket hay start eating it much more readily. It's the gold standard recommendation from rabbit vets for exactly the preventive goal you have.
Does it matter that she's a Blanc de Hotot specifically, or is this advice the same for any rabbit?
inparticular.ai
The core advice — unlimited timothy hay, limited pellets — applies to all adult rabbits. But Blanc de Hotots are worth watching a little more closely because their compact facial structure can make dental malocclusion more likely than in larger, longer-faced breeds. That doesn't mean she's going to have problems, just that the preventive work you're doing now is even more worthwhile. The other thing I'd add: get a vet to check her teeth once a year even if she seems fine. Dental spurs can develop without any obvious outward signs until they're causing real discomfort, and catching them early makes treatment straightforward.
That's really helpful. So just to confirm — cut the pellets right down and switch to Oxbow Timothy Hay?
inparticular.ai
Exactly that. Cut pellets to around 25–30g per day total, keep fresh water and fresh leafy greens available, and make Oxbow Western Timothy Hay the thing she has unlimited access to at all times. Give it two weeks — once she's not filling up on pellets she'll eat the hay properly, and you'll see the difference in her droppings too, which will become larger and more consistent. That's the diet that protects her teeth for the long term.
