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
Living in an apartment with limited storage actually comes up a lot with rabbit owners, and it's worth sorting properly because hay isn't negotiable — it needs to make up around 80% of your rabbit's diet. It's the foundation of gut health and the main thing that keeps teeth worn down correctly. Pellets are a small supplement on top, not the core of the diet. Before I point you in the right direction: your rabbit is two years old — is she in good health, and what are you currently feeding her day to day?
She's healthy, had a checkup recently. Right now she gets pellets twice a day, a handful of leafy greens, and hay but honestly not loads of it — I just don't have room for big bags. I've been buying those small pet shop bags but they're expensive and run out fast.
inparticular.ai
That's a really common trap with apartment keeping — the small pet shop bags are convenient but terrible value, and because they're fiddly to restock you end up feeding less hay than you should. The pellet-heavy setup you're describing is actually the thing most likely to cause tooth and gut problems down the line in a rabbit her age. What breed is your Polish — mini or standard? And roughly how much floor space do you have for storage, like under a bed or in a cupboard?
She's a mini Polish, about 1.2kg. I've got space under the bed — probably enough for a box or a bag that's not enormous.
inparticular.ai
Perfect — under the bed works well and a mini Polish won't get through hay as fast as a larger breed, so you don't need giant bales. I'd point you straight to Oxbow Western Timothy Hay, specifically the 425g or 1.13kg bag. It's a consistent, high-quality Timothy hay — the right cut for an adult rabbit, good fibre length for dental wear, and it comes in a resealable bag that stores flat under a bed without taking over your space. Oxbow is genuinely one of the most trusted names in small animal nutrition and the quality is noticeably more consistent than supermarket or pet shop own-brand hay. For a 1.2kg rabbit eating the right amount, the 1.13kg bag lasts a reasonable stretch and costs far less per gram than those small convenience bags.
Should I cut the pellets down then? She seems to really like them and I feel bad reducing them.
inparticular.ai
Yes, genuinely worth reducing them — for a mini Polish at a healthy weight, around one tablespoon of good quality pellets per day is plenty. I know it feels mean because rabbits will always act hungry for pellets, but that's exactly the behaviour that leads owners to overfeed them. Pellets are energy-dense and low-fibre, so the more she fills up on those, the less hay she eats, and that's where the dental and digestive problems start. Keep the leafy greens going — that's great. Just make the hay freely available at all times and let that become the bulk of what she's eating.
That makes sense. Is Timothy hay the right type for her specifically, or should I be looking at something else?
inparticular.ai
Timothy hay is exactly right for a healthy two-year-old adult rabbit — it's the standard recommendation for maintenance. Meadow hay is also fine and some rabbits prefer the variety, but Timothy is the reliable choice and Oxbow's is consistently good quality. The only time you'd move away from it is if she had specific health issues or was a baby or a senior, neither of which applies here. Stick with the Oxbow Timothy, get the hay available around the clock, dial back the pellets, and her diet will be properly sorted.
