Best soft hay for rabbits with dental spurs

A rabbit with known dental spurs is in a tricky spot — they absolutely need hay as the bulk of their diet to keep the gut moving and wear the teeth naturally, but if chewing is painful they'll just stop eating it, which makes everything worse. The priority here is finding a hay that's soft enough not to aggravate those spurs while still doing its job. Before I point you in the right direction — is your Mini Plush Lop currently off hay almost entirely, or still picking at it a little? And has the vet given any indication of how severe the spurs are right now?

That's actually a hopeful picture — she hasn't given up on hay entirely, which means you can likely bring her back up to proper intake with the right switch. The issue with most standard Timothy hay is that it has a fairly coarse, stemmy texture that can catch on sensitive gum tissue around recent dental work. What I'd recommend is moving her onto Oxbow Orchard Grass Hay. It's significantly softer and more pliable than Timothy, has a slightly sweet smell that most rabbits find more appealing, and critically it has the same high fibre content that keeps gut motility going. Lots of rabbit owners with lops — who are already prone to dental issues due to their skull shape — find their rabbits eat it far more readily when their mouths are sore. It won't replace a follow-up dental check, but it can meaningfully increase her daily hay intake while she's recovering and beyond.

It's very close — both are grass hays with similar fibre levels, and for an adult rabbit that's what matters most. The main nutritional difference is that orchard grass is very slightly lower in calcium, which is actually fine and arguably a mild benefit for a five-year-old rabbit. Where Timothy edges ahead is in slightly higher fibre content, but the difference is small enough that if switching to orchard grass means she actually eats a proper volume of hay again, you come out well ahead nutritionally. You could also offer both side by side once she's eating well — some rabbits end up with a preference and some happily eat both. The Oxbow version specifically is consistent in quality and cut finely enough that she won't be wrestling with long tough stems.

Good plan. Give it a week or so before judging — sometimes rabbits take a few days to accept a new hay smell. If you want to help her transition, try putting a small pile of the orchard grass right next to her litter tray where she'd naturally graze, and reduce the Timothy in the same spot so she's encountering the new stuff in her prime grazing window. Keep an eye on the volume she's eating and note it for the vet at her next dental recheck — it's useful information for them to have alongside how the spurs are progressing.