The best timothy hay for rabbits

Small Pet Select 2nd Cutting Timothy Hay, for a healthy adult rabbit. It is the only widely sold hay here that prints the cutting on the box, which is the only way to order the same texture twice, and second cutting is the texture most adult rabbits should be eating. Rabbit Hole Hay's Medium is the equal alternative and solves the same problem differently, by grading each batch to a texture standard rather than promising a harvest number. Oxbow Western Timothy is the one to buy at eight on a Sunday evening and the one you cannot order twice with confidence.

The House Rabbit Society puts hay at 85 percent of an adult rabbit's diet, offered in large unlimited amounts, fresh, daily. The Scottish Government's statutory welfare guidance independently puts it at a minimum of 80 percent and adds a quantity: an amount equivalent to each rabbit's body size, every day. Two bodies, arrived at separately, agreeing within five percentage points. That almost never happens on this site.

Which makes hay the single largest recurring purchase in rabbit keeping, and makes the question of which bag to buy a question you will answer fifty times. It is also, strictly, a housing question as much as a feeding one: a bundle the size of the animal, present every day, is a volume that has to go somewhere inside the enclosure. How much hay a rabbit needs works through what that looks like in a hutch.

The criterion the category avoids

Hay is a crop. It is cut two or three times a season, and the cuttings are genuinely different products: a first cutting is coarse, stemmy and seed-headed, a second is leafier and softer, a third softer still. An animal that happily eats one will leave another in the rack.

So the thing you want from a hay seller is a commitment to which of those is in the bag, and most of them do not make one. The usual arrangement is a brand name, a photograph of some hay, and whatever the supplier had. That is why the same product can arrive soft one month and stalky the next, and why an owner concludes their rabbit has gone fussy when what has actually changed is the hay.

#	Product	Best for	Score	Price
1	Illustrative Small Pet Select 2nd Cutting Timothy HayNot applicable	Everyday hay for a healthy adult rabbit or guinea pig	9.0out of 10	Check price on Amazon→ We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure
2	Illustrative Rabbit Hole Hay Ultra Premium Medium Timothy HayNot applicable	Everyday hay where you want graded consistency rather than a cutting number	8.9out of 10	Check price on Amazon→ We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure
3	Illustrative Rabbit Hole Hay Ultra Premium Soft Timothy HayNot applicable	Fussy eaters, seniors, and animals with sensitive teeth	8.8out of 10	Check price on Amazon→ We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure
4	Illustrative Small Pet Select 1st Cutting Timothy HayNot applicable	Dental wear and animals that need a higher-fiber, less rich hay	8.2out of 10	Check price on Amazon→ We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure
5	Illustrative Oxbow Western Timothy HayNot applicable	Availability, small bags, and topping up between deliveries	7.6out of 10	Check price on Amazon→ We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure

Scores are our own assessment of published specifications against the thresholds set out in how we assess products. They are not test results and not customer ratings. Tap a row to read the full assessment.

Which cut your rabbit actually wants

• A healthy adult with good teeth: second cutting, or a graded medium. Leafy enough to be eaten in the quantity the published figures ask for, stemmy enough to do dental work. This is the default and it is where most rabbits belong.
• An overweight rabbit, or one whose teeth are not wearing: first cutting. Coarser, higher fiber, more stem and seed head. The seller's own positioning, and the stems are the part that does the grinding.
• A senior, a fussy eater, or an animal with poor dental condition: a soft graded hay. A hay that gets refused does nothing at all, and 85 percent of a diet cannot be made of something the animal will not eat. The dental trade-off is real and it is the right trade to make here.
• A young rabbit, a nursing doe, or an elderly or injured animal: this page is not the whole answer. The House Rabbit Society restricts alfalfa to exactly those groups, because it is too calorie-dense and too high in calcium for a healthy adult. Alfalfa is a legume rather than a grass hay and is outside this shortlist.

Dust, which the welfare guidance names and the marketing does not

The Scottish Government's wording is good quality, dust-free feeding hay. That is not a throwaway adjective. A rabbit buries its face in hay for most of its waking hours, and hay dust is the one respiratory exposure in a rabbit enclosure you have direct control over.

No seller publishes a dust figure for hay, so there is nothing to compare and we are not going to invent a ranking. What we can say is what the handling tells you: open the box outdoors, take a handful, drop it from a foot, and look at what hangs in the air. Leaf shatter at the bottom of a box is a different thing from dust and is largely a shipping artifact. If a particular batch is genuinely dusty, every seller here will replace it, and the hay should go back rather than in the rack.

Buying size, which matters more than people expect

At 85 percent of a diet, a rabbit gets through a startling amount of hay, and the small bag that looks like a sensible first purchase is a few days of feeding. The sizes to look at are the 20 to 40 pound boxes, which are also where the price per pound stops being painful.

The constraint is storage rather than money. Hay has to be kept dry and ventilated, because damp hay molds and moldy hay is not a quality problem but a health one. A 40 pound box in a dry garage is the cheapest way to feed a rabbit properly; the same box in a damp shed is money spent on something you will throw away. If you have nowhere dry, buy smaller and more often and accept the per-pound penalty.

The assessments

Our pick · Everyday hay for a healthy adult rabbit or guinea pig

Small Pet Select 2nd Cutting Timothy Hay

The one hay here that tells you which cutting is in the box before you open it, which is the only way to buy the same texture twice.

✓ Clears our thresholdGrass hay suitable for unlimited adult feeding

Dimensions

Sold in 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 40 lb boxes (manufacturer-listed)

Continuous floor

Not applicable

Bar spacing

Not applicable

Material

Timothy grass hay, second cutting, grown in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Cut sold

2nd cutting, named on the box. The seller describes it as leafy with a soft stem and a medium amount of flowery heads

What it gets right

• +The cutting is stated on the product, so a repeat order is the same hay
• +Softer texture and a higher leaf-to-stem ratio than 1st cutting, per the seller
• +Sold up to 40 lb, which is the sensible way to buy something that is 85 percent of a diet
• +The seller positions it as the everyday hay for a healthy adult rather than a specialist cut

What it gets wrong

• −Costs more per pound than a farm-store bale
• −Box sizes are large enough that a single rabbit needs somewhere dry to keep the rest
• −The 2 lb size was listed as backordered when we read the page

Who should buy something else

Not the right buy for a rabbit that needs maximum dental wear or is gaining weight on a rich hay. That animal wants 1st cutting, which is the coarser product from the same seller.

Specifications read from Small Pet Select product page on 29 September 2026. Floor-area arithmetic is ours and is shown above so you can redo it.

Illustrative

Our assessment9.0/10

• Consistency between orders9
• Texture for an adult9
• Size range9
• Dust and leaf loss8
• Value per pound7

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Number 2 · Everyday hay where you want graded consistency rather than a cutting number

Rabbit Hole Hay Ultra Premium Medium Timothy Hay

The everyday hay in a range whose soft cut gets all the attention, and the one most healthy adult rabbits and guinea pigs should actually be eating.

✓ Clears our thresholdGrass hay suitable for unlimited adult feeding

Dimensions

Sold from 4 oz up to 40 lb (manufacturer-listed)

Continuous floor

Not applicable

Bar spacing

Not applicable

Material

Timothy grass hay, graded between the seller's soft and coarse cuts

Cut sold

Graded to a balanced profile: thinner stems and broader leaves than the coarse cut, described by the seller as the everyday hay

What it gets right

• +Sits between soft and coarse, which is where a healthy adult belongs
• +Graded per batch, so the texture repeats between orders
• +Same wide size ladder as the soft cut, including 4 oz trial bags

What it gets wrong

• −Premium pricing against a pet-shop bag
• −Ordered from the seller rather than picked up locally tonight

Who should buy something else

Not for an animal that has already refused a medium-texture hay. If yours picks out the leaf and leaves the stems, buy the soft cut and accept the dental trade-off rather than buying this and hoping.

Specifications read from Rabbit Hole Hay product page on 29 September 2026. Floor-area arithmetic is ours and is shown above so you can redo it.

Illustrative

Our assessment8.9/10

• Consistency between orders9
• Texture for an adult9
• Dental wear8
• Size range10
• Value per pound6

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Number 3 · Fussy eaters, seniors, and animals with sensitive teeth

Rabbit Hole Hay Ultra Premium Soft Timothy Hay

The most honest answer anywhere to the third-cut question: graded to a soft profile every batch, rather than sold as a cutting that may not exist in a given year.

✓ Clears our thresholdGrass hay suitable for unlimited adult feeding

Dimensions

Sold in 4 oz, 12 oz, 24 oz, 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 lb (manufacturer-listed)

Continuous floor

Not applicable

Bar spacing

Not applicable

Material

Timothy grass hay, graded to a soft, leaf-heavy profile

Cut sold

Graded rather than numbered: the seller states it grades each batch to a soft standard instead of promising a cutting

What it gets right

• +Graded per batch to a soft, leaf-heavy standard, so the texture is the promise rather than the harvest number
• +The seller states plainly that a true third cut needs a warm spring and a dry, warm fall, which most sellers avoid saying
• +4 oz and 12 oz sizes, and a four-cut sample pack, make trialling texture cheap
• +The widest size ladder here, from 4 oz up to 80 lb

What it gets wrong

• −A soft leafy hay does less dental work than a coarse one
• −Premium pricing, and the small sizes are expensive per pound
• −Leafy hay travels less well and arrives with more loose leaf at the bottom of the bag

Who should buy something else

Not the everyday hay for a healthy adult with good teeth. That animal belongs on a medium or second cut, and a soft hay fed exclusively is a missed opportunity for tooth wear.

Specifications read from Rabbit Hole Hay product page on 29 September 2026. Floor-area arithmetic is ours and is shown above so you can redo it.

Illustrative

Our assessment8.8/10

• Consistency between orders9
• Texture for a fussy animal10
• Dental wear5
• Size range10
• Value per pound6

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Number 4 · Dental wear and animals that need a higher-fiber, less rich hay

Small Pet Select 1st Cutting Timothy Hay

The coarse end of the same seller's range, and the one to buy when the problem is a rabbit that is overweight or not wearing its teeth down.

✓ Clears our thresholdGrass hay suitable for unlimited adult feeding

Dimensions

Sold in the same box ladder as the 2nd cutting (manufacturer-listed)

Continuous floor

Not applicable

Bar spacing

Not applicable

Material

Timothy grass hay, first cutting, grown in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Cut sold

1st cutting, named on the box. Higher fiber and coarser than the 2nd, with more of the flowery heads

What it gets right

• +High fiber and less fattening than the later cuts, per the seller
• +More stem and seed head, which is the part that does the dental work
• +Same stated-cutting consistency as the 2nd cutting

What it gets wrong

• −Coarse enough that a fussy animal may refuse it outright
• −Not the everyday choice the seller itself recommends for a healthy adult

Who should buy something else

Not for a senior rabbit, an animal with poor dental condition, or a known picky eater. Those animals want a softer cut, and a hay that gets refused does nothing at all.

Specifications read from Small Pet Select product page on 29 September 2026. Floor-area arithmetic is ours and is shown above so you can redo it.

Illustrative

Our assessment8.2/10

• Consistency between orders9
• Texture for an adult6
• Dental wear10
• Dust and leaf loss8
• Value per pound7

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Number 5 · Availability, small bags, and topping up between deliveries

Oxbow Western Timothy Hay

The hay you can buy at eight on a Sunday evening in almost any pet shop in the country, which is a real advantage bought at the price of knowing what texture is in the bag.

✓ Clears our thresholdGrass hay suitable for unlimited adult feeding

Dimensions

Sold in 15 oz, 40 oz, 90 oz, 9 lb, 25 lb and 50 lb (manufacturer-listed)

Continuous floor

Not applicable

Bar spacing

Not applicable

Material

Timothy grass hay. Guaranteed analysis lists crude fiber at 32.00% maximum

Cut sold

None stated. Oxbow does not sell hay by cutting number and prints no cutting on the bag

What it gets right

• +Stocked almost everywhere, in the smallest bag sizes here
• +Publishes a guaranteed analysis, which neither cut-specific seller prints
• +15 oz and 40 oz bags make it cheap to trial on a new or fussy animal
• +Oxbow states the hay is hand-sorted and hand-packed and grown specifically for small pets

What it gets wrong

• −No cutting on the bag, so texture varies between bags and between seasons
• −Among the more expensive per pound once you are past the small bags
• −An animal that liked one bag may refuse the next, and you have no way to see why

Who should buy something else

Not the right buy if your animal is fussy about texture, because a repeatable texture is the one thing this product does not offer. Buy a stated cutting instead.

Specifications read from Oxbow product page on 29 September 2026. Floor-area arithmetic is ours and is shown above so you can redo it.

Illustrative

Our assessment7.6/10

• Consistency between orders5
• Texture for an adult8
• Availability10
• Dust and leaf loss7
• Value per pound6

Check price on Amazon→

We do not print prices. #ad Disclosure

What we would buy

Small Pet Select 2nd Cutting, in the largest box your storage allows, for a healthy adult rabbit. The cutting is on the box, the seller positions it as the everyday hay for exactly this animal, and ordering it again gets you the same hay.

Rabbit Hole Hay Medium if you would rather buy a texture than a harvest number, which is a defensible preference and arguably the better one. Small Pet Select against Rabbit Hole Hay works through the two approaches properly, including the sample pack, which is the cheapest way to find out what your rabbit will actually eat.

Oxbow Western Timothy as the bag you keep for the evening a delivery is late. It is a good hay with a real advantage — you can buy it anywhere, in small sizes — and no texture promise at all, which the Small Pet Select against Oxbow comparison covers in full. Buying it as a top-up is sensible; buying it as the hay you depend on is accepting a variable you do not need.