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[Heoke]

I am looking for a hay feeder that is not made of plastic but will provide my guy with an easy way to eat his hay. I've tried the rolling hay ball and the dangling ball (which I have gotten rid of because of the horror stories I have read about chins getting stuck) and nothing is working. I keep his hay just on the floor of his cage, but I wonder if that is maybe not the best way to go?

What do you guys use? Feeders or floor, and why? If you use a feeder, what type?

Thanks!

[GrayRodent]

I just use the floor and make sure to sweep it into one place every day. I've tried a cheap wooden hay feeder but it was destroyed in minutes.

[kageri]

I absolutely cannot remember where I got them but I have these really neat hay racks with a solid bottom, back, and sides.  Then an open top for putting in hay and rungs of wood in the front.  Some are worse on them than others.  Most just eat the hay and do the occasional chewing but I had one male eat through a rung and a female who liked to pull the rungs out.  For those chins and some others I just throw the hay on the small pan shelves that come with an FN or CN and dump every other day.

Similar to this but with round bars http://pet-rabbit-toys.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SmallHayMangerNaturalSmall.jpg  If you google for chinchilla hay racks you can find that style also connected to the side of a chin house.  I've also used these for rabbits and guinea pigs but they are a little over kill for chins unless you've got one very big colony http://www.bunnybale.com/sitebuilder/images/Feeder-609x430.jpg

[Jasonred79]

I have a wooden chinchilla version of this type of hay rack... it looks totally different, but the concept of "the rack itself is OUTSIDE the cage at all times" is nice... I was a bit skeptical when the shop assistant told me that he would just reach between the bars to snag the hay, but he did figure it out eventually, so, yay!

http://www.lixit.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/500maxheight/076711001698.jpg

The advantage, of course, is it's so convenient to refill, clean, etc.

[Maseman08]

I have this one and it works well for her.

[kageri]

I tried that hard plastic hay and pellet feeder in the hope they wouldn't manage to chew on it.  Wrong.  It's looking rather beat up after 6months.  Probably won't make a year and I'll probably remove it before then anyway to avoid any more ingestion of plastic even though I doubt they are getting much more than scrapings off it.  Much like they do with pvc tunnels.

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

I use a carrot-shaped bowl. It keeps the hay in quite nicely.

[Heoke]

I have a wooden chinchilla version of this type of hay rack... it looks totally different, but the concept of "the rack itself is OUTSIDE the cage at all times" is nice... I was a bit skeptical when the shop assistant told me that he would just reach between the bars to snag the hay, but he did figure it out eventually, so, yay!

http://www.lixit.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/500maxheight/076711001698.jpg

The advantage, of course, is it's so convenient to refill, clean, etc.

I've never seen that type before! Thanks for showing me, I'm going to look around and see if I can find one like that!!