Anyone else having trouble with their hay or is it just me?

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AndreaJane

AndreaJane

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I was originally very impressed with the hay from Hay For Pets but the last 9kg bag of Ing hay was full of buttercups ( I did let them know ), so I ordered meadow hay this time. I wish I hadn't because this lot is FULL of really hard twiggy stalks, there's so many of them it's very difficult to make sure I've got them all out, and with Wally Whiskers suffering from an ulcerated eye I'm particularly worried about him poking himself. :(
It also took nearly a week to arrive, I ordered on Wednesday and it didn't arrive until Tuesday. I'm seriously thinking of going back to the mountain meadow hay from Zooplus.
Is anyone else having problems or am I just having a run of bad luck with hay at the moment?
 
it does differ I had a really bad bag from just for Pets. Asda hay is awful and my local pet shop is not much better. I get it from garden centres and I make a little hole in the plastic first so i can have a good sniff....rolleyes
 
I've never liked the shop stuff but the big fresh cut bales from Hay for Pets were really nice so I've been a bit fed upand disappointed with the last two. :(
 
I'm using a big bag of meadow hay I got from there. I've had to remove a lot of big leaves as I dont know what they are but the worst in my bag is quite a lot of stalks with thorns ..... one ended up embedded in my hand when I was grabbing a handful .... I'm sure my skinny pig would not be impressed getting scratched by one of them..... so watch your hands.... rolleyes
x
 
suem said:
it does differ I had a really bad bag from just for Pets. Asda hay is awful and my local pet shop is not much better. I get it from garden centres and I make a little hole in the plastic first so i can have a good sniff....rolleyes
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Omg thought it was just me that did that lol! rolleyes

I think I must be very fussy with hay :red

Ever since seeing a static lice under the microscope I have stuck to Timothy hay such as Western. Yes it is expensive, but the piggles love it & eat every scrap plus it's sterile so no bugs :)

I ordered the huge bag, it was about £28 from Pet Supermarket but one of the online Vet sites do it too.

At the moment I bit the bullet & went in the dreaded P @ H because I needed some Probiotic & am using their Timothy hay, small compressed bags by Alfalfa King, but it is definitely Timothy hay. Mine love it, a bag is £7.99 & lasts my three about 2-3 weeks, but as I don't throw any away it's great. It is very stalky though, so if you want a softer Timothy Oxbow is softer. Hopefully my pigs won't ever need dentals!
 
i get ings hay from hayforpets, never had a problem with that , but i did nt like the meadow hay either :(
 
Just ordered Ings from Hay for Pets as the piggies love the sample I ordered for them, they favoured this one out of the three. Hope it's ok or I'll have a grumble at the suppliers :x They won't touch Timothy or Oxbow hay mallethead
I used to have the mountain meadow from Zooplus but the last bag was of poor quality after months of great supplies :(
A store a few miles from us do a lovely meadow hay which the piggies love for £11 and have been using that for a few months now - just wanted to try them with something different (hence the Ings) but will always have my shop supply in :)
 
I'm currently having a nightmare getting my hay for pets hay! They deliver by courier and i'm never in (at work mon-fri) they've tried to deliver twice now with no success, but the main center is blimming miles away from me :( well over an hour on public transport, plus i'd have to carry a huge bag of hay! Not sure what to do now....
 
Guinea pigs <3 said:
I'm currently having a nightmare getting my hay for pets hay! They deliver by courier and i'm never in (at work mon-fri) they've tried to deliver twice now with no success, but the main center is blimming miles away from me :( well over an hour on public transport, plus i'd have to carry a huge bag of hay! Not sure what to do now....
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I had this same problem a while ago and in the end it got returned to hay for pets. I contacted them and told them that there was just no way of me getting the hay and they gave me a refund. Pretty ridiculous huh?! x
 
PiggiePal said:
I had this same problem a while ago and in the end it got returned to hay for pets. I contacted them and told them that there was just no way of me getting the hay and they gave me a refund. Pretty ridiculous huh?! x
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Yup - it's stupid! I think i'm going to have to do this too :( it's a shame as I was trying to save money by bulk buying but I have this problem every time I order online if they use courier services! At least they gave you a refund :)
 
i cant believe you are having problems with it being delivered, i pay via paypal, and there is a box on there where you can leave a message to supplier, i write in that, "to delivery man , if no one at home, please leave on step" which they do !
 
Thanks to everyone for replying. My main gripe is the quality of the last two bags, I don't mind the odd stalk but this bag is seriously stalky and twiggy ( like it's been cut from the very edge of the field, looks like there's cow parsleys etc in it ), I wouldn't be surprised if Wally ran straight into a stalk that I'd missed mallethead 8... when diving into the hay because the centre of his eye does look like it's been poked. :0
He's on the eyedrops, metacam and baytrill and it's not looking good. :(
 
I haven't had any problems if anything I've been very impressed, I got 2 new bags last week and don't have any complaint's I do remove the dried leafs.
 
With the last bag of Ing that was full of buttercups I was happy to put it down to a duff batch and carry on but two bags in a row with problems and I'm wondering if I should try somewhere else, which I don't really want to do because I was quite happy with it before. Which type did you get Flintstones?
 
We now have mites from supermarket hay, and we usually get it from a local farm shop but haven't had time to get there this month. :(
 
I tried some from our local farm shop. It was horrible, full of dust and clumps of mud etc I'm glad you've found one that's decent. :)
The supermarket stuff is horrible isn't it?
I'm getting so tired of thinking I've found the right one and then having problems with it. How flippin' difficult can it be to provide decent hay if that's the business you're in?! :laluot_20:
 
I got the Timothy and Meadow - The Timothy is very stalky however I like that as I believe it's better for teeth wearing. It's very green and has lots of seed heads, My Patrick loves them. The Meadow I've nor opened yet but it looks perfect.

X
 
I started a new bag of hay yesterday, just before it snowed! I think it was a Bob Martin one dont know where I got it from, but it looked good! No! it is very hard, doesnt smell of anything really, and Bertie is just nibbling at it. usually with his Just for Pets hay (apart from the one bad bag) he clears it all up. So I am going to have to dig my wellies out and see what the local pet shop has to offer!mallethead
 
I'm a real fusspot when it comes to getting hay that is just right, I smell it and look at it, some bags from my local farm have been perfect and others have had all that scary scratchy stuff in it? I even took a load back and got the farmer to climb up a long ladder to get a bale down that looked just right. He must think I am slightly loopy.
If my pigs aren't happy with their hay I know immediately, I can see it on their faces, they look sort of depressed. There have been a lot of inconsistency with hay this year.
Piggie slaves work is never done!:(|)
 
Ive tried a few hays,

Baephar hay is pretty rubbish and cut too small to stay in any hay rack
Bob Martin hay stinks and was really poor quality compared to every other one
Wilkinsons meadow and timothy are cool the piggies seem to like them
Burgess hay makes the piggies go mad but its pricy!
 
Oh yes, I've tried just about every variety of hay over the past couple of years. I thought I'd found a good supplier but after all of the buttercups in the last lot and the stalks in this lot I'm about ready to start tearing my hair out and just go back to buying cheap stuff for bedding and Burgess for munching. It will probably work out cheaper anyway because at this rate I'll have to chuck the remaining meadow hay it's so bad and buy something else.
Not to mention the £70 worth of vets bills for Wally's eye, SO FAR...it could end up costing hundreds if the poor chap has to have an operation to remove his eye. 8...
Here's a picture of what I pulled out of todays hay:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48805774@N04/6824036875/
it took me ages sorting through it and I still found more shorter bits on a second sort before giving it to the piggies. I'm finding this sort of amount daily and it's not stalky grass ( I don't have problems with that ) as you can see, it's stalky and woody weeds. :{
 
well I dragged out my doc martin boots from the conservatory. Emptied out the sawdust and guinea pig bits. trekked up to the pet shop and got a bag of pillow wad. Dont like it much but Bertie is eating it. That will teach me to only get the stuff he likes, and not run out. Did nip into asda though for my bananas and got 2 lovely bags of mixed salad, so he will like those...:rose
 
The bale I got from the farm shop yesterday is really stalky and sharp. In fact I started to think they had given me a bale of straw instead of hay. I'm not at all keen but they seem to love it. I am just a bit worried about eye injuries though.
 
AndreaJane said:
Oh yes, I've tried just about every variety of hay over the past couple of years. I thought I'd found a good supplier but after all of the buttercups in the last lot and the stalks in this lot I'm about ready to start tearing my hair out and just go back to buying cheap stuff for bedding and Burgess for munching. It will probably work out cheaper anyway because at this rate I'll have to chuck the remaining meadow hay it's so bad and buy something else.
Not to mention the £70 worth of vets bills for Wally's eye, SO FAR...it could end up costing hundreds if the poor chap has to have an operation to remove his eye. 8...
Here's a picture of what I pulled out of todays hay:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48805774@N04/6824036875/
it took me ages sorting through it and I still found more shorter bits on a second sort before giving it to the piggies. I'm finding this sort of amount daily and it's not stalky grass ( I don't have problems with that ) as you can see, it's stalky and woody weeds. :{
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Have you emailed the company - may be worth enlightening them about the problem, especially having buttercups in there :...
Don't think they'd be please with disatisfied customers, even more so if your regularly ordering stuff so may be worth letting them know :)
 
Guinea pig slave said:
A store a few miles from us do a lovely meadow hay which the piggies love for £11 and have been using that for a few months now - just wanted to try them with something different (hence the Ings) but will always have my shop supply in :)
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Which store is that Tracey? Thinking of getting the girls some more from somewhere else...
 
Ive been getting mine from a pet supplies shop near Ampthill called Dovart....Ive had two bags £3.60 for a bag. It lasts ages and is lovely!

It smells so green that sometimes when I walk into the piggies room it smells like I'm growing ! lol! Lovely long green stems of hay and the boys absoloutely love it!
 
I know I emailed a company years ago about the amount of nettles and really horrid bits in their hay, they pointed out there was a disclaimer on the bag! Bertie is tucking into the pillow wad I got him this afternoon. You should see my carpet, he is inside and there is hay everywhere!
 
Guinea pig slave said:
Have you emailed the company - may be worth enlightening them about the problem, especially having buttercups in there :...
Don't think they'd be please with disatisfied customers, even more so if your regularly ordering stuff so may be worth letting them know :)
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I did let them know about the buttercups and he said they do check the hay ( not fippin' well enough in my opinion! ) and will be keeping an eye out for buttercups. I will be emailing them about the excessive stalkyness next so I'm sure they'll be sick of hearing from me but then I'm not in a terribly good mood myself at the moment. Grrrr
 
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