Are there issues with hay at the moment?

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Pig007

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Always found Oxbow timothy hay to be of good quality especially their 1.1kg bags but of late it's not been good. Always used to get the 4KG bags but last one was very stalky, then tried the 1.1kg bags but the recent batch was terrible. Like bags of twigs. Purchased four bags as well and all like that - couldn't even return was going to cost £13. To supplement the pigs food I got some Alfa King hay, that wasn't much better. Is this a bad time of the year for Timothy hay? Don't recall it being like this last year.:{

Really annoyed as have spent £50 on hay last month and it's was poor poor quality.

Tempted to try Meadow hay next from Hay for pets to see if that fairs better.
 
Yes, thare are issues at the mo - if you get it from the states it has been affected by the droughts there (massive crop failures last year) so it is not as readily available, and the quality has suffered - according to the lady we buy it from! We bought a UK version which was very cheap, but had lots of dead bugs in it, including a rather large cricket head, eek!
 
I tried most of the branded names & my piggies hardly touched it. I then went to a local farm where the woman bails hay for her horses & sells off the excess to subsidise her horses feed. Since I've been getting this the girls eat loads. It's so cheap that I also use it for bedding (see my post http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?103194-A-Different-Type-of-Run). It's just £4 a bail and lasts for about 3 months. I wouldn't go back to bagged hay now.
 
I to have been having issues of late with dust free hay so it seems to be affecting all of them.

They do explain on their news page that it isn't going to be good quality is plastic wrspped. I have ungraded to the next up with French hay and it is much much better. So if you are looking for someone online to tide you over it might be worth a try until things inprove.

http://www.dustfreehay.co.uk/news.html

Amy
x
 
yes, i think it was a bad year for hay so it's all not so great at the moment unfortunately. our hays from hay4pets are usually great, and whilst they are still really good, there does seem to be more dust and some twigs and things. x
 
The hay crop last year varied hugely from area to area. Also if you buy from these online places you have no idea if they are actually selling you 2011's hay...which was really not great, we had a lot of problems with the horses early 2012 as the stuff cut late 2011 was pants.

We stopped using our normal hay man for some time and were getting hay brought up from Sussex, however he brought down a bale of his late 2012 crop and it's beautiful stuff, so the ponies and piggies are back on that.

As I have said to people countless times on here, a well stored and cut bale of hay is far more economical and better for your pigs than all this plastic wrapped crap. Hay is not designed to be wrapped in anything, silage and haylage are wrapped either a day (silage) or 2 - 3 days (haylage) to keep the moisture and sugars in, hay should be baled and left unwrapped but is often covered in something like thin material if a lot of birds nest overhead etc. By wrapping it up in plastic bags you encourage it to 'sweat' and trap more sugars in, it also ends up softer which is worse for their teeth.

Do yourselves a favour, buy one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0058IBU...and=692206625691677348&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=

And ring up your local horse feed merchants and ask them questions about their hay...where is it cut, when was it cut, can you come and see a bale and most importantly choose your own. You store it in the hay bag, with the top open, so the air can circulate, I take out a section at a time and keep it in a big tub trug to kart around from hutch to hutch at night. Ideally you would remove it from the bag and store it on something like a wooden pallet, so off the ground so the air can get all around it, with a light blanket on top, but appreciate not everyone can do this.

Hay is anywhere between £3 - £6 a bale depending on your area right now, and a bale lasts me with my 18 1 - 2 weeks, it lasts my mum with just 3 around 6 - 8 weeks.

I am afraid I just cannot get my head around people who have this information but still pay the earth for a teeny tiny bag of hay that hasn't even been stored properly, that they have no idea where it has been cut from, when you could save so much and get a better quality product.

Pig007, I don't even spend £50 a month on hay and I have a horse on restricted turn out to feed as well as my gang! That would buy you 12 bales!
 
i tried farm hay and it was awful around here unfortunately and made my rabbits sneeze alot. they have respiratory problems. i do get jealous of people who can find decent hay from farms though because hay costs me a fortune!
 
I agree with Doeylicious. I have bought bales of hay from a farm in North Yorkshire for 18 months. There doesn't appear to be any dust, this is probably because it's not kept in a plastic bag but open so that any dust will be naturally lost in storage. My girls love it & because it's so cheap they get it for bedding too.
 
I also get my hays from my local farm shop and have done for years and its very good quality and smells beautiful. The boys go mad for it. I also give them timothy hay and readigrass alternatively but they prefer the farm shop stuff :)
 
Our last lot of hay from Pet Supermarket was rubbish too, have used them for ages now as the hay was brill, long and stalky and the piggies loved it. The last batch was all soft and stringy :...
Have been buying some from local shops we used before and was decent quality but small amounts, bulk buys are better for us having 19 piggies but better than the crap we had delivered last month :(
Currently using two brands mixed together, a Meadow brand and Pillow Wad hay then a handful of Timothy Western or Burgess Forage which they enjoy.
I occasionally keep a couple of packs of Wilko's Meadow and Timothy Hay in store as this is not too bad and cheap as chips so great for emergencies :))
Someone told me that Morrisons' value hay is good but not tried it yet...
Bloomin climate - we need a great summer for our piggies to have their noms :x
 
biscandmatt said:
i tried farm hay and it was awful around here unfortunately and made my rabbits sneeze alot. they have respiratory problems. i do get jealous of people who can find decent hay from farms though because hay costs me a fortune!
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An idea is to ring local riding schools/stables and ask them where they source their hay. Not many horse owners will put up with badly dusty hay as it can promote COPD/ROA in horses unless soaked, and riding schools rarely have time to soak/steam hay for a yard full of horses.
 
Guinea pig slave said:
Bloomin climate - we need a great summer for our piggies to have their noms :x
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As mentioned above, last year was not actually that bad, and the 2012 crop I have had so far has been very nice and green. Yes we didn't get a big window for haymaking, but it was decent enough, and availability, around here at least, is great - two years ago we were on £7 a bale in March as there was so little about, I am happily getting mine for £4 a bale now.

But, as again mentioned above, you have no idea what year the hay you are buying is from, so it isn't really relevant to blame it on last year's poor summer. Could very easily have been in storage for over 12 months, once they stick it in that plastic wrapping you're done for.
 
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