Austrian timothy hay substandard compared to UK/US timothy? or just different?

swaller

swaller

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Hi everyone,
I am a bit perplexed about the timothy hay I am trying / buying here in Austria. It's described as timothy hay which I regularly read is the best hay for piggies yet what I am buying looks nothing like the haybox timothy or varieties I see in pictures. My piggies don't really like it either while I read UK/US piggies go mad for the stuff. And while there are lots of buds and seeds, most of what I am getting seems stalky and straw-like. No nice green blades. I'm feeding them mostly meadow hay now which they eat fine albeit seems much softer but have all these different smaller bags of timothy stacking up. Would someone mind please looking at the picture and telling me what they think, is this the timothy you have and rate? I'm getting a bit fed up of seeking out / buying bags of timothy to try which the piggies don't end up eating. This is yet another brand I just tried and failed with and all the others I tried so far are similar. You can zoom in on the picture: www.heu-kaufen.com/heu-shop/timothy-heu-lieschgras/
Is it ok then that they just eat meadow hay? It seems a bit soft. So want to be sure it's fibrous enough and helping grind their teeth down sufficiently.
Thanks!
 
Hi. It can be Timothy. I mean, there's huge difference between pet store brand of Pets at home timothy and Haybox. I've never seen anything like Haybox. Most I've tried before it became available in UK was much softer and/or stalkier. Hopefully someone from Austria can help you.
Also, the farm where I buy meadow hay for bedding say there's difference between meadow hay for livestock and for small animals. I always just thought it was just a bad batch when I bought the one intended for livestock.
 
Meadow hay is fine to be fed. There's no problem with that. If you want to get them timothy hay too, I can recommend Oxbow Timothy Hay, and also their orchard hay. My piggies are spoilt with hay coz I give them meadow hay from Haybox and both those Oxbow ones I mentioned. Oxbow is more expensive though so I only put them on their hay racks and the meadow hay are the ones for their burrowing or laying on top of. They all eat loads of every type of hay.
 
Thank you for your advice and for sharing your experiences - looked up the oxbow hay but it will get too expensive long term. my trio are already on oxbow pellets :) but if meadow hay is still good as the main hay then i'll put the timothy hay crusade on hold for now. And hopefully find a good local source eventually - there must be great piggy worthy timothy here somewhere especially given most the country is alpine and grass.
 
I‘m originally from Austria. We used to feed meadow (or Bergwiesenheu) to our rabbits and they never had any problems with their teeth. We used to get it from our neighbour who was a farmer. So if you can get your hands on hay from a farmer I‘d definitely suggest going for it. I‘m not actually sure how common timothy is in Austria to be fair. I know it‘s not very common where I‘m from in Tirol although it‘s becoming increasingly common. But that might be totally different in other parts of Austria!

But meadow is definitely great as a main hay - there are a few people on here who only feed meadow :)
 
stef.trg said:
I‘m originally from Austria. We used to feed meadow (or Bergwiesenheu) to our rabbits and they never had any problems with their teeth. We used to get it from our neighbour who was a farmer. So if you can get your hands on hay from a farmer I‘d definitely suggest going for it. I‘m not actually sure how common timothy is in Austria to be fair. I know it‘s not very common where I‘m from in Tirol although it‘s becoming increasingly common. But that might be totally different in other parts of Austria!

But meadow is definitely great as a main hay - there are a few people on here who only feed meadow :)
Click to expand...
Off topic but...

Ich bin so schön
Ich bin so toll
Ich bin der Anton aus Tirol
Meine gigaschlankel...
 
I worked in Germany for a year during my degree. My (then) boyfriend introduced me to the song...or maybe I heard it at an Altweiber fest....
 
I fed only meadow for years because I thought 'Timothy' was a brand like 'Oxbow'! Pigs teeth were fine on meadow. I also give fresh grass most days. We also have a lot of variation in timothy here with some being stalkier than others.

The hay that most excites my pigs - whatever the type - is the sort with that lovely fresh 'hay' smell. Even I want to jump in it! At this time of year that's hard to find because we've seen that even the same brand will vary throughout the year depending on what's growing!
 
Thank you for the advice stef.trg and Free Ranger - good to know meadow hay gets a thumbs up. It's lovely meadow hay here and has that super fresh almost sweet smell.
 
i use haybox and used to get both meadow and timothy. Just recently though I’ve only been getting meadow as it has been so lovely (timothy is still excellent quality) but that they’ve much preferred the meadow and not really been eating the timothy with as much vigour. Nothing wrong with just using meadow hay at all!
 
It's funny but last night I opened a new bag of (same brand) meadow hay and this time it was pretty much as stalky as the timothy although in much shorter lengths! They didn't seem to mind.
 
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