Bug in hay!

[Julesie]

I hope this is the right topic to place this in but:

I just was feeding my boys some hay and as I reached in and pulled out some, there was a big black bug in it. I think it was a beetle, of what type I'm not sure. It looked dead so I shook it out of the hay beside their cage and continued to feed them (throwing the bit of hay that it had been in away just in case).

I'm probably being over the top protective, but no harm can come to my guinea pigs, right?

Also the bug has disappeared, but I am sure it was dead as it looked a bit flat and it's legs had curled in and looked hardened, like when a bug usually dies. I'm not sure where the bug has gone, but we do have three giant spiders that like to run around the living room so I have hope one of them took it to eat.

Again I just want to know, will the piggies be fine or is there anything I should look out for?

 

[Freela]

Yuck! Once I was pulling hay out of the bag and with the hay came a giant dead grasshopper- I'm not scared of bugs but was quite grossed out because I wasn't expecting that! They did eat the hay with no ill effects though... the grasshopper was in the bottom portion so they had already eaten 3/4 of it anyhow.

 

[Julesie]

Ew gross. Yeah mine was at not quite the top, but still quite high up. I'm a bit unsure whether to give them the rest of the bag. I heard some beetles can be bad for horses so I don't know if the same applies to guinea pigs.

 

[Spiggly]

Ew gross. Yeah mine was at not quite the top, but still quite high up. I'm a bit unsure whether to give them the rest of the bag. I heard some beetles can be bad for horses so I don't know if the same applies to guinea pigs.

Yes, but horses eat huge tufts of hay at a time and can easily eat a beetle. Pigs tend to eat a single strand at a time and would be unlikely to chew on any dead insects in there! I wouldnt throw out a bag of hay just because of a beetle!

Hay doesnt go through any cleaning process, unless it is heat treated and compressed for the pet shops. Hay bales in the field will have exactly what was living in them and didnt get out in time, although good hay in good weather will have been left for several days to dry. I would be more worried about ragwort in poorer quality hay if i were you! That will be harmful to piggies, and they will probably eat it as well!

 

[Julesie]

Whats ragwort? I've been giving them the rest of the hay.

 

[Spiggly]

Ragwort is a toxic wild weed, controlled by defra:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/2011/03/15/pb11050-ragwort-disposal-guidance/http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/gallery/files/4/1/5/ragwort2.jpg

You will have seen it everywhere on roadsides and fields and waste ground - the law requires it to be removed and burned, as it is so prolific. It is about 2-4ft high, with smallish yellow flowers.It looks like this:

It is a lot more of a problem in the horse world, but it depends where you get your hay from. The hay crops last years were appalling, and this year have been better but the prices are still extremely high - the price of a square bale (one of the ones 4ft by 2ft) has gone from £2-3 to £5-6 in the last couple of years. This hike has meant that ground previously left uncut because it was poor quality grass with lots of weeds has been used as haycrop, and the result is that more and more ragwort is showing up in hay.

If you get your hay from pet shops you may be better off, but if you get it from farmers, they may have had a few ragwort plants in there that they haven't noticed, as it is spreading more and more these last few years. Animals are far more likely to eat dry ragwort than fresh. I have no doubt that if it can kill a horse it can kill a pig.

if you see anything that looks like this in your hay, do not feed the hay to your pigs!

 

[Srock]

Ragwort is a toxic wild weed, controlled by defra:

You will have seen it everywhere on roadsides and fields and waste ground - the law requires it to be removed and burned, as it is so prolific.

This is clearly and certainly NOT TRUE. You may be required in extreme circumstances to control ragwort but the law does not automatically require it to be removed and burned. This is a common myth and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has acted to stop this and other ragwort myths from being circulated.

It is quite true that ragwort is poisonous and therefore your should not feed it to your animals but Guinea Pigs happen to be one of those animals who are less succeptable. In fact when you look at the proper data, not the stuff stopped by the ASA, it is actually very rare for a horse to suffer from ragwort poisoning.

For more information see
Ragwort Facts
Ragwort myths and facts
Ragwort the sense and the nonsense