Hay quality

Jess565

Jess565

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A local lady who runs a pet boarding service and now a online shop for small pet accessories has started selling hay and she seems very conscientious about sourcing her products so I messaged her about hay quality to get her thoughts before I commit to try her stuff. I mentioned the quality of hay I've been getting and that I am concerned that it often has thorns and thistles in that are really sharp and I she said that guineas have very robust mouths and can handle stuff like this!? I don't believe that and have just sat for half an our sifting through my hay before putting it in with the guineas. I am now panicking that I've missed some and it will get stuck in their mouths and throats! My hay looks nice and smells nice but there is the added rubbish that is sending me crazy! Am I being crazy? :eek:
 
I once got a bag of hay from a reputable company that had thorns and thistles in it and they gave me a full refund.since then I always check the hay in my hands each time before putting it in the cage for them and 99.9 per cent of the time it is fine. I think if you have checked it and it looks good you needn’t worry.
 
Dust Free Hay have amazingly good soft hay at moment, I switched to this after finding thorns in my local hay suppliers hay
 
I have been on a hay buying spree today and it's all been bad :( some are damp and mouldy others have loads of thorns in. I have four bags of different brand hay waiting to go to the tip at the weekend. It's costing a fortune, so I will try again tomorrow to find some nice stuff but I'm running out of places to try.
 
I stocked up with Oxbow hay so I don't run out. I get mine shipped to my house, and I also buy them at the store when on sale.
Compared to Kaytee Timothy hay, Oxbow Timothy hay is very thick, chunky and green so you can tell Oxbow timonty hay is very high quality hay.
 
I use dustfreehay too, they also do an English Timothy now, which isn’t as beautiful as the American version (which they also sell) but a lot cheaper.

I tend to give them their soft hay for bedding and burrowing, and the Timothy to eat. And sometimes some oxbow on top.

I’ve used them for 6 years now and quality has been consistent despite it having been a bad season/year for hay. Never musty smelling. Occasionally there is a bit of hard woody bits (but they are large so you can’t miss them).

They’ve accidentally send me a short stalky box before which wasn’t very useful apart from bedding so I wouldn’t go for that one.
 
I used to give my Bramble milk thistle on vets advice, thorny, horrible things! But they're quite capable of eating it. I wouldn't want to eat it mind you..and I wouldn't let them have loads but yeah, I also feed fresh brambles and hawthorne over the warmer months and dont dethorn anything.

It probably depends on what the piggy is used to, if they don't expect thorns they might not know how to deal with them maybe? But I wouldn't worry too much about it :)
 
Eriathwen said:
I also feed fresh brambles and hawthorne over the warmer months and dont dethorn anything.
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That's really good to know that they can manage it. I would hate to give them something that would cause harm! Even though I've been sifting through the bad hay I still was worrying. I have found some nice hay today in wilkinsons. Surprisingly their own brand meadow hay looked nice and they had Timothy in-stock too! I do know it's not guaranteed all the time from there but it gives me a rest for a few days.
 
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