Best Hay

[BinkyBunny]

What type of hay, where from, and how much would you order for a 4ish month old lop. I'm currently giving him some oxbox 1st cut timothy, but want to order some bulk to save. Ideally, I would like to order about every 2 months. I have been out of the bunny game a while and don't know where it is cheapest to buy or where there is good quality hay anymore. Thanks in advance! :wave2

 

[LakeCondo]

Hay grows only in the summer, so if you have room to store it, you might as well buy enough to last until next summer's crop is available. A feed store would be your best bet. Where to get it online depends on where you are, in terms of shipping costs.

 

[BinkyBunny]

Im located right by you!

 

[JBun]

Depending on where you live, you may be able to pick up a bale at a horse feed store. That's what I do as it's WAY cheaper, less than $13 for a 50+ lb. bale. Usually if they don't have timothy, they will have some sort of grass hay available. I would just call around.

 

[ldoerr]

I agree with the feed store as the best place to get hay. The most I have ever seen a bale go for there was $30. That was the price for a 140-150lb bale. I forget what my most recent bale cost or weighs but I can GUARANTEE you that it was WAY cheaper than online or pet store prices. You will save yourself a fortune by getting it from a feed store, even it you only use 1/4 of it before it goes bad. I have hay that is more than 3 years old that is still safe to use. (I do not feed that bale anymore though since I got a new bale). All the hay that you get in a given year was harvested around the same short period of time.

 

[fuzz16]

^^^agreed on feed store

bale of good horse worthy hay thats not to course for 9$ right now for brome/timothy. I am looking for timothy.alfalfa blocks though, much cleaner to feed.

 

[whitelop]

I got a bale of coastal for 6.75, its definitely the way to go. The nutritional value of grass hays are all about the same. Alfalfa hay is the only hay thats different and its high is calcium and protein.

 

[12lawliet12Snickers, Truffle]

I 6th the feed store. I got a 50 pound bale for $6.95 and they loaded it in the car for me, too. I've had it for a month or so and I've barely made a dent in it, even though I use it for EVERYTHING, from mouse bedding to litter box bedding to rabbit cage bedding to stuffing it in their hay wheel.

 

[BinkyBunny]

Thank you so much for all the comments! So it isn't important that he has timothy? I knew alfalfa could be given to a younger bunny, but the others such as oat are all close enough that it doesn't matter?

 

[ldoerr]

With oat you want to get young oat hay that does not have the actual oats in it. Also good luck finding oat hay by the bale. I have herd that it is really hard if not imposible to find it by the bale. I always have fed timothy. I did try coastal, but my rabbits did not like it at all.

 

[Imbrium]

alfalfa is ok for 7 mos and younger (and can be purchased by the bale at feed stores)... rabbits of any age can have ANY type of horse-quality grass hay. with "cereal" type hays like oat and wheat, you need to pick out the oats or w/e as the extra carbs are no good for bunnies.

feed store hay is usually actually fresher than the stuff at pet stores... and pet store hay is around $3 per lb vs feed store hay being about $1 for 7-8 lbs.

if you want to buy hay online, it's going to be a lot pricier than a feed store... however, this site has the best prices I've seen as far as ordering hay online - http://www.sierravalleyhay.com/Orders.html ... I went through them because my stupid bunnies are obscenely picky and only like oat and alfalfa and are just about too old for alfalfa... though I also ordered a bale of 80%/20% orchard/alfalfa to see if they'll eat that. I ordered the hay on 12/21 and it arrived on 12/27, which is pretty darn fast considering there was a weekend and a holiday in there.

it only cost $31.95 for 20 lbs of oat hay (*including* shipping), which is a hell of a lot better than the obscene price of $26.99 for 9 lbs that oxbow charges (and that didn't involve any shipping fees since the feed store ordered it for me), and also much better than ordering from binky bunny since their shipping prices are horrendous. I haven't opened the hay yet (it's still on the porch until I rearrange stuff in just a bit to make room for it), but I'll report back on the quality. it can't be any worse than oxbow oat hay, which was literally HALF oats and pisses me off to no end (if you think I'm exaggerating about "half oats", I swear I'm not - I have pics to prove how bad it is! ).

another perk of buying from feed stores is that most will let you grab a little sample of each of their hays free of charge so your bunny can "taste-test" them before you commit to buying an entire bale.