What is considered good quality hay?

[Amy27]

Thanks everyone I just ordered some Kleenmama's hay. I am excited to try it. I am sure my buns will love it.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I'm toying with the idea of ordering some Kleenmama hay. Shipping is SO expensive to Alaska though, it will cost several times the price of the hay to get it here! I bought a 100 pound bale of timothy hay from the feed store this summer. Before that, I bought the little bags of hay. I thought my rabbits were good hay eaters before, but they just mow through the big bale of hay! It's truly impressive how much hay they eat now. The hay I got is very green and smells nice and fresh. When I got Phoebe Mae, I bought a bag of Oxbow timothy and was really disappointed, it was so dusty and the strands were really short. Phoebs hardly touched it and I thought she didn't like hay, but when I gave her some from the big bale, she really went to town.

What kind of hay should I get as a supplement to the timothy? Since I have so much timothy (it takes up so much space, three gigantic bath tub sized rubbermaid totes!), is it okay if the bulk of their hay is timothy? The feed store sells orchard grass and brome hay too, but of course it comes in 100 pound bales and I don't need that much. Next time I'm going to try to find a fellow bunny owner to split a bale of timothy and a bale of something else with.

 

[DyemondRabbitry]

I don't know what prices are in your area but we just agreed to sell 100 bales (approx 50 lbs each) of good hayat $1.25 a bale... half what I paid for hay in the fall. Note- this is what we made for my parents, not what we bought ..... good thing!!

 

[BlueGiants]

At $1.25 a bale, I should drive my truck down your way and load up! We pay over $11.00 a 50# bale of the timothy mix for horses, unless the local County farm co-op gets it in, then I pay around $7.00 for a 45-50# bale. And the last few co-ophay deliveries have been far superior to the "normal" hay we get. 2nd cut mixed grasses, really fresh and clean smelling, really dry, not dustyand well baled. The rabbits seem to really enjoy it, and tend to finish up every scrap!

The winter is a tough time to get good, consistanthay.

 

[DyemondRabbitry]

I have to say the best hay I have found is what we get for our horses and we pay $2.50 a bale for 500. I'm not sure what they'd weighin at but I know I'm tired after lugging them around and I've done hay all my life!

 

[Luv-bunniz]

We pay £5.89 (8.72 USD) for a bale that weighs about 20kg, nice quality but I would use it exclusively since its quite coarse (I am on the look out for some better hay then what we mix it with now but dont know what to go with in the UK that dosent cost too much) but its definitely the rabbits favourite so suits us. It is MUCH cheaper and better quality then what we used to have aswell!