would hay straight from farmers field be good

My Dad works on a farm, and the farmer said next time he has some I could have a large bale. Would this be good or does hay sold in shops go through a certain process?? X

I buy small bales from the horse feed merchant and that comes straight off the field. The only difference with most shop bought hay is that it has probably been through a dust extraction process. However, in my experience, a good old farm bale (as long as it's quality hay that could be fed to horses) it's way nicer than the stuff you buy in a plastic compressed packet in P@H (as well as much, much cheaper).

Make sure it's ragwort-free and a suitable quality for horses.

My four love the farm baled stuff, and eat far more than what they used to of the packaged stuff :thumb:

all our hay is farm hay and its fabulous - our farmer also supplies Wood Green animal shelter direct

I buy farm hay. There's been mixed views on here about how old it should be - some feed new - personally mine is a minimum of 6 weeks old. It needs to be dried out though.

I've only found the end of season stuff to be dusty

The bunnies seem happy with out hay from local sheep farm
It does have the odd bit of wool or mud or stuff in it but nothing too concerning so far!

Just be aware that this years hay will be richer, for horses the hay you buy is usually a year behind so you're always feeding last years hay. So if it looks really green just keep an eye on them as its more like feeding grass. Other than thattthough I'd certainly say that farm is far superior to shop, and on the rare occasion that they've cut a field that's unsuitable (ragwort/oak/very dusty) you can see that before you buy it.

FondueKid said:

Just be aware that this years hay will be richer, for horses the hay you buy is usually a year behind so you're always feeding last years hay. So if it looks really green just keep an eye on them as its more like feeding grass. Other than thattthough I'd certainly say that farm is far superior to shop, and on the rare occasion that they've cut a field that's unsuitable (ragwort/oak/very dusty) you can see that before you buy it.

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Is grass /rich hay bad?
Mine are mainly grass eaters due to being outside with 24/7 access

dumblepaws said:

Is grass /rich hay bad?
Mine are mainly grass eaters due to being outside with 24/7 access

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No but a sudden change from older stalkey hay to rich if your buns aren't used to it could cause tummy upsets

Yes. But I would store it for at least 6weeks after it was baled, as that's what's recommended with horses due to an apparently higher risk of colic - so I do same for buns in case it increases risk of statis (no idea if it is a problem for rabbits though).

Personally I think good quality baled hay is a lot better than the average small animal hays sold. Just be aware that farm hay can vary an awful lot from farm to farm. It can be anything from very high quality horse hay to extremely poor, high mould content, poor nutritional content, only good enough for cattle hay (supposedly they don't need quality hay to be healthy, like horses do - not sure I really believe that but its what farmers say). So just get one bale to see what it's like first and be prepared to have to get rid if its poor quality stuff.

I never feed hay that's less than 3 months old to my horse, and definitely wouldn't feed it to my rabbit either.

Most farm hay is usually far better quality that the prepacked hay from pet shops, and far cheaper too