Dodgy Hay?

Hi, just joined tonight and this is my first post. Hope I'm doing this right! We have two house bunnies, Mabel and Una (twenty month old sisters) and we've been giving them Burns Meadow Hay for some months now. We buy it from the shop which is part of the vets practice where we take our girls in order to avoid shopping at the pet stores locally who have, shall we say, a 'relaxed' attitude to animal welfare...

Recently though we opened a bag and noticed it was very 'dusty'. On closer inspection we discovered there was a strong 'mushroomy' smell coming from the bag, made worse when disturbing more clouds of what I took now to be fungal spores. I took it back to the shop and they exchanged it, no quibble, (saying they would return it to their suppliers and query it) and the new bag was fine when I opened it outside.

Two weeks later the same thing has happened again, only with two bags at once now! We have some green oat hay (also Burns) and I've just dried the first batch of Timothy hay from their outdoor play run, so we aren't about to run out altogether, but we like them to have those more as supplements rather than main source. Don't know what to do, or whether this hay is safe to give them, but I'd rather not risk it. Has anyone else come across anything like this? Don't know whether it is infected with fungal spores or not for sure - there's no obvious signs of mould itself. Thinking I should contact Burns themselves this time.

Look forward to any response, cheers.

Hay does tend to be dusty towards the end of the season - it won't be long before this year's hay is cut, so anything we are using now was cut last year. However, it shouldn't be mouldy or smell musty. Any that does, shouldn't be given to the bunnies - so you have done the right thing in taking it back.

Hay that has been stored incorrectly can go 'off'. It tends to happen when it has been sealed in a plastic bag and allowed to sweat (eg by storing somewhere warm or in the sun). It is best stored somewhere shady and dry, off the ground and with decent ventilation, eg in a duvet cover in a shed or garage.

Thanks Shimmer, there's a definite mustiness to the smell. Won't give them any and I'll take it back on Tuesday. Still think I'll give Burns a nudge, I'd like to suggest to them that they use brightly coloured baling twine too, as I almost fed some well disguised stuff to the girls in their green oat hay a couple of weeks back too!