Hi guys,
I had a lovely bag of hay delivered yesterday, 9.5kg. That's a month's supply for my buns. We're having big renovations on our house right now, so I've been storing our hay in the greenhouse for the past few months. Which has been completely fine.
However, I woke up this morning to find it pouring with rain. And idiot me, I forgot to close the door on the greenhouse. There are also several leaks in there. The hay bag was open (idiot me once again) and a trickle from a leak had gone all the way down to the bottom of the bag, essentially soaking one side of the hay.
I've just spent an hour with the hay tipped out on my kitchen floor, going through it handful by handful, pulling out any wet and putting the dry back into a cardboard box. I'm going to leave it inside near to a radiator for a week to be completely sure it is dry. The hay is now very loose/aired out, so if there are tiny strands of wet that I missed, they should dry quickly.
Should I be worried that I've compromised it? Interestingly, I bought some hay from the same company a month ago that arrived smelling a bit mildewy/weird, and my bunnies wouldn't touch it. However, after shaking it all out for a few days it smelt amazing, and they ate the whole bag no problem.
To summarise: should I be worried about the hay going mouldy or hurting my buns? To clarify, I have gone through it carefully and pulled out the obvious wet bits, going to leave the rest in the house and it is no longer in bale formation so lots of air between the hay.
P.S, sorry I have hardly been on here recently. I've found this year very stressful and have become a bit of a recluse, even online
I had a lovely bag of hay delivered yesterday, 9.5kg. That's a month's supply for my buns. We're having big renovations on our house right now, so I've been storing our hay in the greenhouse for the past few months. Which has been completely fine.
However, I woke up this morning to find it pouring with rain. And idiot me, I forgot to close the door on the greenhouse. There are also several leaks in there. The hay bag was open (idiot me once again) and a trickle from a leak had gone all the way down to the bottom of the bag, essentially soaking one side of the hay.
I've just spent an hour with the hay tipped out on my kitchen floor, going through it handful by handful, pulling out any wet and putting the dry back into a cardboard box. I'm going to leave it inside near to a radiator for a week to be completely sure it is dry. The hay is now very loose/aired out, so if there are tiny strands of wet that I missed, they should dry quickly.
Should I be worried that I've compromised it? Interestingly, I bought some hay from the same company a month ago that arrived smelling a bit mildewy/weird, and my bunnies wouldn't touch it. However, after shaking it all out for a few days it smelt amazing, and they ate the whole bag no problem.
To summarise: should I be worried about the hay going mouldy or hurting my buns? To clarify, I have gone through it carefully and pulled out the obvious wet bits, going to leave the rest in the house and it is no longer in bale formation so lots of air between the hay.
P.S, sorry I have hardly been on here recently. I've found this year very stressful and have become a bit of a recluse, even online