meadow hay is just general hay - farms grow long grass, make it into hay and sell it to a hay merchant - the merchant sells it on to branded company.
Sometimes it's good (I've had lovely hay from Wilkos once!) and sometimes it's rubbish, full of thorns and all sorts - the hay merchant might not be too fussy, if he's just selling on to a big chain of pet suppliers.
I get non branded meadow hay from my grocers at the moment - he gets it from a hay merchant, so it's pretty much different every week - you can tell it's from different farms by the number of types of grasses in it, and how green it is, and sometimes dusty, sometimes not - making hay is an art! There is occasionally timothy grass in it, but it's usually just fescue grass, which they aren't so keen on - quite a bit of cocksfoot in this latest batch so they love it! It's pot luck really.
I used to get timmy hay online, at great cost, but it says on the box 'timmy rich' - there was a lot of other grasses in it too, and the last batch had so much mud, docks and thistles in that I never bought any more. My meadow hay is much better quality than the expensive 'timmy hay' at the moment, but all that could change next week :roll: