Bulk Hay-A Tutorial

[LonePig]

The hay has landed! My first order of bulk hay arrived today. I saw some other posts questioning how much hay there is, and basically how much space it takes up. I took these photographs to give everyone an idea.

For reference this is a 15 lb box of hay I purchased from Sweet Meadow Farm.

First off I wanted to try Ly's idea of packing the hay into some brown paper lunch bags, for easy storage, less mess, and less hay dust flying around. I filled all fifty bags that I purchased, it didn't seem to make a dent in the hay!

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...y79/pic013.jpg

The hay came in a box, and then inside a large plastic bag, the bottom of the bag was tightly packed (think hay bale), after I was finished filling the brown paper bags, I broke it up some inside the bag, this will help provide better ventilation as well. This is how much was left still.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...y79/pic014.jpg

You can see the box it came in as well, it wasn't that large or cumbersome.

I took a photo of where I will store the hay, it is a coat closet in my front hall, I stacked all the brown paper bags into the box it came in, I placed the remaining hay still inside the plastic bag in the closet as well, I left the bag open so the hay can stay ventilated.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...y79/pic020.jpg

There wasn't too much debris in the hay but you will definitely want to break it up a bit if it is tightly packed, and as you go through it pull out any dead leaves, hard sticks, or strange looking pieces. Here is all that I found in the hay I went through so far.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p...y79/pic015.jpg

and last but not least the g-pigs were more than happy with the quality of the hay, of course they are still busy taste testing it.



Well I hope this helps anyone who is considering buying a bulk order of hay, just remember this is 15 pounds, if you plan on purchasing more, of course it will be larger! I hope this gives you a good starting point. This should last my three pigs quite some time.

[LonePig]

Sorry the pictures are so big, I have tried resizing them on photobucket but they are still huge, please feel free to edit as you see fit.

[Ly&Pigs]

The photos were way too huge except for the last one. I changed them all to img tags. Over in the Feedback and How Do I forum there is a tutorial for resizing photobucket pictures.

I had bought 100lbs of KM's hay almost 2 years ago I think. So to me, 15lbs. is a small amount but it does last a couple of pigs a good while. My 100lbs. lasted almost a year for 5-7 pigs in combination with a bale of bermuda I had purchased locally. I had gotten 45lbs. bluegrass and 55lbs. 3rd cut Timothy. Hopefully just after Christmas I will be able to order my girls a 25lb. box of bluegrass from KM as a late present.

The paper bag idea works pretty well as pigs love to stuff themselves inside them to eat hay.