Hay Fresh Hay!

Last few pictures I took of them!Chewie and Candy! I know it's a waste of hay but they love getting a bunch to play in when we first get it. I still have a flake in the other box so they may have hay days until that box is done!

Looks really nice! Do you usually order hay from Small Pet Select? My girls are still babies and I am still trying to figure the best hay for us. But have read so many reviews of folks spending lots of money and getting inferior hay..I don't mind spending extra for the best for my babies, but hate not being able to see what I will be getting first!

Yes! This hay looks awesome. Both my guinea pigs and the rabbits love a good hay party to celebrate awesome hay. Huge mess but they love it!
Good to see Paul getting involved in the festivities!

I recently purchased some orchard grass hay from SPS and was very disappointed. It was a good deal brown, crumbly, and not long strand. Alas, we can't use Timothy because my husband is allergic to it. I'm tempted to try a small amount of this 3rd cut Timothy and see if he still reacts to it. I still say that when KMS bluegrass hay was good, it was the best.....but I've been so disappointed with the last two purchases that I ceased buying from them.

aseycay said:

Looks really nice! Do you usually order hay from Small Pet Select? My girls are still babies and I am still trying to figure the best hay for us. But have read so many reviews of folks spending lots of money and getting inferior hay..I don't mind spending extra for the best for my babies, but hate not being able to see what I will be getting first!

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I do normally order from Small Pet Select. They have great Hay. I like getting the 3rd cut Timothy but I have also gotten the 2nd cut and they love that too.

spy9doc said:

I recently purchased some orchard grass hay from SPS and was very disappointed. It was a good deal brown, crumbly, and not long strand. Alas, we can't use Timothy because my husband is allergic to it. I'm tempted to try a small amount of this 3rd cut Timothy and see if he still reacts to it. I still say that when KMS bluegrass hay was good, it was the best.....but I've been so disappointed with the last two purchases that I ceased buying from them.

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I have found the 3rd cut less dusty than 2nd cut Timothy so hopefully that will help him some.

@spy0doc, as I understand it, "long strand" doesn't refer to the length of the stem on the hay. It refers to the length of the fibers in the hay. I had a reference that explained that really well, but lost it in a hard disk crash a while back.

bpatters said:

@spy0doc, as I understand it, "long strand" doesn't refer to the length of the stem on the hay. It refers to the length of the fibers in the hay. I had a reference that explained that really well, but lost it in a hard disk crash a while back.

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Thanks for the information, but if the fibers are long, won't the stem be long as well? How is it differentiated?

The stem is made up of hundreds of fibers, which presumably overlap each other in some fashion. I'll have to see if I can't find that article again.

Is this the link you are talking about @bpatters ? (broken link removed)

It doesn't exactly go into it in that link but what is referred to when we are talking about long strand grass hay is actually the length of the fibre strands in the plant on a molecular level, not the length of the grass itself.

To be more specific it refers to the chain length of the cellulose in the plant. The bottom section of this link is good to get a basic understanding of the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose#Structure_and_properties Then this link is a more indepth read (broken link removed)

No, it's not that one. It was a scientific article similar to the last one you posted, but that wasn't it either. I'll keep looking.

@lunarminx i love it!! we use FPS 2nd cut hay and my GP loves it. I'm also getting a kick out of your cat sitting there in the hay too. We have 4 cats. Two of them could care less about the GP, the other two spend all their spare time watching the cage. One in particular tries to get in the cage to lay down whenever possible (we currently keep it covered). I'm hopeful that when my GP gets older (and we're adding a 2nd one this weekend), we can remove the top and let them all hang out together.