What is the difference with farm hay, and hay in the petshops?
Where do you think the pet shops get their hay?! ….from farmers! I have horses, and my guinea pigs get the same hay as the horses. It is “farm hay” – grown by the people who own the yard where I keep my horses. When I bought my pigs, I got a free “starter pack” which contained straw and hay. It was the most appalling quality I have ever seen. It was worse than floor sweepings. Hay has long strands, this stuff was dusty and chopped short. The straw was the same. The colours and smell tell me that the nutritional value of the hay is worse than useless too. I threw it away, as I didn’t want my pigs to end up with COPD. It was from Pets at Home; one of the biggest pet shops in the UK. Farm hay does not have mites etc if stored correctly, and there is no real way to “dust extract” hay. If there was, those of us with horses who have respiratory problems wouldn’t spend hours soaking it (or feed haylage). I worked at a pet shop – they bought in big bales of “farm hay” and bagged it up with t
