slavetoabunny
Well-Known Member
I just got this hay update from Kleenmama's. I think I am going to order another 45 pounds of the 2nd cut right now even though I don't need it. I have an almost full box right now and another 45 pounds should last me until next season.
As most of you may know, this has been a really hard year for hay farmers in the Northwest. We had a really wet, late spring/early summer, and a lot of 1st cutting hay crops were lost to rain.
Those farmers who didnât lose their crops were forced to cut extremely late. This made 2nd cutting later than normal and 3rd cutting even later.
When 3rd cutting comes so late, you have a higher percentage of lost crops due to either rain, slower dry times because of shorter, cooler days, and more brown leaf due to dew and frost.
This has been the case this year. Therefore, I feel I have been extremely lucky in locating any 3rd cut timothy hay this year.
However, for all of my repeat customers, I need you all to understand that last year was an exceptionally gorgeous crop. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best, last yearsâ 3rd cut timothy was a 10. This year, I give it a 7, for two reason.
First, it does have some brown leaf in it. It always does, but after last year with NO brown, it is going to look very obvious this year
In the coming days, I will take pictures and post on the site so you can see for yourselves. I havenât updated the hay page in years so it is the perfect opportunity.
Secondly, it is short! In order to even bring a crop in, it was cut at about 6 inches. So there will be very little of the hay that has really long, ribbony strands.
I need you all to understand this, because I will not be offering refunds or replacements for 3rd timothy hay that has brown leaf or is short. It is the best possible hay I could get after weeks of searching. It is nice hay. I wouldnât have gotten it if it were not.
I will be opening up the site to pre-sales on Monday, and I expect to get the hay sometime by mid week. Please be patient with us, hundreds of people have been waiting for this hay and there is only so many orders we can ship out in a day.
Also, and I need you all to know this: If the hay is not as good as it looks in the bale, I will not be getting more of it. I have been guaranteed about 30 tons of it. To give you some sense of that, we went through more than 60 tons this past season. So even if I love it, and get it all, it will not last. If I canât manage it once I get the first 7 tons, I will probably not get more of it. If it is too short to stay compressed, there are huge overages in shipping dimensional weight that I will not pay.
Now on to the 2nd cut timothy. It is a perfect 10 this year! All green ,gorgeous, some small stems and seed heads, but for those of you looking for 2nd cut timothy hay, you will not find better.
As to the bluegrass, it was the worst year for bluegrass since I started this business 8 years ago. The first batch I got I was not happy with most of it. I sold about 2 tons of the best of it and then donated the rest to a rescue here. I found some nicer bluegrass, but it has a teeny bit of alfalfa in it. Some bales have none. Some bales have less than 3%. But I need you all to know that it is in extremely limited supply this year and the 7 tons that I currently have may be all that I can get. Last year we went through 27 tons.
I will not be offering refunds or replacement boxes because of the small amount of alfalfa that may be in the hay. Alfalfa will not hurt your pets, and if you are worried about stones or sludge, calcium or protein levels, the alfalfa is super easy to spot and you can pick it out. It will be the hard pokey stem part
So there you have it! Not very good news at all here, but I feel blessed to have gotten what I did and I know I have the best, most loyal customers on the planet. You know I will work as hard as ever to bring you top quality products.
