bunny_charlie
Member
Hey guys,
So for this past few months my bun has been eating ryegrass as his source of hay, but we’re pretty much near the end of the bale and we called the stock feed to ask if they currently have ryegrass in stock. However they said to call back in a couple of months because they dont know when it will be back in stock. We called a lot of other stock feeds which were a lot further away, and they said because of covid, nobody’s working right now, not to mention ryegrass isn’t a very common type of hay here. Then we finally found a stock feed thats an hour away and when we drove there we bought 2 bales of ryegrass and 1 of teff hay.
The problem is, while the people there said it was ryegrass, when i opened it, it was actually a mix with alfalfa and all the ryegrass bits were yellow and something I know that my bun would not want to eat. this leaves me with the option of teff hay, which is another problem in itself because when I opened the bale, I found that the flakes felt warm and soggy to touch, which meant that the hay mustve been baled while it was too wet, and that it had too much humidity. While I do notice that the browner strands started to have small black spots, there isn’t a major presence of mold, dust, or any strange smell to the hay, and the bun seemed to quite enjoy it. I fluffed out the entire bale into separate cardboard boxes so that the hay could breathe and hopefully dry out before it goes bad. However, another problem is the fact I can just tell from the smell and dark green colour that teff hay is lot sweeter than ryegrass with more protein and calcium. Because Charlie is a picky bun, when he tastes a sweeter type of hay, he basically isnt willing to go back on the hay he was on before (which is what happened with oaten), and I could tell he was a little reluctant to eat the ryegrass after tasting the teff hay yesterday.
Teff hay is even harder to find than ryegrass and I have a feeling it won’t be good for him to be exclusively feeding on, so now I’m worried about the long term problem of whether he will continue to eat ryegrass once it is back in stock and whether he will get health issues from eating teff hay for now. The covid situation has been getting progressively worse and the government has just set a new lockdown rule of not being able to go further than 5km from ur house or u get a fine of up to $3000, and most stock feeds are around 40-50km away because we live near the city. So basically, right now the only hay option is teff hay once my bun finishes the ryegrass, and I just don’t know about the health problems that may come with it, the chances of him eating ryegrass as eagerly as before once its back in stock, and how I’m supposed to ensure the longevity of the teff hay if thats the only option he is then willing to eat.
I’m sorry if this all sounds confusing and any advice is appreciated!
So for this past few months my bun has been eating ryegrass as his source of hay, but we’re pretty much near the end of the bale and we called the stock feed to ask if they currently have ryegrass in stock. However they said to call back in a couple of months because they dont know when it will be back in stock. We called a lot of other stock feeds which were a lot further away, and they said because of covid, nobody’s working right now, not to mention ryegrass isn’t a very common type of hay here. Then we finally found a stock feed thats an hour away and when we drove there we bought 2 bales of ryegrass and 1 of teff hay.
The problem is, while the people there said it was ryegrass, when i opened it, it was actually a mix with alfalfa and all the ryegrass bits were yellow and something I know that my bun would not want to eat. this leaves me with the option of teff hay, which is another problem in itself because when I opened the bale, I found that the flakes felt warm and soggy to touch, which meant that the hay mustve been baled while it was too wet, and that it had too much humidity. While I do notice that the browner strands started to have small black spots, there isn’t a major presence of mold, dust, or any strange smell to the hay, and the bun seemed to quite enjoy it. I fluffed out the entire bale into separate cardboard boxes so that the hay could breathe and hopefully dry out before it goes bad. However, another problem is the fact I can just tell from the smell and dark green colour that teff hay is lot sweeter than ryegrass with more protein and calcium. Because Charlie is a picky bun, when he tastes a sweeter type of hay, he basically isnt willing to go back on the hay he was on before (which is what happened with oaten), and I could tell he was a little reluctant to eat the ryegrass after tasting the teff hay yesterday.
Teff hay is even harder to find than ryegrass and I have a feeling it won’t be good for him to be exclusively feeding on, so now I’m worried about the long term problem of whether he will continue to eat ryegrass once it is back in stock and whether he will get health issues from eating teff hay for now. The covid situation has been getting progressively worse and the government has just set a new lockdown rule of not being able to go further than 5km from ur house or u get a fine of up to $3000, and most stock feeds are around 40-50km away because we live near the city. So basically, right now the only hay option is teff hay once my bun finishes the ryegrass, and I just don’t know about the health problems that may come with it, the chances of him eating ryegrass as eagerly as before once its back in stock, and how I’m supposed to ensure the longevity of the teff hay if thats the only option he is then willing to eat.
I’m sorry if this all sounds confusing and any advice is appreciated!
