Hay!
We grow lots of the hay we use, we know exactley where the hay comes from, in fact we could take you to the field in which it was grown.
Our process firstly includes conditioning into a uniform consistency,the hay remains full length and is not chopped before it is put through a rigorous two stage dust extraction system that removes not only dust but also seed and fragmented pieces and these can be one of the main causes of breathing and eye problems.
Dust Free means exactly that, where as dust extracted can merely mean a percentage of the dust is removed.
The Hay is baled, under pressure into a purpose made sack or cardboard box. It will expand to 8 times it's size when opened and should not be confused with loosly packed bags of hay, as each bale will easily fill a dustbin as shown in the picture.
As guide only, the hay will weigh in at around 2kg depending on the material.
We use breathable sacks either hessian or polyprop because it keeps the hay in top condition and is ideal for carriage. We also use cardboard too
Hay in plastic bags will sweat and soon go off if not stored properly.
We despatch in two's, fives and ten bales and also a large bale too which is like a standard 2 string farm bale,only with the dust taken out. We will mix hays and the straw to suit your order,if the combination cannot be done on the page please email.
Carriage cost is expensive and makes up a large proportion of the price you pay, the larger the quantity the cheaper it becomes.
For example a 10 pack or a Large Bale can work out at under £1.50p kg delivered!!
New Size Large Bale Hay
We have a new Large Bale that replaces the two string bale we have previousley sold.
This has been through same dust extraction process. The hay is baled and compressed into a polyprop bag and the top stitched closed, as a guide it contains just under five of our smaller packs.
These bales are easier to handle than the old two string bale and slightly smaller which is reflected inthe price.
We have changed because the farm baler we used before tended to smash the dry hay up, this will resolve that problem.
As with the Smaller Bales we now have the Large Bales in both Soft and Stalky too.
The pictue above with the dustbin is to represent the volume in each bale
We've used polyprop sacks for strength as they are so tightly packed ,a mark has been put on the end of the stitching that will come undone when picked. The hay may prove hard to get out without cutting the bag, so we suggest the cut should be down the seam of the bag as shown in the image
Two Box Order
These box's contain the same amount as the sacks and may prove better to use as the hay will come out of the box more easily.
Shown is the smallest order we do,two box's, but you will surprised how much is packed into each box. (NB picture show two of the two pack orders)
Here is what comes out of the dust extractor, this is not only dust but seeds and husk, you can see by the green tinge that this has come from good quality hay.
When we started doing this we were amazed ourselves at what actually came out of even the best quality hay.
Prevention is better than cure,vetinary fees are expensive and may be avoided in some cases.
Dust affects eyes and breathing in both animals and humans.
Soft Hay
This is a sample of the soft hay, as we use our stocks up we have to move onto other batchs that will have come from a different field and may have been made a week later for example under different weather conditions, this can make the hay vary in smell and palatability and also texture to a degree.
This batch of soft hay is fantastic quality and smells gorgeous!
Coarse or Stalky Hay
The current Stalky/Coarse hay is a mixture of three hays, Green Rye/Timothy seed hay, a very coarse yellow looking seed hay (Its not Straw!)and some sweet smelling finer herby hay.
These hays tends not to be as green as the finer meadow hays as it takes longer to make as the stem is thicker and so it has to be left in the sun longer to make,this tends to bleach out the colour.
This hay is very Coarse with Lots of Fibre! (double click on the image to enlarge)
American Timothy Hay
American Timothy Hay grown in the USA, Oregon and Washington State.
This is likely to be the best hay you have ever seen!!
Quality is easily as good as any that is already available here and at considerably cost saving.
As you can see from the photo it is exceptionally green and stalky, just quality!!
We think this is superior to Canadian timothy which can be shorter and not so green.
The Timothy as with our other hay it is compressed, this time into one of our cardboard box's making it suitable for carriage and for a guide only our target weight is around 2.5 kg.
As with all our products it has been put through our dust extraction process which has cleaned it up and removed the dust.
We sell the US Timothy in 2 and 4 and 8 box lots but do not put into sacks anymore as we have found the box's protect it more from breaking up.
This is an example of a pack of 10 ready to be picked up.We mark these as 25k weight for the carrier. Although quite awkward like this the pack is actually two five packs wrapped together,so after delivery it would make sense to split into two more manageable lots if the size was a problem.
Hessian isn't always practical and getting expensive too,due to this we have started using woven polyprop bags aswell ,these will breath too and are lighter, So we now offer a choice on sack type, Polyprop is cheapest but hessian now cost a little more.
The Polyprop bags are taped and stamped for easily identifying the contents.
We have decided to also add our "Plastic" products to our online range as a more affordable option.
We do have retail outlets that supply this and although this is much better quality than most material type and palatability can vary and will not generally match the standard of the products above. However this is also put through our Dust Free process and is still very good quality and is a cheaper option too. Hay in these packs are a mixed types commoing from several different fields. You could call it grade 2
In our view hay will not keep as well in a plastic bag so would recomend that these packs should be used reasonably quickley,if you plan to store for a while you may be better buying hessian/polyprop.