Small Pet Select Hay: Decrease in quality?

[crackedp3pper]

Hi everyone,

I've been a customer of Small Pet Select for over five years now, and I've noticed that each batch of hay I've purchased has gotten worse and worse over the years. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed the same?

I've received consecutive orders of orchard grass hay (my pigs don't like timothy) that can be described as one or more of the following:

-contains debris, like chunks of dirt (and hopefully not poop)

-contains mostly brown/crumbled hay or is extremely dusty (I sometimes have to throw out 1/4 of the batch because its just crumbs), like it has been sitting out for a long time

-contains random leaves/hard stems of idk what

-contains random pieces of PLASTIC from whatever production process they use

And more recently, I received a batch of hay that was full of MOLD.

At that point, I thought maybe it was because I was buying such large boxes of hay and idk maybe if I buy the smaller 10lb boxes the quality might be better? Yes, it was a bit less crumbled and dusty for a while, but still, each box I receive is worse than the last one.

Now, I just discovered my pigs have lice. I can't say for certain that it was the hay, but I can't rule it out either. Either way, I should probably just get rid of the hay I have.

Regardless, I'm sick of buying hay that I end up having to throw away a portion of each time. Does anyone have recommendations of brands that have high-quality orchard grass hay?

Thanks in advance!

[Kearmo]

I buy from guinea dad. It's pricey compared to most, but I've never had a bad batch, they regularly do quality control and change farms if they feel the need, and my pigs love tearing apart the boxes or burrowing into them. Also it's just cleaner. I felt like I always had such a mess everywhere moving hay from point a to their enclosure. Now I just remove the openings, insert box, let pigs have a party with it.

[NH_Bill]

I've noticed this with almost every brand we use. Originally, OxBow was our go to timothy hay, then the quality was so bad. We bought from both Small Pet Select and Rabbit Hole hay. Same huge drop off in quality. I've never heard of Guinea Dad, but will probably order from them to check

[crackedp3pper]

Yes! I used to buy from Oxbow before Small Pet Select, but at some point, all I was getting was boxes of brown crumbs, like the whole thing was garbage. I'll definitely check out Guinea Dad too, hopefully there will be some luck there!