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Hay as substrate?

Sisuitl

Sisuitl

I dig'em!
Has anybody here used hay as a substrate? While cleaning out the rabbit's litterbox and putting in some new hay I suddenly realized that it might work for corns.

Any ideas? The only health issue I can think of is possibly parasite or disease transmission from field herps that once lived in the hay. How are shavings sterilized? Are they usually dried in a kiln? Can diseases and parasites live in hay once it is dried and stored? I haven't been able to find any bulk aspen shavings for sale in Tucson since we moved here, and now that we are buiding display vivs am looking for an economical and aesthetically pleasing alternative to paper towels. Not to mention it would take my rabbit a year to eat through a bale by herself, and this seems less wasteful if it would work.
 
I've been using a chopped hay substrate for about 6 months now, because I can't get aspen locally except in small bags for stupid prices. I asked if anyone else had thoughts about it, in a thread I can't remember the name of. Anyway, it's working really well. The substrate fluffs up well, absorbs well, and the sanakes can tunnel away to their hearts' content. No health issues at all and the sheds have been universally better since I changed from paper towels.
 

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Sisuitl said:
I haven't been able to find any bulk aspen shavings for sale in Tucson since we moved here,
Click to expand...


do you have or have you ever heard of a "Tractor Supply" ?
 
I wouldn't have thought hay would work well. It will mold fairly quickly if gotten wet, although perhaps in a drier climate it wouldn't happen as fast. At the cost of hay for horses in Phoenix, I would have thought hay an expensive alternative.

Five years ago I had no trouble finding bedding in Phoenix, I would have thought Tucson to be big enough to carry the stuff somewhere :)

Does Arizona have Tractor Supplies? I don't recall ever seeing one in Phoenix... but then I probably wasn't looking for one :)
 
I'll check out the local feed stores again. Most of them didn't even know if they had aspen. I asked them what they had, and they said " pine, and white" Well, their white shavings smelled very strongly of pine.

We get a big bale of hay for our one rabbit, and by the time she gets to the end of it, it's pretty stale so we compost it and get her a fresh one. It seems like there shouldn't be mold problems here, especially if it is cleaned out every week.

Thanks Diamondlil, it's nice to get feedback from someone who's using it. I may do a trial with one of my well established old man snakes since it's working well for you. I was just looking at it thinking, "hey wait, don't they love this stuff in the wild?" Seems like it would be lots of fun to burrow in anyway.

Thanks everyone for your help!
 
I've had no mould problems at all, obviously I'd have preferred to use aspen like everyone else, but it would run to around £40 a month extra to keep the snakes clean! I was worried there would be problems, but happy to report none so far.
 
Just realize that not all hay is created equally and what Diamondlil is feeding isn't bales of hay, but stuff that's been chopped. Not so easy to find here in the US.

The kilning kills anything that might be in the wood, but that won't happen to hay. I know from experience that crickets, some beetles and spiders will live happily in a stored bale of hay. Mice have also been known to tunnel into the stuff.

Be aware that a lot of dead things can be baled into that hay... I've personally seen dead snakes, frogs, and squirrels. On a email list that I belong to, there were three people who have actually gotten bales of hay with dead cats in them :( It's a huge list with over 3,000 people, so perhaps not likely, but always a possibility.

I don't recall rabbits as being messy drinkers, so I wouldn't imagine mold being an issue, but I would keep an eye on the snakes water bowl or perhaps it's just mine that tends to go through his bowl (he doesn't soak) as a straight line is the fastest way to get somewhere :)

Personally, hay wouldn't cost me a thing to bed in since I have to buy it for the horse anyway, but it wouldn't be near as nice as the stuff that Diamond is getting for her snakes. :)
 
Actually, it looking at Diamond's pictures again, it almost looks more like straw than hay... or did your camera take away the greenness of it, Diamondlil?
 
Sure wish I could edit my replies....

Another thing to ask when you purchase your hay, Sisuitl, is if they have been treated with anything. I'm not sure if you've found a rare farmer in Tucson or if your hay is coming out of California, but in wetter areas, some farmers will treat the hay to help dry up any moisture, esp. if it's gotten damp when it was on the ground.

Not sure if it would hurt the snakes, but you might want to be aware if it's been treated with something. My guy uses straight salt and only when it's gotten wet, but apparently some farmers use it on all their fields to be on the safe side.
 
I don't know if a similar thing is on sale in the states, this is a product from a Benelux company. It's called 'Russel bedding', it's chopped straw, they do chopped hay too, and I get which ever is in stock when I need it. It's marketed as small animal bedding, the guinea pig (RIP, Jo) loved it, the mice and the gerbil like it. The best thing is the lack of dust, and it's very soft and fluffs up well. Around the water bowls for the snakes I change every other day when I change the water, so that's probably why I don't get any mould, also spot clean the snake poop then too. It's gold in colour, not green, The dust is extracted specifically to avoid irritation to the lungs of animals kept in it
 
Ahhh, I wasn't nuts when I thought it looked more like straw :) Straw is much softer than hay and doesn't mold as easily. Straw is cheap and easy to find around here, but unfortunately it does tend to be dusty. Of course, the horses and cows using it are much further from the ground than the wee snakes so not a big deal.

I would think the straw wouldn't be too hard to find and I would think be cheaper, but don't know that I ever priced it in Arizona. The price of hay was enough to give me a heart attack and why I didn't own a horse until I moved out to the midwest when hay is much more readily available :)
 
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