Has my timothy hay gone bad?

[LittleThumper]

Hi everyone.

Usually my bunny would love eating the timothy hay often that I need to replace it frequently.

Anyway, for the past 2-3 weeks he has eaten less and less of it. Then I notice my huge bag of timothy hay has become like brownish. I’m not sure if it has gone bad or not. Here are the pics:

The Alfalfa hay is freshly bought just yesterday. I placed them side-by-side for colour comparison.

The fragrance/smell of the hay has also diminished substantially as compared to last time. So is it high time to replace it? Has it really gone bad? 

[Bam]

If it smells bad, like mouldy, it’s gone bad. That’d happen if it were stored in a moist place or if it wasn’t compåletely dry when you bought it.

Other than that, you can’t really say that green hay is better than yellowish/brown hay. There are companies that have dyed hay green for it to look more yummy, because people think hay needs to be green. But hay that’s been drying out in the sun goes yellow and more vitamin D forms in it in the process.

If it has changed color since you got it I’d suspect it wasn’t really dry when you bought it. I personally would buy a small bag of sth else and see if the bun will eat that. If I detected any type of mouldy smell or otherwise unpleasant smell, I’d chuck the old hay out.

Old hay that’s dry isn’t bad, but the nutritional value can be diminished. It can still be used as bedding or in the litterbox and it will still have fiber.

[LittleThumper]

Thanks again, Bam!

Hmm… I think I will just use the hay as bedding now. I will just go get a new bag of hay for my bunnies to eat… and those small, zip-lock bags.

[Author]

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