I was sorting through my bunnies' breakfast hay this morning ( I always sort through it cuz I'm a super paranoid bunny Mom) and good thing I did: I found a big, dried grasshopper squished between a few pieces of hay.

Obviously when dealing with hay this is probably hard for the manufacturer's to avoid but my question is this: If I wouldn't have found it, do you think the bun's would have eaten it?

Okay, I know a bunny would never eat a live grasshopper but it was all dried and crunchy and I know when my bunnies run if there is ever a crumb or something on the carpet, no matter what it is, they gobble it up without even thinking about it.

What do you think? Would this make them sick?

I doubt your buns would have eaten a bug, but even if they did, I doubt it would harm them.  I would think a bunny in the wild must consume thousands of insects as they forage for food (think about how many aphids alone a rabbit must eat).  I once found a live locust in a bale of hay (ewwww) and I have heard of people finding squished mice in hay bales too (double ewww).

You know it's funny you bring this up because just yesterday I read about hay and how it can harbor MITES!  That freaked me out!  Is this really true?  I've never seen anything in the hay but I do wonder sometimes if a big tarantula will pop out!  Not really but I do wonder what kind of critters could be in there...ick.

nice.  now i'm afraid of hay. 

Me too!  Gross!  Just what I need to bring mites into the house?  And onto the rabbit?  Why on earth did I need to read THAT!!!!

ick ick ick.  i just scored a hay connection too.  a farmer about a 40 min drive away from me will sell me a 50lb bale of timothy for $4.  great price & worth the drive i figure... even if it turns out to be poor quality its not a big loss.  but gees louise i do NOT want to find dead things in it.  hadn't thought about that angle.  hmmm...

Ok sorry to keep on this subject BUT if there are mites in the hay could I actually see them with the naked eye or a magnifying glass?  I'm gonna have to do a little inspectin! Not so sure I want to keep this hay in my office anymore...bleh.

Wait til you hear this one -

We had rabbits when I was younger, too, and I reached into a big bale of hay to spread some out for the buns, and...

I pulled out a huge, dried up snake!

At first I just thought it was a stick or something, but no.. it was definitely a snake. Sick. That was maybe 15 years ago though, so maybe things have changed since then??

Thank you for sharing about the SNAKE!!!!!! EEEh gads!  I'm buying the compressed mini bales from Binky so I don't think anything could be in there being it's so tight!  At least I'm going to tell myself this! 

Oh yeah the ole mites in our mattress stuff too.  Seen too many 60 Minute shows on that one!  OK no more mite talk or I will go insane! I know...I started it.

lol... you can file that under 'what you don't know won't hurt you!' i am anyways... along with the fact that dry roasted bugs end up in ground coffee.  bah!  my parents got some fancy gourmet beans in a gift basket & in the bag was a dry roasted, baby finger long roach.  *shivers*  when my dad showed it to me i ran away screaming.  he got a big kick out of this of course.  men.  ::eyes roll:: 

i think that it's pretty normal to unknowingly eat bugs (both rabbits & humans).  i went to a lecture about a raw vegan diet - no i'm not raw vegan... maybe someday i'll give up potatoe chips - and it was mentioned that when meat is eliminated from your diet, bugs are a natural source for vitamin B12.  i thought this was pretty dang gross until she mentioned that, in her opinion, eating vast amounts of fresh organic greens provides a healthy amount which aren't even visible to the naked eye.  no harm no foul.

food for thought?  haha

And...one time I bought some fresh salmon from Whole Foods (a very upscale market here) and as I was eating it there was this huge worm between the skin and the meat! That about did me in.  Didn't eat salmon for a very long time!

Eeeeyyyyyhhhh!  Binky can you confirm that there won't be any dead things in the mini bales?  That might be a great additional selling point..."We don't have dead things in our hay!"

I doubt my buns would eat any bugs they could see...they're waaay too picky!  However, the cats insist on eating every bug they see.  I once went through a period when mice would get into the house, on the second floor w/ 5 cats.  Anyway, I was very mouse squeeemish, but I couldn't handle the cats eating a mouse, even in their house.  I'd usually intervene and trap & release or scare the crap out of the cat & mouse.  Crazy...on a side note, when I dealt w/ cat worms, I couldn't scoop the litterbox for a long time, litterbox phobia, now I'm going to have hay phobia.

Join the hay phobia club!! We have had quite a day today on these boards.  Can you tell not much work has been accomplished?

Ugh I am so glad I ate first. Not. I've found dried up worms in hay before and a June Beetle. When the farmer goes out and bales the hay with the machine it sucks up everything on the ground and so it ends up in the hay, including but not limited to cow dung or other....less appealing things mentioned earlier.  If you spend a bit more on a bale of good hay, it won't have that stuff in it.  Often hay is a "dry" crop, meaning they don't irrigate the field with it and it doesn't grow real dense and so more "things" end up in the hay.  With a better quality hay, it had more access to water to grow and was denser and thicker and less "things" end up in the bales.  Of course the cutting can make a difference too, but not always as with if they make it a "row" crop, seed germination etc.

As for the mites, I throw my pillows in the dryer on high heat with a dryer sheet for 15-20 minutes to kill germs, aerate the pillow, eliminate mites and freshen it up with the scent of the dryer sheet (I like the Bounce chamomile & lemon verbena scent). I do not put them in the washer, I don't like lumpy pillows.

Cow dung in the hay????????? Binky Bunny rescue us!!! Is this all true??????  Not in your hay I hope!

I'm not Binky Bunny, but yes, it is true! However, Binky Bunny hay does not have this stuff in it, it's awesome. I do not not know the supplier/farmer but they have some nice hay and Binky Bunny is very strict about quality control and it goes back if it is not up to snuff.

Oh I must add I have only had it occur in large 50 lb bales of hay purchased from feed stores and farmers, not the smaller stuff sold in pet stores.

Oh thanks Ladies ... I'm eating my lunch!  EErrrrrrrrrr now its in the bin lol.

I have found a living grasshopper and daddy long legs in my hay ... I don't mind those things ... I just flicked them out.

Anything else I would freak out, especially red backs!

But then again my bale of hay is outside and I fill my plastic tug up every few days.  However, I put my gloves on in case of coming across any nasties.

Dawn xx

You're welcome! : )

Dawn - I know I felt my dinner flip flopping in my stomach. Blah. O.K. sorry to ask a dumb question, what is a red back? I just know I'm going to be sorry for asking...

Oh Rosebud  ... its a spider ... very deadly here and can be life threatening to small animals and children/elderly with their bite and can cause nausea, sweating etc and other symptoms in adults if bitten.  Extremely poisonous.  Urgent medical attention should be sought if bitten.

They are easily identifiable as they have a bright red spot on their backs ... the females are the bigger ones.  They generally kill the male red back after they have mated with them ... Nice HEY!

Now I have probably frightened you to death ... however, they only reside in Australia.

Dawn xx