Eeeeek I hate spiders!!! No it's O.K. Dawn, thanks for the concern, I was just curious and am learning more about Australia. We do have a few venomous spiders here too like the black widow and brown recluse. Ooo those mating habits must be heck on the population huh? LOL the praying mantis has the same habit as well as the black widow (hence the name).

phew ::wipes forehead::  i'm still debating to go pickup that 50lb bale for $4.  think i'll go get it & do my own quality control inspection (with big rubber gloves & long tongs on the front porch) before i store it in my house.  won't the neighbors love watching that!  oh well.  i'm already the crazy pet lady who talks to her dog & brings a harnessed rabbit onto the porch in the summer.

Oh do let us know what you "find"! And get the magnifying glass out too for those mites...

I can't imagine my cat eating a rat!  The thing that really freaked me out about the mice is....the tail hanging out of her mouth wiggling around.  It took me a while to get over that picture in my head.  It took me a while to look at my cat w/o freaking.   I believe OZ has the most number of poison creatures in the world.  I believe I read that in National Geographic as a kid.  PS I was actually bit by a brown recluse...on my head.  It took my immune system years to recover (LOOOONG STORY)!

My cats are always bringing in the house geckos and it drives me nut, the poor thing they keep playing with them and if I see them I get the poor things and let them go out the front door.

I lived in the bush for 3 years and I have seen some pretty gross things there.

Yeah Australia has some mighty scary critters!  We went about 4 yrs ago and the kids were terrified of the golden orbs and Sidney funnel spiders!  Better not see those in your hay!

Ewww! Okay, now I'm itchy all over. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond - been out of town.

Knowltons - There are certain beetles and mites that can live in hay, but rest assured that the hay we sell takes the most extreme measures in prevention of pest infestation - check out the details the bale descriptions in the store. Hays are brought directly from the field to our supplier’s sealed air conditioned facilities to insure  its freshness and to ainsure it isn't exposed pests. It isn't stored in barns which can make it more susceptible to all types of pest infestations. Then I get it and it is placed in a sealed cool storage room - I only buy enough for a month's worth of sales before I have to restock - this is to insure its freshness too, so that none of the hay that I sell has been sitting around for too long.

Personally, I have yet to see any pests in hay - hope I never will.  ICK!!

EDITED: Corrected crazy late night grammar mishaps!