Mites in hay!!

Re: Mites in hay!!

Shoned Hawksworth — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 09:22:44 GMT

We keep all our hay nice and cool, and find that aircon works well (although i know not a standard fit in Uk houses) that way it never goes off or mouldy and have not had a problem with mites. But i agree freezing first will work but then you will have to make sure it doesnt get damp when thawing out for feeding as the rabbits won't take to well to that.

Re: Mites in hay!!

LaurenA — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 19:19:16 GMT

Thanks Steph, was speaking to my old boss today at a feed merchants and he said basically all hay has the eggs and mites in it (!) no matter where it's from and only way to stop it is to freeze it first and keep it somewhere as cool as you can. Unfortunately our sheds are old and leaky so probably a worse scenario...maybe it's the hay this year when it was bagged or the recent heat where it's been stored... by the sounds of it it's unavoidable, I've probably had a few before and not realised until the epic scale of it this year :( I just wish I had worse eyesight/knowledge! I need the opposite of an optician to make my sight worse!

Will either try to get a small chest freezer or try to stop looking so much!

Lauren

Re: Mites in hay!!

Steph Worsley — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:39:56 GMT

When I was living at home and we had multiple g-pigs we had a similar problem with the bagged hay (possibly to do with warm packed hay that may be a bit damp?? but not 100% sure)

have you got a garage or a dry shed at all? if you have it might be worth seeing if you get the bales of hay from a farm shop/local yard, once we went onto the baled hay we had no problems with mites plus it was a hell of a lot cheaper, just needs to be kept dry and thats usually the biggest problem