Hay or Straw in run?

[joanm]

I paid $8.67 with tax for a square bale of coastal hay. I thought that was high! Yes? No?
I've never bought hay so I really can't say...

 

[Marlinchaser]

Quote:
to answer the original post: Hay is for eating/straw is for bedding. So the hay should be more expensive, but you never know on priceing.

 

[sicily0144]

I use straw w/ cedar and some pine. In MN. now , when I lived out west everyone used cedar in the 70's...

 

[Southern28Chick]

Just so everyone knows: CEDAR IS TOXIN TO CHICKENS! DO NOT USE CEDAR!

 

[Southern28Chick]

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/farmlife/msg09111957933.html?12

http://www.ideal-poultry.com/care.htm

Cover the floor with an inch or two of rice hulls, shavings, ground corncobs or other semi-coarse, absorbent products that do not easily mat. DO NOT USE CEDAR SHAVINGS, cedar is toxic to chickens.

Cedar does not kill your chickens all at once. It's slow killing respiratory toxicity that you need to think of. No your chickens will not drop dead at the first sniff of cedar but it will kill them in time.​

 

[jenichick]

I give my both hay and straw. I have straw in the nest boxes and on the floor in the coop. It's better for poop. I throw leftover horse hay in with them once or twice a week so they can pick through it and eat it.

After our two days of rain the run was muddy so I threw straw down to dry it up and help keep their feet clean. It worked.

 

[Southern28Chick]

I use wheat straw. The straw that gets kicked outside isn't moldy at all after our 3 days of rain.

The straw is cheaper, easier to clean out with a pitchfork and decomposes better in the compost pile. It works great for me.

Edited for spelling..as always!

 

[JudyMcKinn]

I don't know what coastal hay is, but probably something like our "prairie hay" which is just whatever grows up in the fields, without planting clover, alfalfa, etc, with it. Wild hay. Around here it is about $3 a bale, but I am sure it is different in other parts of the country, depending on where you get it. When a store acquires a few bales to sell to people with chickens, or one horse, or a couple goats, they charge a lot more than the farmer. If you live anywhere that a farmer might be selling some hay (newspaper ads?) you could probably get a few bales cheaper.