Sweet Meadow Farm Hay?

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Let me preface this by saying I think my chins are the pickiest chins when it comes to hay...I found a bag of this in my feed store and found it to look and smell great but the hay was thinner and the pieces not as long as the Oxbow hay for instance and my chins would not eat it. It reminds me a lot of the Zupreem hay.
 
Ok, so I got my box of this hay today. Wasted money. :(

1) When I opened the box it smelled off- not like most timmy hay.
2) The hay honestly looks like lawn clippings- I understand some weeds in hay but there was a LOT, the hay was really thin unlike APD. It really just looked like plain ol' grass.
3) I found several clumps of dirt...not just a few, a good amount.
4) To top it off, when I reached into the middle of the bale, it was moist...so I'm not even going to give it to my chins to test.

Soooo, this hay will be going into the compost, along with my $30...and I'm off to spend more money on APD. Blah.
 
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Stacie--you cant return it or complain?/ that stinks to waste that kind of money. Not that I havent in the past! I have tried every hay available and have throw many out.
 
Oh Stackie. How disappointing! I was really hoping to hear that the hay was great. :( I'm glad I didn't place an order yet.

I agree about contacting the company and letting them know what was wrong. Even snap a pic or two to send if you need to.
 
I'm so sorry Stacie. :( I have used their hay for at least 6 months and haven't run into any of these problems. Mine did contain a few weeds, but they were quickly "weeded" out. Mine wasn't moist at all.

RCR had recommended them to me because she hadn't found their hay disappointing either. I'm glad my hay was better, but it sucks that yours wasn't.
 
Just for reference, here are a few pictures of my hay that I ordered from them. Now, it's been 4-6 months ago (not sure anymore) but I thought it looked pretty good. My boys weren't thrilled with the change from Oxbow in the beginning, but they quickly took to it and eat it like crazy. All the rescues do as well.

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It's not your fault, Crysta! I'm glad you have good luck with it. I wouldn't have cared so much if the hay hadn't of been moist. I'm just glad I reached down into the box and realized it was moist.

I did read on their website that they offer refunds, so I sent them an e-mail...we'll see what they say.
 
I also really like this hay (much more than oxbow). Their timothy & herbs blend is a well received treat here and I've never had a problem with it. It is definitely more of a grassy hay though.

I thought it would be interesting to do a taste test with my herd and find out which hay they liked best though. I tried the 4 different kinds of timothy hay I have here: Oxbow, NaturesCafe, Sweet Meadow Timothy and locally farmed hay from the feed store. Surprisingly enough about 75% of my guys liked the NaturesCafe the best. The second favorite was the Oregon grown hay, then the Sweet Meadow and the Oxbow was the least favorite.

Here's some pics of the 4 hays and some of my "chinnie" pigs taste testing it. :)
 

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I looked for the Nature's Cafe hay but all I found are mini bales. Can you buy it in larger quantities or just the mini bales? Obviously mini bales would just not be practical when I got through 10 lbs of hay in a couple months.
 
I think they only sell mini bales. I tried contacting them about 6 months ago to see if I could be a distributor but they said I had to have a storefront. :(
 
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