Hay Storage for Small Pets: Ideas and Insights

Storing your pet’s hay correctly is a key facet of sustaining the hay’s freshness and diet. If hay is saved accurately, it can retain its dietary content material and style for not less than 24 months. Some vitamins like protein and fiber, and a few minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, can stay indefinitely in hay when its correctly saved!

Over time, many purchasers have requested us about how they’ll make sure the hay they’ve bought retains nicely. To raised help our prospects in understanding hay storage, we cowl the next subjects on this weblog put up:

• The significance of correct hay storage and environmental components to think about
• Ideas for resealing our hand-sorted hay packaging
• The significance of retaining your hay’s unique packaging
• An authorised various technique to retailer hay

The Significance of Correct Hay Storage

Improper storage of hay may end up in mildew, lack of dietary worth (reminiscent of nutritional vitamins), and decreased palatability. These components can rapidly result in hay that your toddler gained’t eat, resulting in further bills on your family.

When storing your pet’s hay, fastidiously think about the next environmental components:

• Temperature: Hay ought to be saved in a temperature-controlled surroundings the place fluctuations in warmth or chilly are restricted.
• Humidity: Heat, damp environments might promote mildew development on hay. Retailer hay in areas the place humidity will be stored to a minimal.
• Airflow: It’s important when storing hay that it’s capable of “breathe,” particularly if the local weather you reside in is of course humid at any level within the yr. Correct airflow is a significant component that limits the probabilities of mildew or bacterial development. If hay doesn’t have correct air flow, this pure product can rapidly fall sufferer to dangerous molds or micro organism that can make the hay unsafe on your pet to eat.
• Daylight: Hay ought to be stored out of direct daylight. Whereas some shade fading naturally happens in hay because it ages, retaining hay away from direct daylight will assist stop hay’s pure inexperienced shade from “bleaching” to a shade of yellow. That being stated, if bleaching does happen, this solely impacts the aesthetics and doesn’t have an effect on the dietary worth of your hay.

Pet Mum or dad Tip: Do you know that there’s some degree of pure variability that happens from one bag of hay to a different? Take a look at our weblog on hay variability for extra data.

Ideas for Resealing Oxbow’s Hay Packaging

Oxbow’s bagged hay is available in packaging that’s self-storing so long as it’s stored in a cool, dry location out of direct daylight. From the small holes within the bundle that enable for correct air flow, to a restricted variety of product home windows that restrict solar bleaching, our hay baggage are particularly designed to maintain your pet’s hay recent, nutritious, and protected to devour.

As a result of our packaging is fastidiously designed to help in correct hay storage, we extremely advocate retaining and storing hay within the unique packaging. Other than the comfort of self-storing packaging, the data on the bundle is significant to have available ought to you must attain out to our buyer care group with questions or considerations.

If you happen to select to retailer your hay in its unique resealable bag, the beneath ideas for resealing the packaging could also be useful:

1. Press remaining hay into the bundle

2. Seize the bundle slightly below the zipper

3. Pull the perimeters tightly outward

4. Fold the highest ahead and press all the way down to take away air from the bundle

5. Seal the zipper high of the bundle

6. With the hay compressed, the zipper will seal simpler

Please: Preserve the Unique Packaging!

If you happen to resolve to retailer your hay in a container totally different from the unique packaging, please maintain the unique packaging saved someplace till the hay has been consumed. Some pet dad and mom, in response to this request, understandably ask: why?

The knowledge printed on the bag is extraordinarily useful to our group ought to any considerations or questions come up together with your hay buy. Having documented details about the packaging dimension, hay sort, lot quantity, and extra is essential for our buyer care group to help you and different prospects with post-purchase considerations.

The knowledge and training on the unique packaging may also be a precious and handy useful resource to check with repeatedly when caring on your small herbivore.

An Different Methodology for Hay Storage

Relating to bodily or mobility limitations, we perceive that the resealable bag our hand-sorted hays are available is probably not perfect for everybody’s wants.

Pet dad and mom who have to retailer hay exterior of the unique packaging might discover that a big plastic Rubbermaid (or related) tub suits their accessibility necessities. If you happen to resolve to go this route, please be sure that to comply with these three key steps:

• • Containers ought to have “breather holes” to permit for airflow. Utilizing a hand drill with a drill bit to create holes often is the most effective technique to realize good air flow (this may be a 2-person job to perform safely!).
  • All the time maintain the unique packaging someplace till your pet has consumed all of the hay from the bundle.
  • Rigorously monitor your pet’s hay as soon as you start utilizing this various storage technique. Earlier than providing hay to your pet, carry out a visible examine and scent examine to make sure that the hay has not developed mildew. If you happen to discover that the saved hay has gone dangerous, cease feeding this hay to your pet instantly and get rid of it. Your storage technique ought to be cleaned and re-evaluated following the environmental components listed above.

When you have further questions on hay storage, please be at liberty to succeed in out to our buyer care group!