Hay information for allergic pot belly pigs

[Alf]

I am trying to find an affordable bedding for pot belly pigs. My girl pig was struck by lightening and no longer has control over potty which is why I use hay in her house instead of blankets. The hay I have used in past is moldy and looking for a change after I bought 3 bales that will never all be used. I am going to switch to square bales that I can put in my garage instead of keeping round bales under tarps that get molded.

I think the hay getting old might be what caused allergies and upper resp infections (before it looked old). I know timothy is recommended but is very expensive unless I by 400 round bales at a time. I believe what I originally had was straw or some cheap quality of hay. I paid $150 for 3 round bales delivered 3 miles. I was wondering if bermuda would be a close second to Timothy or what would be better? I can get bermuda for $6 per square bale which seems affordable. Thanks so much!

 

[CntryBoy777]

Welcome from NW Mississippi!...
Sorry ya are having problems there, I'm not familiar with pigs, especially pot bellied ones. However, there are many here that are....I'll tag a few and they will be more than happy to advise you in your situation.... @misfitmorgan , @NH homesteader , @Baymule there are others too that will probably help ya too. I wouldn't use moldy hay either and maybe you can lessen the cost if ya used a cheaper hay for bedding and offered the better for feeding....I'm not sure about pine shavings for bedding, but could be an alternative. Hope one of these will be along shortly.
Again....

 

[Alf]

Okay great thank you!!! They do not really eat hay. They play with it by tossing it around. Not to say they would not eat high quality hay. They do more with dirt lol. I am not refilling the bedding with any hay I know could be molded. I think the current hay was molded before it looked molded, but now it is very moldy looking.

 

[NH homesteader]

Hi and welcome. I used to have a pot belly, now I have full size pigs. I honestly have no idea, though. I just give mine first cut grass hay, they mostly eat it anyway!

@Ferguson K has a lot of pig experience as well and has/had pot bellies.

Good luck!

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome @Alf Wow... where ya been for 2+ years? Looks like you joined, then fell of the face of the earth for a while! Glad you finally got a working keyboard

So sorry to hear your pig got hit by lightning. That really sucks. Nice that she survived, but much more work for you now. If you look on Craigs List for hay, you may find hay for sale that has been kept inside, therefore, no mold problems (most of the time). Since she's not really eating it (some pigs will), it shouldn't really matter what type of hay you buy. As Cntryboy said, pine shavings might work for you too. I wouldn't use straw personally as it's less absorbent and she has no potty control you said.

Would you share a pic of her with us? We sure do love looking at pics of everyone's animals. Good luck solving your problem, and don't be a stranger!

 

[farmerjan]

I would also suggest the shavings for the bedding as it is more absorbent . But I would go to straw as my next choice, as it will usually be more likely to be drier when baled so not as much problem with mold. Then offer a little bit of nice hay for them to munch on. Any hay or straw can be irritating to their skin by the very nature of the stalks. If you went from blankets to hay, then skin irritation would be expected. Like you using "charmin" for toilet paper, then going to "corncobs".....
I have never had pot belly pigs, but our regular hogs all loved hay to make nests in and I never worried about the "mold" issues....
Use your moldy hay as a deep mulch on your garden to retain moisture and keep down the weeds. At least it won't be such a "waste" of money.

 

[misfitmorgan]

I would suggest trying 1st cut grass hay, if it is baled at the right time it is soft without giant stems and makes for good bedding, that is what we use to bed all of our pig stalls. They pick thru and eat what they want and make a nest out of the rest.
Second choice would be straw or wood shavings as @farmerjan suggested.

Also if the hay is only used for bedding the type/quality of it doesnt matter only that it isnt moldy. Any round bale of any type is encouraged to mold when keep under a tarp...not that all will but if your only using a round bale for bedding and it take several weeks to go thru a bale it is most likely going to be moldy under the tarp.

Swapping to square bales is a good idea, or to shavings as they come in those nice square bags and their easy to get and use. Don't use compressed hay.

 

[Alf]

Thank you so much for the help. I just learned shavings can be toxic on another post. I am going to try square bales if I can ever find them as around here everyone does round bales in North GA. If that does not work I will look for most affordable and least toxic wood shavings. This pic is of Miss Piggy at UGA Large Animal Hodpital. She is about 30 lbs bigger now. She was 1 then and going on 3 now. Thanks again everyone!

 

[Alf]

Here are a few more photos. She has dot on her head if you cannot tell which one is her.

 

[farmerjan]

I have never heard of compressed pine shavings as being toxic, not if they are the kiln dried type that come in bales like from TSC or a feed store. Now Cedar is a different story.
One of the reasons that most farmers have gone to round bales is for ease to make them as a "one man haying crew"; and people that are so hard to please with square bales and complain about the price. Most have no idea how much fancy equipment goes into making square bales because most of the time we cannot get help to stack them on the wagon, or cannot get help to unload them off a kicker wagon, and then you need to add in the storage inside, with no dampness... and then handling them again to load them into someone's truck or deliver them then stack there. There's all kinds of expensive equipment that will collect square bales as they come off the baler, align them in rows, that you can then pick up off the field with a special attachment to a front end loader, then unload at the barn and can be stacked to a certain height that the FEL can reach.... We can barely find help to make square bales here paying $10.00 an hour cash money. It is HOT< physically tiring work. Nowadays the "younger kids" don't want to work that hard or sweat that much....they want to do easy work, make a mint for it and then complain about the cost of a gym membership...