Monday, August 27, 2012

Monday Mario

I've blogged in the past about the cost of hay for small animals.  I used to pay about $75 for 50 lbs of Timothy hay when I lived in NYC.  The delivery guy would carry it up the 5 flights of stairs to my apartment so I considered it money well spent.  When we came to CA I bought a plastic bin that fit 25 lbs of hay.  I paid about $46 for the 25 lbs.  When I started leasing Wings last year I learned that you can buy a bale (100 lbs) of hay for about $20.  Feeling taken much?

When I stopped leasing Wings I lost my source of cheap hay.  But when I started helping out with Rowdy I talked to the volunteer coordinator about it and she didn't see why I couldn't buy a bale of hay from the ranch.  So I did just that.  I paid $25 for a bale of hay, carted away less than 25% of it, and donated the rest to horses that may need it.  The volunteer coordinator felt bad that I had paid for the whole bale and barely used any.  So she said she'd be happy to just get me hay here and there for free.  The last year+ I have been doing this.  When I run low I'll ask her and she'll stuff some in a bag for me.

I was very appreciative of this but I always felt as if I were rationing Mario's hay since I never knew how much she was going to give me.  A couple of times I took away two flakes (about 20 lbs), a few times I got just a small plastic bags worth.  Sometimes the hay was damp and I had to air it out.  I also felt bad pestering the volunteer coordinator every couple of weeks even though I'm sure she didn't mind.

So I recently found a great source of hay and am really happy.  A feed store in Half Moon Bay sells loose hay in big bags for just $4.95.  You can't buy any unit smaller than a whole bale otherwise.  We were able to stuff two bags worth into my plastic bin.  The hay is loose and not tightly packed like it comes in bales but I'm estimating we were probably able to get about 30 lbs for $10.  For that price I'm more than willing to pay for hay again just to have peace of mind of the amount of supply we'll have.

They don't do Timothy this way but Mario has been happily munching on his grass hay for a few weeks now.

Lotso hay for SO cheap!

Our bounty -- we had to STUFF the hay in and the lid barely stayed on.
The nice thing about having to go to Half Moon Bay every couple of months is that there is an excuse to stop by Sam's Chowder House for some Manhattan clam chowder.



Hay bin and one bunny for scale

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! I did not knowing getting hay is such an ordeal and quite $$$ here I'm complaining about fatboy's kitty litter $$$!! How much does Mario eats??

RG said...

Glad you worked that out. We are so fortunate to have all kinds of local hay all the time - but then we live in farm country!

Jade said...

Hay has always been a sore spot here since His Majesty. Mickey the Picky, is less than enthusiastic about eating it (mainly because of his chronic tooth problems). I finally found a source of hay that he not only likes but is reasonably priced even with shipping, so everybunny is happy here.

Crafty Green Poet said...

there are a couple of good sources of hay for rabbits in Edinburgh, so we were lucky when we had Anya. Glad you found a good source

Lisa said...

This is exciting! I love the idea of buying a bale and donating whatever you can't carry! That's sort of my issue: I could drive out to Long Island to buy by the bale, but where would I keep that much hay in my little city apartment! I'll have to look into donating/sharing.