 Hey everyone it's Allison. Welcome back to The Tiny Herd where we talk about everyday pet care for guinea pigs, rabbits, and other small pets. Today's video we are going to do my much-awaited hay comparison video. So I have around me here five different brands of hay that are easily accessed on Amazon. So I literally went on Amazon and searched hay for guinea pigs and then picked five of the most common ones that came up. So I'm going to show you guys what brands of hay they are. I'm going to show you in detail each of the hay is what it looks like, what my first impressions are, and then I also did a taste test with all the pets to give you guys an idea of what is the best quality hay and my favorite hay that you can get easily accessible, like I said, from Amazon. So let's get into it. Okay so first off let's talk about the five brands of hay that I got. So I'm just going to kind of tell you what the brands are. First off I have Small Pet Select. This is their second cut Timothy Hay. So I will show you guys that. And then I also have the Oxbow Western Timothy. Sorry for the lighting. Oxbow Western Timothy, this is actually emptied from taste testing it. But I bought these two brands, the Small Pet Select and the Oxbow, because these are two of the most common ones talked about. So I wanted to do a comparison of those with some of the other brands that are not talked about as often. So the other three brands I have are KT Timothy Hay. This is the, it just says all natural Timothy Hay. It doesn't say what cut it is or anything like that. So I have a little bag of this and then I have, this is American Pet Timothy Gold Premium Timothy Hay. That is all it says. But the brand is American Pet and I will show you guys all these up closer in a minute. And then I have the Vitacraft. This says Fresh and Natural Timothy Premium Sweetgrass Hay. So I again don't know what cut it is or anything like that. But a lot of the cheaper brands of hay don't tell you what cut it is. So we're going to talk about all of that and I'm going to show you guys these in more detail. All right so I did want to give you guys a more in-depth look of the packaging of each of these. So this is the Oxbow Western Timothy Hay. It has some information about it on it. But basically I like the packaging of this hay because it does have good information about feeding hay and about guinea pig and rabbit nutrition, especially on the back. It talks about it being Western Timothy Hay grown specifically for your pets to deliver the fiber they need and the premium oxbow quality they deserve. So there's a lot of different information on this because Oxbow does offer different kinds of hay. So you can see it has like a taste versus texture and then some other nutrition information. So packaging wise I like the Oxbow Hay because it talks a lot about how important hay is and gives you details about the hay itself. All right next up we have the small pet select. So normally when you order small pet select it comes in a box like this. Every time I've ordered it it has come in a different size box like this which I actually really like because it kind of helps keep the hay contained because in the bags that are supposed to be resealable I find that it's like compressed and then once you start taking it out it no longer fits in the bag. But with the box I don't have as much of an issue it seems like. But with the small pet select it also has this sticker on it that gives you information about the hay. So it is second cut Timothy Hay. You can get different cuts of Timothy Hay from them which is really nice. So this tells you a little bit more about it and I actually have another video that I will link in the cards and in the description box that talks about hay and kind of like the different cuts and the nutritional value and that sort of thing. So that will be linked but that is the small pet select. Next up we have the KT brand Timothy Hay and it doesn't really say much. It just says rabbits, skinny pigs and other small animals. It just says Timothy Hay. It kind of has a little that's not really any information. And then on the back it has some information but it doesn't really I mean it says high fiber hay supports digestive health. Like it doesn't have a lot of information and then it just says sun cured Timothy Hay. So not a whole lot to go off of there. I do like though since this is a hay that's sold in pet stores that it has this little window that you can see the hay because the Oxbow bag has that as well. And if I was an owner that knew the different cuts of hay and all the different nutrition and that sort of thing. So pretty much if I was the owner I am now but I was buying hay from the pet store I would definitely be looking through the window to see the quality of the hay. So we will talk about that. Next up we have the Vitacraft. Like I said it just says fresh and natural Timothy premium sweet grass hay. It doesn't really tell you what cut it is but again it has that window. I don't think you can buy this in pet stores near me but you probably can somewhere otherwise it wouldn't have that window on it. And then it does actually have quite a bit of information on the back. So it looks like it talks a little bit about why Timothy Hay is important and then how to feed it. And yeah that's that's about all it says. It just says sun cured Timothy Hay. So that I like when they provide some information on the packaging just because if you're a brand new owner and you don't know a ton about the different types of hay that can give you a little bit of information but this one definitely gives you more information than the KTH does. And then finally we have the American Pet brand Timothy Gold premium Timothy Hay. So this is a pretty small bag you can tell but I actually purchased the smallest bags of all of these just for the test of this video. So you can get this in a bigger bag. This again doesn't have very much information on it. It kind of talks about what animals can have it but that's overall all it really says. It does actually have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So that's kind of fun. I didn't catch that but that's kind of nice. So I guess if your hay was like really bad quality and you were unsatisfied with it you could send it to them and they would send you a new bag. So that's actually kind of nice. So those are all of the bags themselves of the hay and box. So now I'm going to actually get the hay out and show you guys my first impressions of the actual hay itself. All right so now that you know what the hay's are I want to talk to you a little bit about what I look for in a good hay before I show you guys each of these the actual hay itself in detail. So the things that I look for in hay are that it's good quality meaning it is not dusty. It's pretty green. It's pretty leafy depending on what cut it is because the earlier the cut the less leafy it's going to be but it should be the right consistency for what cut it is. If you're just buying hay like going on Amazon like I said and picking a hay and it doesn't have what cut it is I would prefer it to be on the leafier side. You don't want it to be dusty and you want it to just kind of feel good quality. Like you can definitely tell if you've tried different brands of hay that sometimes you open it up and you're like I don't think my pets are gonna like this or this just doesn't seem as nice. Sometimes it's really brown so I want it to have a nice green color. I want it to have a nice texture and I want it to smell fresh and not be overly dusty or overly pokey. So those are the main things I look for and if you're confused about any of that I'm going to be showing you in detail the actual hay and the consistency of it so you should be able to get a better idea of what I'm talking about when I say you know texture and color and that sort of thing. So let's go ahead and flip the camera around and I will show you guys the hay in detail now. All right guys so we are here and we are making a mess on my floor. You guys might have to bear with me a little bit through this video because I am super allergic to Timothy Hay so my voice might get a little scratchy by the end of this but I'm gonna do my best. So first up here we have the small pet select. So first impressions this is the second cut so it is a little more stalky because it's second cut but it is still it does still have some of those leaves in there but I don't you guys should be able to tell on camera that this has a nice green color. It looks nice. It's like a deeper green mixed with the lighter green. It does have these little fuzzies in it is what I call them which guinea pigs really really like and it smells really nice. It smells really fresh and just from me playing in it like this there's no like major dust cloud or anything so it's not super dusty. I've used small pet select in the past and it was pretty good quality and this looks to be another batch that is pretty good quality. Okay next up we have the Oxbow Western Timothy. So from me touching this you can probably hear a little bit but this is pretty it's pretty significantly softer I would say than this. This is pretty stalky and hard and then this is a little bit softer. It has more leafy bits mixed in with the stalks but again you can see it's a really nice color. It's like a deeper green. It also smells really fresh and when I got this out of the bag it was it's definitely dustier than the small pet select seemed but it's not crazy dusty like I didn't immediately like start coughing or anything like that which I do with dusty hay so it is a little dustier but I think the dust sometimes just comes from it being in a bag so sometimes if you dump your hay out of a bag and keep it in something else it really cuts down on the amount of dust. All right next up this is the KT brand Timothy hay and for me touching it again it is very stalky it's very pokey like this you can see like it's very hard like that would not be good for an eye poke or a hay poke. It also has these little fuzzies in it. It's not quite as nice in color you can see the difference here it's a lot lighter and looks a lot drier so that is one thing to note and I will say I only buy pet store hay if I'm like absolutely out and waiting on a shipment to be delivered of my normal hay. I've bought this before because I have it at Walmart and it is so dusty like you pull it out of the bag and dust goes everywhere so I just wanted to mention that if you are super allergic to Timothy hay like me you probably don't want to be buying this because it will definitely get in your nose and eyes with all the dust. This is the Vitacraft Timothy hay and again this one is pretty comparable to the KT hay honestly wouldn't be surprised if they came from the same place but these stalks seem a lot smaller like the grass was a lot smaller when it was cut than this this doesn't really have those fuzzies in it I don't see this also when I pulled it out of the bag was very dusty so that's also something to keep in mind but again like I said when it's in a bag even with the KT hay when it's in a bag I really think it holds onto a lot more dust than if it's in like a box so that is the Vitacraft hay and then last but not least we have the Timothy gold from American Pet so you can immediately see a difference here okay this is very soft and leafy I would guess this is probably third cut Timothy hay just from my knowledge of Timothy hay it is a really nice color I mean look at the comparison between those two this is a really nice rich color it's really soft and when I started to get this out of the bag I was first off surprised at actually how much hay is in this little bag because it's kind of compressed and since it is so leafy they were able to compress a lot in there but it also was not very dusty which was super nice I honestly was pleasantly surprised when I got this out so of the three like other haze besides the oxbow in the small pet select because the oxbow in the small pet select those are pretty well known to be pretty decent quality so I was really interested in testing these three other brands as well so I was pleasantly surprised like I said by the American pet hay so we will see how the guinea pigs and the rabbits actually like all of these haze I will do one more quick overview of all of these like show you the hay close up just show it to you and without me giving my impressions so that you guys can get a good look at it and then I will move on to giving you guys the actual testimony from the pets I've also just decided to do one additional test taste test this one is going to be with the bunnies so since I spread all this hay out here and have it kind of separated out on the floor I am just going to leave it here because this is the bunny's playroom as you can see it's also a dining room but it is the bunny's playroom so I'm going to leave these here and see if there's one that they choose to eat over the others all right guys so how I'm testing all of these haze is I've set up each cage to have one hay bag that has the normal bluegrass hay they usually eat and then a hay bag that has the new taste test hay so for example in this cage that hay bag has the normal bluegrass this one has the hay that we are sampling so that's how I'm doing this taste test I didn't want to risk anyone not liking a hay and as a result not eating enough hay during the day so I went ahead and just gave them both and then it will also give us a good comparison on if they like something more than their normal hay and again I'm severely allergic to Timothy hay so by the end of this video I'll probably do sneezing but gotta do what we gotta do this is really dusty so I'll probably use the same footage for the hay comparison video I don't actually have asthma I just you know have really bad allergies and I start wheezing and can't breathe for like 15 minutes which is why I don't feed Timothy hay okay it is the next morning before work so I was going to show you guys how they reacted to the hay initially so for them this one is the orchard grass and no this one is orchard grass this one is the new hay so you can see there's way more of the orchard grass gone isn't it it looks like they pulled some of this out but not that much that one's so pretty full these girls you can see this is the orchard grass this was the new hay so they pulled a whole bunch of that out and ate a bunch of that so they must have liked the Timothy hay at least this brand of it so that's interesting and then here's the boys this is the orchard grass so they ate a normal amount of that and then this is the other hay and it looks like they've actually pulled out quite a bit of that as well and ate some of that so overall for the viticraft it looks like the boys ate some of it liked some of it the girls really liked it they ate most of it and then the little babes didn't really eat it so kind of a mixed reaction to that one all right guys I wanted to show you because this is something people ask me a lot so they had orchard grass in this hay bag and then they had the viticraft Timothy hay in this one and people ask me all the time how I get hay out of my fleece and if you can see this hay just like comes right up this hay does not this hay leaves all these little pieces that stick to the fleece and make it way harder to clean so that's one of my tips I guess is the better quality hay that you have or the leafier hay that you have the easier it is to clean up okay here's what I mean you guys hopefully you can actually see this but I've done a super thorough spot cleaning job on this and there's still just like little bits of hay stuck in the fleece and I don't like that all right so consensus on the viticraft Timothy hay so the boys ate some of it I feel like they pulled a lot of it out and left it on the ground but they did eat some of it but you can see their normal hay rack is completely empty so they definitely didn't like that hay more than their normal hay the girls were the opposite because this is their orchard grass or their blue grass I mean and this was the viticraft hay and you can see it is all gone which I'm not sure they don't usually eat as much hay out of this one which is why I thought it would be a good test they generally eat more hay out of this hay bag so they did pull a decent amount of it out but they did eat a lot of it so that was interesting and then finally for Johnny and June's cage this one had the viticraft hay and that one had the orchard grass I keep saying orchard grass the blue grass hay their normal hay and you can see the viticraft hay bag is much fuller than their normal blue grass hay so overall I would say they preferred their normal hay okay so this is the viticraft hay that I just took out of their cages and then this is the American pet Timothy Gold that we are going to be putting into the cages this hay comparison is ending up also being more of a test with the guinea pigs just because a lot of the bags that I bought don't actually have enough to fill an entire hay rack for the bunnies so this clip is actually the bunnies eating the viticraft hay I decided just to give them a little pile of it I knew that they would end up eating a pile kind of more than a hay rack but if they just completely didn't touch this pile that would definitely say something so they are actually eating it the bunnies really like Timothy hay they just don't get it that often so I'm really interested in the outcome of this comparison because I would love to buy smaller boxes of Timothy and supplement everyone's diet so the bunnies do actually like the viticraft hay as well so you can see the bunnies are here eating their pellets but right here was the pile of hay that I gave them last night of the viticraft Timothy hay and they spread some of it out but it's pretty well gone all right so first off sorry for the background noise my air purifier is running right directly next to me because I just filled all the hay bags but this is the new Timothy gold American pet Timothy gold hay they seem to be checking that out the girls are checking it out as well this will be interesting and then Johnny is actually eating it and June is eating the normal bluegrass hay so we will see in the morning and tomorrow evening what they think of this brand okay so here's the next morning with the American pet Timothy so this is their orchard grass keep saying orchard grass this is their bluegrass this is the Timothy so you can see they quite enjoyed it theirs is pretty much all gone I'm gonna have to refill that same thing over here with the girls they ate quite a bit of the Timothy hay as well and the little babes as well I'm surprised everybody really likes this one all right guys so here is the final testimony for the American pet Timothy gold please ignore the fact that my cages have not been spot cleaned yet I just haven't done that yet tonight but this is the boys cage you can see they have eaten quite a bit of this compared to their normal bluegrass hay I'd say they ate about equal amounts of both of them today so they definitely like it you can very clearly see which one is the winner for the girls cage this is their normal bluegrass hay this was the new American pet Timothy hay and then here is the little babes cage again clear winner here this was the American pet Timothy hay and that was the bluegrass hay so everybody seems to actually really really enjoy this one and then this was the pile of hay from American pet that I left for the bunnies and you can see they ate quite a bit of that huge pile that I gave them and they spread some of it around but they they ate quite a bit of that all right so everyone currently has the small pet select in one of their hay bags so we will see what they all think of it in the morning all right guys it's the next morning with the small pet select so this is the small pet select this was their bluegrass it looks like they did eat some of it looks like they actually kind of pulled a lot of it out but it's kind of hard to tell how much they've eaten at this point so I will check again this evening same with the girls it looks like they've eaten some but they definitely didn't eat as much of this as they did the American pet hay so we'll see what they think over the course of today as well all right and with the boys they definitely ate more of it than the other two cages did but with them it's kind of hard to tell because they only have two hay bags and there's two pigs and they kind of since they're boys they are you over spots but they definitely did eat more of this it looks like they actually pulled out quite a bit overnight so again we'll see how they do throughout the day so I've now also given the bunnies a pile of the small pet select hay so we will see what they think of this over the course of today okay guys final consensus on the small pet select everybody kind of ate it but nobody really absolutely loved it um I mean the girls had quite a bit of it left so nobody absolutely loved it I will say if you look in the boys cage here they don't have a lot left in their hay rack but they absolutely just spread it all over the place like this is the biggest mess we do not normally have hay like this in just a day like this is a lot so nobody super loved it but they did eat a little bit of it and also you can see Andy is eating a little bit of it here but they've had this pile of hay for the whole day and they really haven't touched it okay everyone has the oxbow western timothy hay now so we will see what they think of this in the morning and then check on it tomorrow evening here's the bunnies with their western timothy hay they had a nice pile and then Mikey immediately dug in it and spread it around so we'll see how much of this is left in the morning okay how everyone has done with the hay so the girls did eat some but their hay bag is still pretty full we will see how they do throughout the rest of the day this is just how they did over the night same thing with the little babes with the oxbow hay so this is the oxbow this is the bluegrass we'll see if they eat more of it throughout the day today all right and then for the boys please excuse the incredible mess they have made but they've pulled out all of their bluegrass hay overnight and made a huge mess but for their oxbow hay they've actually eaten quite a bit of it they did pull a ton of it out as well but I don't know why they're pulling hay out now and making a huge mess all the time but they are so I will refill their hay bags as well and we'll see if they also eat the oxbow throughout the day today and then you can see here the bunnies did eat quite a bit of this but they also just pushed it around so also kind of a halfway answer on the oxbow from the bunnies all right guys final consensus on the oxbow so the boys did eat quite a bit they also had pulled quite a bit out of their hay bag and then they did eat their entire bag of normal hay so they definitely ate it and were okay with it but they didn't eat it over their normal hay the girls kind of the same way they definitely ate more of the oxbow hay but they definitely didn't eat as much of it as they did some of the other haze that we tested and then finally with the little babes they definitely did eat you can tell they did eat some of the oxbow hay and they ate more of it than the bluegrass hay so it seems like everyone does also like the oxbow hay everyone now has the KT hay in their cages so we'll see how they like it just to show you guys the girls have the KT hay and so do the little babes and I did add some KT hay to the bunnies hay pile this was not my best idea because this is turning into a huge mess in the pet room but we only have one more day left of this so we'll see how the bunnies like this hay okay everyone last morning check in this is with the KT hay so the girls actually did eat some of it but it looks like they did pull out quite a bit but they did eat some with them I think they just prefer to eat out of this hay bag so I don't know if they are necessarily the best taste test sample but they did eat the KT hay little babes are the kind of the same way they did eat some but they also pulled out a bunch and spread it all over so they also kind of ate it but we'll see how they do through the rest of the day okay all right and then the boys here you can see this hay bag is just about empty but there's also quite a bit of hay on the floor so again I think they pulled a lot of it out but they did also eat some so again we'll see how they do the rest of the day and then the bunnies pretty much just spread theirs out um they probably ate some of it but this is all KT hay on the top here so they didn't have a huge pile they just spread it around and apparently decided they wanted to poop in a circle around it so I'm gonna have to clean that up okay time for the final consensus on the KT hay so they did actually eat some of it but a lot of it is just on the ground so I don't know how much they actually ate but you can see they did still eat some of their bluegrass hay as well as pulled out a lot of the KT hay and then same thing for the girls they did eat a lot of the KT hay but they also did pull a lot of it out and leave it on the ground which is something they don't normally do with their bluegrass hay and then last but not least the boys also did eat quite a bit and pull out quite a bit of the KT hay but then also ate quite a bit of their normal hay as well so overall I feel like they ate this but it definitely wasn't their favorite and then the bunnies really just spread their pile around and didn't really eat a whole lot of this they did eat some but it's mostly just spread around in the pile all right guys so I apologize for the bad lighting in this clip but I wanted to give you guys my final thoughts after comparing all the hay and letting all the pets do a taste test so out of the oxbow and the small pet select so I kind of have those you know segregated out to the side because those are the two that people talk about the most so between the two of those I would recommend the oxbow over the small pet select second cut just because my pets likes the oxbow more they ate more of it and there was less that was just pulled out of the hay bags and left on the ground I have used a small pet select third cut Timothy before and I would probably get that over the second cut if I was going to use small pet select because I do actually really like small pet select they have really good quality and they're really consistent so I would either do the oxbow or I would do probably third cut Timothy if I personally was going to be buying them then out of the other three Hayes that are the less well-known brands I would recommend the American pet Timothy gold over the Vitacraft or the KT hay so the American pet was really leafy I do have to say that I think that is third cut Timothy so it's a little bit unfair to say it's nicer quality when it's a different cut because third cut is always going to be leafier and less stalky than second cut which is what I believe the other two are to be perfectly honest I have never purposely bought first cut Timothy hay and I don't know if Vitacraft and KT are first cut or what cut they are they don't say I would not recommend for my own pets I wouldn't buy for my own pets the Vitacraft or the KT hay again I just want to say this is my opinion this is based on my pets taste test if you use these brands I'm not saying they're terrible or anything like that really go off of your pets preferences and what they want to eat and what they like but for what I recommend and what I would purchase I would not purchase the Vitacraft or the KT hay I just want to say because I have the opportunity here I've bought the KT hay in an emergency from Walmart before and I absolutely hate that hay I am the most severely allergic to it it is extremely dusty it is extremely sharp I was getting splinters from it putting it in hay bags so it just scares me with hay pokes and risking that so I don't like the KT hay at all I think it's super low quality and I don't like it Vitacraft was right there with it it wasn't really any better at all so those are two brands that I won't ever be buying again and then the American Pet Gold American Pet Timothy Gold was great it was not dusty it was leafy it was all the pets liked it and ate it so that was great and that is only $5.99 on Amazon so if you only had two pigs that bag could probably last you like a week so if you're only buying a $5.99 bag every week that's pretty good so out of the total five the two that I would recommend the most would be the Oxbow Western Timothy and the American Pet Timothy Gold so those are the two that I like the most in this comparison and then I would say small pet select after that for sure because again I do really like small pet select products they're all really good quality and that is a good quality hay it just didn't match the taste test of the other two so those are my top three recommendations and then the two I didn't really like so just wanted to leave you guys with my final thoughts there so those are my final thoughts I just wanted to wrap up by saying of course this is my opinion and my experience with my pets your pet might love the KT brand or like the small pet select better so it's go off of your own pet's preference this was just my opinion based on my things that I look for in hay and the quality that I look for in my first impression so so thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed getting to see this hay comparison let me know what brand of hay you guys use down in the comments what your pigs like and I will see you guys in the next video bye