Anyone in this years straw?

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poiuytrewq

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How are you finding it?
I have been very spoilt with straw the past years, OH does quite a trade in buying and selling! (Fancies himself as big of a dealer I think!)
So I have really nice straw for free.
This year with the weather as it was a huge amount got chopped out the back of the combine, what was baled wasn’t great.
I was worried about the quality and so far I’m on my first bale and to be honest it’s rubbish, he seemed genuinely surprised, apparently no one else has complained 🤷‍♀️
I’m asthmatic and so it’s as much for my sake as the horses really, especially over winter.
It’s greyish, smalls a bit musty and has really hard patches in it. Apparently he has alternatives for me to try so 🤞

Is this much the case across the country?


My plan 2 of having to buy bedding in is looking scarily likely.
 
We're in Shropshire and the stuff I've just bought seems lovely. It's wheat straw so just for bedding (and a bit of nibbling for the goats). Not dusty, nice and clean. They were lucky getting it baled in a dry spell. And I paid less than last year as I'm now a regular customer. Bonus!

(Btw I now wear a dust mask whenever I deal with any hay and straw as one half of my lung isn't working. The mask helps a lot.)

And free bedding...not envious at all 😆
 
Not as good as previous years but by no means the worst I have ever had, although stacking it I got a nasty whiff of something dead ! so we left that bale to one side lol
 
Mine isn't quite as perfect this year but still very, very, minimal dust- really only difference is it isn't as bright yellow this year

I pay £3/ small bale so not sure if that's expensive and why it's better?
That is what I have paid for the last 3 years though and quite normal round here.
 
I usually get given really nice barley straw for feeding from my next door neighbour. His was crap this year so I have bitten the bullet and got some wonderful stuff from a very large hay/straw merchant. An even bigger downside is that it is in large heston bales and we are not set up for handling them so I am having to fetch them two by two for the foreseeable.

Most local farms have had the straw chopper working on the combines this year to speed up getting the land worked up for the next crop.
 
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