Reject Hay

Alpacas are kind of picky eaters. They will eat up a pasture of good grass, but when it comes to hay, they only want part of it, and leave the rest. The past they leave is mostly the stalky part. The first batch of hay we got last fall wasn't ideal for Alpacas and we had a lot of rejected hay (it ends up on the ground and ignored by them). We got really nice hay in our last batch. J say an advertisement in the local paper for "alpaca hay" and turns out an alpaca farm not to far from us had someone grow alpaca hay, they took what they needed and the guy had some additional that he sold to us. But we still get some rejected hay.

For a long time I was gathering up the rejected hay and putting it near the poop pile as it's own compost pile. We still have a ton piled up like that. But then I got an idea. I noticed near the door of the barn there was some hay that was lying there and underneath grew so grass (hay). (this is supose to be dolomite, instead the hay left there gave way to this):


So my idea was to gather up the rejected hay. Here is Emma raking some up in the boy shelter:


And sprinkle it all over the pasture. I found it easiest to go in rows:



It's amazing how fast the hay decomposes and becomes part of the ground (the strip of hay no longer visible). I'm not sure if my experience is actually growing grass/hay but it does seem to add something.