[Gpdd] CARE: Hay Potage

[Stephen Bradley]

Another useful pig-oriented household hint:  how to make "Hay Potage":

It turns out you can re-hydrate old, dry hay, and turn it into something a little different, slightly warm, and slightly easier to eat, for your pigs!

Ginger says that the way it happened, was that she was cleaning out the washing machine after some laundry that had hay in it from the pigs, and noticed that the washer did a good job of re-hydrating the hay, and turning it back into something like grass -- and wondered if she could do this herself (without the washer).

What we'd do is take a small handful of the old, dry, broken-up bits of hay from the bottom of the bag, put them in a small bowl with about a cup of water, and microwave it for 30-60 seconds.  Once you take it out of the microwave, you try to get the hay all back into the bowl (it will try to escape) and let it soak there for a minute or two.  Once it seems well-softened, pour off the water; make sure it's not too hot for your piggies; (slightly warm is OK), and serve it forth!

Sometimes they go wild for it; other times they ignore it.  It uses up some of the leftover bits, and it gives them a bit of a treat -- it's a little warm, on a cool day -- and they get some more hydration out of it, which is almost always a good thing, and sometimes a pig who's feeling poorly or not eating enough will eat potage even when they don't seem to have enough energy to eat much regular hay...

Good wishes and happy munching to everyone and everypig,

Steve and Ginger