Is Timothy Hay With Brown Clumps Safe?

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markt1

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Last two bales of timothy hay from Tractor Supply (Standfree brand) had significant amounts of dark brown within it. Mostly inter-threaded with the green hay, but also with some thick clumps of dark brown in color. Is this safe to feed to the rabbits? Ive fed them the hay with a little brown hay inter-threaded in their rations, but now I'm down to the part of the bale that is heavily brown. Should I throw it all out or is this OK to feed? I don't want to feed them moldy hay, but don't want to throw out hay needlessly. Especially since this is the only brand I can find. Thanks...
 
The brown pieces intermixed with good looking pieces in the hay is just from cutting it at the wrong time [too late] or having some dead grass in the field in the spring when the new crop starts to grow, -- as long as it smells OK it is probably not going to hurt the rabbits, [but it has no nutritional value] the heavy clumps are a different story, this is "usually" caused by the hay being a little too damp when it is baled, this is the most likely place to find dangerous molds. If the clumped hay is discolored, it is bad, if it smells bad[musty or moldy] it is bad, -when you pull it apart and "dust" flies up, it is most likely Fusarium mold, - mold toxin is very hard on rabbits, and can cause long term problems, and later "unexplained" deaths, because it destroys the immune system so other disease organisms can grow in your animals.
 
By clumps do you mean it's stuck together or just large patches of brown? The former is a sign of dirt or mold and I would not feed but the latter is perfectly fine. They just might not like the brown parts. I would think tractor supply would refund you if the bale is that bad. Hauling the bale back to the store wouldn't be worth it to me though. Maybe they'd believe pics and a handful of the completely brown section.
 

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