Bagged Hay

Has anyone ever used this product?


I picked it up at TSC today to see if my goats would like it. It's $12 for a 40 pound bag here in FL. It says it is a mix of Timothy, Oat and Alfalfa hay and has some molasses mixed in to prevent them from inhaling dust. Is this the same thing as chaffhaye? Alfalfa is so expensive here that I've been giving my pregnant doe alfalfa pellets and O/A hay because the cheapest alfalfa hay I can get is $20 a bale. I let her and my other does try this today and they ate it like it was candy. It smells really clean and wasn't very molasses-y. I did notice that my girls didn't waste it like the do regular hay. I fed it in feed pans and they ate every bite. Only my girls would be getting this and probably only the ones in milk. 

Has anyone every used this product before?  

Would this be something that is okay to give my pregnant doe in addition to her O/A hay and alfalfa pellets once I start milking her to try and make my hay go further?

Does anyone have any comments about this product? 

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Replies

  • It doesn't say it's fermented, other than that it sounds very similar to Chaffhaye, and does smell like pickles. I think I'll see how the rest of this bag goes and take it from there. It would be very handy to have around next winter to stretch my hay further. Thanks for your input Deborah! 

  • That does sound like Chaffhaye. Not surprised another company has picked up on the idea. My goats were not crazy about it in the beginning, but I mixed it with grain, and gave it to them as a group, and they started eating it. I would not have known there was any molasses in Chaffhaye if I had not read it. The sugar gets eaten up in the fermentation process. It wasn't wet, but it wasn't completely dry like hay either. It always smelled like pickles to me. 

  • yes my goats hated it . they used it for very expensive straw bedding. its mostly dust and mollasses. never again

  • It does smell a little bit like pickles, but I hadn't thought anything of it until you said that because the smell was so slight. When I run my hands through it it doesn't stick to them, so it's not drenched in molasses. I can barely feel any stickiness when I touch it but I can kind of smell the molasses when I stick my face in the bag. It's not dusty though which I was happy about because my smallest doe always gets hay dust in her eyes. They really seem to like it. It's made by Manna Pro. 

  • This sounds like Chaffhaye. They mist Chaffhaye with molasses to start the fermentation process. Does it smell like pickles? Is it completely dry, or does it feel a little moist? 

    As for the molasses, it really depends on how much they use. The amount used in Chaffhaye is negligible.

  • This isn't pellets, it looks like this: 

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    They add molasses because of the dust from the small pieces of hay. My alfalfa pellets don't have molasses in them, just this stuff. 

    It had virtually no waste because they just ate it out of a dish instead of throwing it all over the ground. 
    All of my does still have hay and browse available 24/7, as well as their morning alfalfa pellets (the two I'm trying to fatten up get grain but the pregnant one only gets alfalfa pellets, hay and browse until she kids), I'm just not able to feed free-choice alfalfa hay like I would like to because of the cost. I was just hoping that this would help me stretch my hay further so that I might be able to give them more alfalfa. 

    Unfortunately I went back and looked at the ingredients and it just

    says "cane molasses" so it's not unsulfured. Do you think it would be okay in smaller amounts or am I better off staying away from this from now on?

    This isn't fermented, so it's definitely not the same thing as Chaffhaye. It's just cut very small and compressed into a bag. Unfortunately I can't get Chaffhaye where I live. One day I'll have my feeding down regimen down (I hope). 


    Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:

    I haven't used this specifically, but I do use alfalfa pellets on the milk stand mixed with the grain for does that inhale their grain faster than I can milk. I also mix some into the grain when feeding mama goats in groups because there is zero waste, although they do still have hay, browse, and pasture available. There was a woman from Texas who I interviewed for Raising Goats Naturally who uses pellets 100% of the time, and she said it works for her goats. She's been doing it for five years.

    I don't really understand why they're adding molasses. I don't think alfalfa pellets are dusty. Maybe there's a little in the bottom of the bag, but the pellets themselves are not dusty. Does it say "unsulfured" molasses? Otherwise, too much of it can lead to copper deficiency because sulfur binds with copper.

    This is not Chaffhaye, which is a brand name product. It's a type of haylage, which is fermented. I know there is a book out there (not mine) that makes it sound like a generic thing, but it's not. 

  • I haven't used this specifically, but I do use alfalfa pellets on the milk stand mixed with the grain for does that inhale their grain faster than I can milk. I also mix some into the grain when feeding mama goats in groups because there is zero waste, although they do still have hay, browse, and pasture available. There was a woman from Texas who I interviewed for Raising Goats Naturally who uses pellets 100% of the time, and she said it works for her goats. She's been doing it for five years.

    I don't really understand why they're adding molasses. I don't think alfalfa pellets are dusty. Maybe there's a little in the bottom of the bag, but the pellets themselves are not dusty. Does it say "unsulfured" molasses? Otherwise, too much of it can lead to copper deficiency because sulfur binds with copper.

    This is not Chaffhaye, which is a brand name product. It's a type of haylage, which is fermented. I know there is a book out there (not mine) that makes it sound like a generic thing, but it's not. 

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