i think of straw as bedding and hay as food. but then i don't have cows so i don't know. do cows eat straw or hay? i know they can eat a much cheaper kind than horses.

Hay is the term for legumes or grasses that have been cut as a quality feed for livestock. There may be some stem in it but there is also enough leaf or grain to make it nutricious.
Straw is usually just stem or doesn't have enough grain or leaf to be considered a good feed source. It can be mixed with good quality hay as a filler but is not really a good sole ration. For example, I feed my cows one bale of oat straw and two of alfalfa hay at a time. The out straw adds bulk but the alfalfa is the nutition.

oh. can you do that with goats, split it like that? it would save a lot of money, a third. or i wonder would they just pick it all out anyway. they are more picky and part of their ritual is sorting through things and dropping it on the ground it seems. i haven't noticed other speicies doing that as much.

Like others have said, your run-of-the-mill straw is bedding and most animals won't eat it. Oat straw is a bit different, since it's the stem and leaves of the oat plant some animals eat it. Animals like horses need more nutrition bang for their buck, and so get fed alfalfa and/or timothy hay.

My chickens and rabbit won't eat straw, but the rabbit loves to nibble her alfalfa hay bedding, so it serves two purposes. The chickens love the alfalfa flowers and tiny leaf bits but don't eat the stems.

Velvet ~:>

Straw is what is left after grains have been harvested, whether oats, barley, rye or wheat. While there may be some grains, unless the combine was faulty, there should be very little grains in the bale. Cattle, and most horses, will eat straw, but the quality and the calories are less than an equal amount of hay. Straw is lighter in weight, fluffs up more, and because the stems are hollow, is more absorbent than hay, so makes a good bedding.

Hay is grass or legumes, cut and dried especially as animal feed. Oats can be cut in the "milk stage", before mature enough to harvest as grain, and dried to feed as hay - oat hay. The best quality hay is cut either while the grass is still growing only as leaves, or before the seed heads are mature; this is usually regarded as "horse hay". Cuttings made after the seed heads are mature has less feed value, but is still good cattle hay. Hay can be cut up to three times in a summer, depending on the fertility of the soil, the moisture (rain or irrigation) and the variety of grass, etc., growing in the field - irrigated alfalfa fields in the west may be cut more frequently. And if there is no rain, then fewer cuttings can be made - there will possibly be a second cutting in my area, now that there has finally been some rain, but it will still be sparse - the first cutting was about half what it would have been in a good spring.

For clarification on my earlier post, using the stray as filler is for ruminants only. And yes it works for goats as well. If you have picky eaters, try feeding the staw first then wait awile before you feed the good stuff.

oh. good idea. so then they will get their pickiness out of the way first. it hasnt' been a problem lately as they have had plenty of stuff to forage. i always let them do that before i feed them the hay. but in the winter, i was thinking of how to cut my bill. yay!

ditto of dibbit

Thanks, that's what I needed to know!

dibbit said it best. I work in a feed store and answer that question almost every day. When people don't know what they want I ask them what they are feeding. We carry Alfalfa hay, grass hay, oat hay and straw.