With cereal crops, the plant is cut when the grain head is in “milk” stage I think. So not fully developed and not all the sugars, proteins etc have formed…(sorry, I’m a bit sketchy on this!). There is still nutritional value in the stem which is preserved when cut and cured ie. made into hay. I *think* straw is the stem after fully developed grain heads have been harvested. So little nutritional value but still good source of fibre. The stem is more depleted but the grain head (seed head) is packed.

Not sure how it all works for grass plants though.

Wow, jersey, how do know all these things? I’m impressed.

All I want to add is that a Kansas paper reported that a Missing Persons report was filed by a Tin Man and a Talking Lion about a missing colleague “made of straw.” A gang of mean looking bunnies by the side of a brick road (light, almost yellow) was spotted giggling and picking their teeth the night before.

OMG, RabbitPam you made me snort and startle my bunnies!

I found this online at http://www.delsjourney.com/travels_2001-02/story_list/us/hay_and_straw.htm

Hay: Any of several nutritional grasses and legumes, such as alfalfa or clover, that is cut, dried, and then used as fodder for farm animals.

Straw: Hollow stalks of grain (such as wheat), used mostly as bedding and garden mulch, but which is also used as feed. Straw has less nutritional value than hay. And if you ask a cow, she’ll say that it doesn’t taste as good, either.

Maybe oat hay has the nutritional parts and straw is just the stalky, not so yummy part?

Not dumb at all! I was confused by this for a while also.

Oat hay is harvested while the seed heads are still attached and immature. Really good, fresh oat hay is also greenish or yellowish and has dried leaves on the stems. Oat hay is considered a food.

Straw is what is left in the fields after the grain has been harvested, so it is all stems. Very tough, little to no nutritional value, it is considered a bedding or a mulch. Straw is also much cheaper than oat hay because of its limited value as a feed. The ‘hay bales’ people put out around Halloween are almost always straw.

My buns love the little clusters of seeds and the dried leaves. They sometimes eat the stems, sometimes not. Dr. Harvey in particular is a fan of oat hay, she says the stems and tough coatings on the seed heads are good for bunnies’ teeth.

Now, can some horse person explain to me the difference between ‘grass hay’ and ‘forage hay’ ?