I store Standlee alfalfa pellets at home and schlep a 4 gal container with lid back and forth to the barn for refills. I’d guess I refill container once a month - pellets are fed pre-ride - not main meals. Another boarder keeps a couple metal cans at the barn with hay pellets and cubes in each. I asked to borrow 1 scoop (we’ve shared before), but her pellets had what looked like light mold on top. When I told her about it, she said : “ahhhh - just scoop out what’s on top, the rest is fine”. Umm…I wasn’t sure that was ok and since I didn’t NEED the pellets, I just skipped it. She laughed it off.
Am I being paranoid? I know moldy hay can cause colic or worse. Can surface mold on pellets do the same thing? Would the pellets well below the mold dust on top be toxic? I was going to bring a bigger container to store more pellets for myself, but now I’m not so sure as the barn isn’t temperature controlled like my house.
I buy and store a quarter’s with of hay pellets at a time. They’ll keep nearly indefinitely in proper storage conditions.
If they’re molding just sitting around in a can at the barn, that perhaps doesn’t sound like conditions are very good for long term storage. Unless, idk, your barn friend started soaking, decided she didn’t need that meal, and dumped the wet pellets back in the can…? Something like that?
Are you just very humid? Although even when we’re very humid here in the summer, I sure don’t see mold like that.
I’ve been feeding Standlee pellets for many years. I’ve kept a bag or two of pellets in a metal trash can with a fairly snug-fitting lid (inside my non-temperature-controlled tack/feed room), both still in the bag or dumped out of the bag. No mold problems in a climate that can be moderately humid much of the year.
Additional bags are stored in a very large tack trunk in the tack/feed room. Never a problem of mold with those, either. We re-stock pellets every few months, so the supply turns over fairly quickly.
I wouldn’t feed any moldy feed of any type, including pellets.
