The next day, with a little more light, I got my answer: a feral hog had been baled up right along with the hay.

Needless to say, that was one of those discoveries that makes you stop and think if you washed your hands before eating that night, and about exactly what you may be feeding.

While finding a dead hog in your hay is certainly an unusual situation, it reminded me of a much broader point as we all start to feed more hay going into the fall and winter months, you don't always know what you're getting just by looking at a bale.