Straw

[Ezezaguna]

I must recognize that I know very little about the uses of straw in Finland besides the classical straw and mud house building in the world. At least in my homeland (south america)  there are many uses for this material. Considering this, it could be a nice addition to get the straw from the barley/rye crop and use it to fabricate little jewelry, like the birch-bark necklace or to make other utility articles like a straw raincoat or a straw hat. In the future it could also be used as a staple food for livestock (when feeding livestock comes out). Finally, straw can be used as a source of fire like any other flammable material.

[JP_Finn]

Straw was used as insulator as well. Both in footwear and on cabin floors.

Wattle&daub is Stone Age building method (wood strips latticed and plastered/daubed with “wet stuff” and straw). I’m not familiar of its use in pre-historic Finland, but as people migrated from elsewhere, they must’ve been familiar with the building method.

Straw has been made in to decorations: little goats, cows, horses, and stars (with a hair and fine thread through the straw as connector).

Now, *straw is not hay*. Straws nutritional value is near non-existent and only about goats will eat straw. IF cereal plant were to be used as hay, it would need to be harvested for that purpose before the plant produces seeds/grain. Other plants than cereal are grown as hay for animal fodder, mainly timothy and meadow fescue in Finland.

[Ezezaguna]

Thanks for the insight. Then, this suggestion expands not only to the straw but also to hay to be more accurate with the crop usage.

[Varmin]

we have a herd of cattle, straw is for bedding, hay is for feed

[Buoidda]

Straw was used as insulator as well. Both in footwear ...

At least what I think of straw (or hay) would be really coarse and stingy to put against your feet... Just to be accurate here, the "shoe-hay" is a spesific species of grass, leaf of which is triangularish in cross-section. Bundles of it are gently pounded soft before using in shoes.

DISCLAIMER: But there might be other plants used elsewhere...

[Sami]

Straw was used as insulator as well. Both in footwear ...

At least what I think of straw (or hay) would be really coarse and stingy to put against your feet... Just to be accurate here, the "shoe-hay" is a spesific species of grass, leaf of which is triangularish in cross-section. Bundles of it are gently pounded soft before using in shoes.

Yep. Isn't it basically all the umm sedges (maybe  that's the english name for the family of those grasses) , or 'sarakasvit' in finnish that are suitable. Even if there are regional differences in availability there's some to found all around Finland.

[Erkka]

I've certainly seen my horses willingly chewing straw, also when plenty of timothy hay was available. And I'm under the impression that the old local breeds of horses and cows have a rather efficient digestion.

I don't know about other countries, but in Finland the idea of growing hay on fields is a rather modern thing. Traditionally people just gathered wild hay, dried and stored that for animal winter fodder. Layers of peat were collected for bedding. Now, I'm not expert in the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the straw was given to the animals to eat, together with hay and dried branches of young broadleafs. I have no reason to believe that the old local breeds of goats, sheep, cow and horses all could extract at least some nutrition by chewing straw.