The objective of this study was to determine the effect of wheat straw chop length in a high-straw dry cow diet on intake, feed sorting, and health of dairy cows. Holstein cows (n = 40) were enrolled at dry off (~45 d before expected calving) and assigned to 1 of 2 treatments, a high-straw (29% wheat straw on DM basis; 13.2% CP, 1.5 Mcal/kg NE_L) dry cow diet with straw chopped with a: 1) 10.16cm screen (Long; n = 20), or 2) 2.54cm screen (Short; n = 20). At calving all cows were fed the same lactating TMR (16.0% CP, 1.64 Mcal/kg NE_L) and followed for 28 d. DMI was recorded automatically, reticulorumen pH was recorded using wireless telemetric probes, and blood BHB was recorded cow-side. TMR and ort samples were collected 2x/wk to determine differences in sorting. Feed samples were separated into 4 particle fractions: long (>19 mm), medium (<19 mm, >8 mm), short (<8 mm, >4 mm), and fine (<4 mm) particles. Feed sorting was calculated as actual intake of each particle fraction expressed as a % of predicted intake. Data were analyzed in mixed-effect linear models, treating day as a repeated measure. To model the day-to-day changes in DMI and pH around calving, an analysis of covariance was conducted. Short cows had greater DMI (15.6 vs 15.0 kg/d; SE = 0.16; P = 0.02) in the dry period, while Long cows experienced a more rapid drop (P < 0.05) in DMI in the week before calving. Regardless of treatment, during the dry period, cows sorted against the long and in favor of the short particles; cows on the Long treatment sorted to a greater extent than cows on the Short treatment (80.2 vs 88.4%; SE = 2.0; P ≤ 0.01). Across treatments, cows sorted in favor of the long particles (105.9 ± 2.7%; P = 0.01) and against the fine particles (91.8 ± 1.8%; P = 0.01) during wk 1 post-calving. There were no differences in rumen pH between treatments in the dry and lactating period (P ≥ 0.6), although Long cows tended to have a greater decline in rumen pH in wk 1 post-calving (P = 0.07). Long cows had higher BHB in the wk 3 post-calving (1.3 ± 0.11 vs 0.8 ± 0.10 mmol/L; P = 0.05). The results suggest that reducing the chop length of straw in dry cow diets may improve pre-calving intake, reduce feed sorting, and promote greater health across the transition period.