A little bit of help re bedding/haylage costs please

Gamebird

Gamebird

Well-Known Member
Joined
26 April 2007
Messages
8,779
Visit site
I will be moving yards shortly and most places I've looked at are quoting me a DIY livery price excluding hay/haylage/bedding. My current yard includes haylage and straw in the livery price - consequently I have no idea what additional costs will work out as and therefore what my budget for livery will be.

Two big horses out in field approx 7am-5pm and in at night. I prefer straw but it takes me a long time to muck out to my standards so please feel free to give me costings for other bedding if that's what you use - just weekly costs, don't worry too much about putting the bed in in the first place. Horses have 1 large haynet a night each, with an occasional top-up if they've come in early etc.

I'd be very grateful for any help as I really have no idea. There's a fresh pot of Earl Grey and some bread still warm from the oven of our village baker. First come first served! :)
 
I cant help with the haylage costs as mines a small good dooer on hay so doesnt get any where near as much as yours will. But bedding wise I worked out it would be cheaper for me to keep him on shavings as when he is on straw I end up putting a whole small bale in a day as he eats so much of it! currently working on about 1.5 bales of shavings a week and building bed up slowly. He is clean though and so I only muck out every few days as otherwise I cant find the wet :o and hoping when his bed is a bit bigger it will be a bale a week. Currently pay £6.50 for shavings but seen some that I like near uni for £5.50. If yours dont eat their bed then I found big bale straw for £20 but couldnt store it at current place.
 
I buy Haylage in mini hesstons for 20 a bale which does two horses for probably a week and a half maybe two, but Mally eats a LOT of Haylage!
I use Chopped rape straw on rubber matting as bedding because Mally is filthy and exceedingly greedy, so straw wouldn't cope with her wetness and she's probably eat anything clean that was left. So I ordered it a pallet load at a time, which works out at 6 pound a bale. I use a maximum of one bale a week.
So on top of my livery I reckon I spend about 15 quid a week on bedding and Haylage.
 
I'm on part now but when on DIY I used a bale of shavings per week per horse (6.80 here) hay was about £30 pm or haylage was £35 p bale which lasted 6 horses 4-6 days depending on time of year.
 
Sounds exciting :)

I used to use wood pellets, about £2 a bag when ordered a pallet and got through 2 bags a week max. Used them on rubber matting, with a decent bed. Hayledge is about £35 a big bale round us I think, and should last 10 days I reckon easily for 2 horses on ad lib...
 
All interesting, keep 'em coming!

I do like to feed as much haylage as they can eat and would hate to have to become stingy with it!
 
2 horses (as you know), out from around 6am - 5pm during winter. Stabled on rubber matting.

I use probably 2 bales of shavings per horse, per week. I buy in bulk (easy to store when you keep them at home ;)) and pay probably £4.50 ish per bale.

They have ad lib forage - if it's haylage I use a big bale each fortnight. Prices vary depending on where you get it from and how much you buy - anything from £30-£40 per bale delivered (last years prices as haven't bought any yet this year - someone else will be more up to date).

Hay - I have my own cut and have LOTS this year. Again they have it ad lib and I use around a bale per night between them. It cost me about £1.50 ish per bale to have it cut but I guess you'd be paying around £3.50 a bale to buy? (Again someone else will be more up to date than me).
 
QR
I'm on DIY which is I think about £30 a week (can't remember how bad is that!) and pay £15 a week during the winter for unlimited hay/haylege. I buy snowflake shavings at £7 a bale but the YO charges, I think £7 a week for unlimited straw. The hay/haylege is on a sliding scale with £15 for above 15.2hh to lower amounts for ponies, but as mine is 16.2hh I don't pay much attention to those other costs.

In the summer, if we want to continue with adlib hay, its £10 a week or we can buy small bales at about £5 a bale.

Hope that helps.
 
YO at DIY yard I was on sold on the hay/haylage/straw to us at a slightly increased price than the feed merchants. Used to sneak in my own haylage though as her hay and haylage was crap. I paid 6.50 a bale of haylage- he went through 3-4 a week. That's a 17 hh TB turned out 9-3 pm and is an eating machine. YO charged 6.50 for her haylage which were smaller bales and terrible quality. Hay was 5.00 a bale- if she had decent stuff I would feed it to him and would need 3 a week min. Straw was 3.50 a bale- he went through 3-4 bales a week of that too as he could be pretty dirty and I am OCD about mucking out. Shavings were 7.00 a bale. All worked out pretty expensive- was dreading winter when he would be in for longer and costing an absolute fortune so moved him! This is a yard on outskirts of London so am assuming its charges were more expensive than the rest of the country. Was recently visiting a DIY yard were you pay 18 pounds a week for as much hay as horse can eat- was very impressed by that!
 
I pay £130 a month on DIY, doesnt include bedding or haylage (haylage is provided though we pay extra for it). Facilities are excellent (floodlit arena, off road hacking etc etc).

I pay £9 a week bedding per horse (1 bale of Hunters shavings a week per horse) and then haylage is 37.50 a month which is a large net per day. Haylage is v good quality all cut on the farm.
 
I worked this out at the weekend for my three and it wasn't as bad as I thought..

1 bale of haylage lasts me 2 weeks exactly and costs £35 so £17.50 a week
I go through 3 bags of bedding a week (Rapport from Hemp Technology) and it costs £7.20 a bale so £21.60 a week.

That's for three, 2 normal horses (15.3 TB and 15.1 WB), and one enormous horse (17.2 KWPN) who eats literally 3 x what they do and uses 2 bales of bedding a week (the girls use a bag between them).

Using any of the Aubiose/ hemcore/ aqua max type beddings you'll probably want 6 bales to start you off if on rubber mat, and then 1 bale per horse per week if they are relatively clean.
 
I've got 2 big horses on very big straw beds, between the 2 I go through 1 bale a day. But I've found straw has been cut much shorter this year so isn't lasting as long, I managed to source some for 2 quid a bale.

Haylage mine get huge nets we pay 1 pound a net, which for my nets is about a slice, when they were living out then went through a bale in 5 days and I paid 25 quid for it so nets is much more economical
 
I buy big (and I mean huge!) round bales of very good clean hay at £35 a bale - mine pretty much get ad lib and including a bit of hay put out in the field a bale lasts my two about 3.5 weeks. bargain! - we have only just moved onto these big bales and I cant believe the money we are saving already.

Bedding wise mine are on shavings. I muck out poos every day and do the wee and leave the beds up twice a week. Doing it this way I use about 1.5 bales of shavings per horse per week. Each bale costing 5.60 ish.

Hope thats of some help! Are you moving away GB or just yards??
 
I have just recently moved from DIY to a full livery where everything is now included but my costs were:

£25 per week for field and stable
I bedded on Straw and fed Haylage.

For me I was £2.50 for a small bale of straw and I usually used one bale a week. I was lucky in the fact that he was very clean. I just used to build up huge bankings etc and then only take out all of the middle/flooring at the weekends. Big bales are probably most economic but storage was my issue and also trailing it around to the stable was a bit messy where as I could just carry round a compact bale! Big Bales were coming in at anything between £13 & £20 but occasionally a round one used to "fall off" the farmer's tractor in exchange I think for always feeding him tea and toast!

Haylage I was £25 for a big round bale and depending on the winter could last me 2-3 weeks and that was just all sourced from local farmer.
 
Just paid £45 for a large bale of Haylage. Same as last year.

Good quality and they will replace at the drop of a hat if any issues but not cheap. When I called round you could get cheaper but there was handling issues and replacement issues.....
 
mine are out from 6.30am - 2.30/3pm in the winter and cost the following:

1/2 bale of hunter wood shavings £4.25 each (they are on rubber matting but I put a 3-4inch bed down about 5 foot wide)

Big horse has a whole bale of hay put in stable and on day 2, I just top it up with a few extra slices.

Little horse has 1/3 bale in a net, so it probably costs me £2 per horse each day, so roughly £15 each week. Hay is £3.50 - £4 per small bale.
 
You'll find a fair bit of variation in prices around the country - your best bet is to call a couple of local suppliers so you have a better idea for your own area.

And just to really teach you to suck eggs ;) obviously buying big bale works out cheaper (both haylage & straw) or if going short bedding then buying a pallet/bulk. However what I would say is to sound out any potential yard first ... not all will have the storage capacity for big bale/pallets and if you are forced to buy in small quantities this could have a significant impact on the budget!
 
ihatework said:
You'll find a fair bit of variation in prices around the country - your best bet is to call a couple of local suppliers so you have a better idea for your own area.

And just to really teach you to suck eggs ;) obviously buying big bale works out cheaper (both haylage & straw) or if going short bedding then buying a pallet/bulk. However what I would say is to sound out any potential yard first ... not all will have the storage capacity for big bale/pallets and if you are forced to buy in small quantities this could have a significant impact on the budget!
Click to expand...

*sucking egg* Good point. I'm going to look at a couple of yards with excellent facilities which want approx £30/horse/week. I'd really hoped for a max budget of £50/h/w but wasn't sure whether that would be realistic. Will add 'storage space' to my list of questions :D.
I've only ever had horses at home, or on the livery yard I'm at now (been here for 5 years) which is 200yds from home, so it's going to be a big change.

Georgiegirl - I'm moving to Retford. Fear not, it's apparently the same distance to Port Royal etc. as it is now, just from the other side. Haven't found anywhere for us to live yet, but that's another story! :eek:
 
I pay £25 for a big round bale of Haylage including delivery. I find this lasts about 4 days for 6 horses and a donkey. Having said that, although they are turned out during the day, their fields are bare so they do go through it pretty quickly as I chuck a load out int he fields for them to munch during the day. Bedding wise I was on shavings which worked out at £5.25 per bale (so long as I bulk bought 60 at a go). Now I am on wood pellets which are so much easier and quicker. They are also much cheaper, but currently can't remember how much they are!
 
We are paying £3.50 for small bale hay and I have got a massive Quadrant bales of straw for £13 which will probably last me all winter for 1 horse but she is still living out at the moment.

Some one at my yard brought pellets in bulk last year for £100 and they lasted all winter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top