BBC News Hay rustling

Bloomin hell! How do you manage to steal 800 bales without someone catching you! Bit shocking,hay theft!!!! Guess now the price has gone up some petty people are stealing it and selling it on maybe
 
We had 8 bales taken (and a feed trolley - to transport them on I presume!) over the weekend. They also took a couple of unopened bags of feed.

We can probably expect them to come back and clear our hay store reasonably regularly....

I suppose one way to stop opportunitistic theft is to split the bales so they can't be lifted so easily. Having just thought of that I'll go do it this afternoon.

We've opened all the feed bags on site and poured to contents into galvinsied bins (hopefully too heavy to carry!). Anything that won't fit has been taken off site. We're also in the process of transferring all supplements into plain tubs - harder to re-sell if not in the origional tub apparently - although now we have to remember which is which!

In one way perhaps it has just gone to feed the Gypsy horses on the traveller site over the road. But I suspect they'll be offered down the local for cash instead....
 
I took H & H's advice and cut all the baler twine on my bales at the weekend. Its easy for me but very difficult and time consuming to steal leaves of hay so if anyone's gonna try hopefully it'll put them off.
 
Harper_Gal said:
Do you have any idea how easy split bales are to retie and run off with?

I retie my bales of straw to carry around manageable chunks of straw. That advice may just have made thieves lives easier!!
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I think the idea is to stop thieves getting a quick get away and the longer they'd have to be on the premises the greater the risk. Of course you don't leave baler twine around and the chances are they haven't brought it with them.
 
Shay said:
We're also in the process of transferring all supplements into plain tubs - harder to re-sell if not in the origional tub apparently - although now we have to remember which is which!
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Use plain tubs, with maybe a coloured lid? Or a little coloured pen mark? That way you can learn what colours are what, and to everybody else, they're just plain tubs ;)
 
This doesn't suprise me, im still waiting for my bloody hay to be delivered, the company keep saying this week, this week, but so far ive only managed to get 2 round bales of good stuff, and two large bales of last years, for three horses!
Fingers crossed I do get some other wise il have nothing to steel anyway!
 
just had mine delivered and spent a couple of hours tying bales together with twine hopefully it will put anyone off if they come in the dark and wont be able to load quickly or will have to cut bales ! Mind you I will be swearing when I come to use it myself and have to fiddle about !
 
Apart from the fact they work out much cheaper, it's one of the reasons I buy big bale hay . . . . trying to nick 10 foot long bales with two locked gates in between would be a bit tricky without the relevant equipment and I think the chap in the house next door might notice!

I still can't work out how someone could nick 800 bales though, that would take a long time . . . . . and no-one noticed??????!!!!!!
 
800 bales would be pretty easy to take if it were stored in a random barn in a random field. If you roll up with a wagon a tractor and a few blokes it doesnt actually look sus. So many agri buildings are pretty remote.

Cut and remove your strings everyone.
 
I've got a large tarporline (sp?) over my small stack of hay bales AND straw bales. My theory is that if they want to take the hay, they have to get past the straw first and remove the tarporline and all the 'stuff' thats holding it down. Oh, they would also have to remove the electric tape and under the slip rails to gain access to the 'small barn' first.
Iam lucky my father has bales too, and to get to them you would have to find your way around his farm!!
 
alma said:
how can you stack your hay with the strings cut doesnt it all collapse ?
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It was already stacked, then we heard about the hay thefts which were happening, saw cutting strings being recommended as a tip and so went ahead and did it. It's all wedged into a barn so other than the odd one opening out it's stayed put pretty much.
 
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