Hay and straw prices

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Sandstone1

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What are people paying for small bales of hay and straw at the moment? Also whats the quality like?
With the media saying the weathers going to be really bad just a bit worried!
 
People around here are paying the same sort of money as you are - it depends on who you know, if you know what I mean! Friendly local farmers can be worth their weight in gold! Feed merchants are charging £3 for straw and it's nowhere near as nice as my straw! My daughter asked me why I'd opened two bales of straw.....I hadn't - it was just one gorgeous bale of straw which just EXPLODED when I opened it! Oh, and my £2.50 hay included delivery!
 
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Im just hoping the weather is not as bad as they are saying! Im going to be ringing round a few places next week to compare prices.
 
My supplier in Somerset made loads of big bale haylage and delivers locally at 25 per bale ! He made 2 or 3 times as much as last year.
 
Never mind the price, what's the quality?

Has nobody seen the threads complaining that their horses won't eat their hay? Lots and lots of rubbish hay around this year. Some badly made and some made too late when the feeding value had gone out of the grass.
 
My horses are eating their hay which is really good quality stuff albeit it at £2.50 per bale. Our TB mare has been on three months box rest (both front leg check ligaments) and she's eaten hay at the rate of almost a bale a day and she's a fussy old lady to say the least! So, no complaints about the quality of my hay and straw.
 
Quality great, they r loving it. Made my own hay and they have loved that too but I did manage to cut mid Aug. Haylage wad apparently made early in year in v good dry spell.
 
£1.50 for straw though I don't use it, but is nice stuff.
£3.50 for hay normal small bale, not sure on quality as not bought any since june.

or for the stuff I'm using £3.75 for a small square bale which is 1.5-2times as big as a normal small bale and really good stuff.

Haylage £25 for a big bale and £5 for a small one again really good quality.
 
I've been extremely lucky, as I know prices are soaring!

A local farmer has cut 60 big round bales of haylage exclusively for me, he charges £20 a bale and will deliver it to the yard/field/wherever with no extra charge! Can't get much better as it's beautiful stuff, quite dry too so any left over should last until next year.
Another local farmer charged me £20 a bale for large 8ft rectangle bales of straw, although I've now changed onto shavings to make life easier.
Extremely grateful to these two fellas! :D
 
Currently

£2.00 for small bale of barley straw lovely quality, would of been £1.50 if I could of got it off the field but couldn't as was away and no where to store :(

Wrapped hay (not quite haylage but no quite hay either lol) £25.00 a big bale delivered for free :D lasts me 3 weeks.

I'm in Suffolk
 
£3.50 straw- great quality
£4.00 hay- homegrown but some bales are crap and ponio wont touch it. Some bales are lovely and soft and she loves them but both mine prefer round bale of haylage which is lovely quality :)
 
£4 for hay - organic and I buy 200 bales which they store for me in their barn and I go and get 30 bales a time in my trailer - 2 mins drive. Horses love it and I have used them for several years now.

Can't comment on straw as I don't use it as I use wood pellets, which at the same are the same price as earlier in the year.
 
£5.50 for hay. It is last year's but from a big stack and better quality than this year's. The horses are loving it.

We don't use straw but the price of shavings has shot through the roof around here!
 
I pay £35 for a round bale. It's ok, rather dusty so it's into soak for longer than I did with the last bale. It's grown/ stored etc on the yard so know where it's come from.
I know people are getting hay for £5 a bale and straw for £2 a bale ( Colchester, Essex)
 
£3.50 for small bale hay. Bales are pretty light and although the hay smells okay (sweet) it's pretty dusty when I'm fluffing it into my Haybar. It's the really fine-sword hay. 1 bale is only lasting me 2 days and I only feed 7kg per night :(
 
We sell at £4.50 per bale for conventional square bales (25kg) at our farm here in Hertfordshire, on the Cambridgeshire/Bedfordshire/Essex border).

IMHO this is cheap for top quality hay. It's usually a fiver, but we had a wonderful crop.

Most people seem to go for cheap rather than quality. We put a lot of effort into quality. There are big differences. It's a proper agricultural crop albeit organic -- not just a field of random grass that we needed to mow anyway like I often see! ;)

I'm seeing hay sold on eBay more these days.
 
I am paying £3 for not bad hay - clean but doesnt smell of anything much (our own meadow hay is miles better, truly lovely pale green and fab smell and all the animals love it to bits even tho we cut it late to lower the sugars, but in common with many people we couldnt get it all in the weather skylight we got this year so only made limited amount). This is collected price.

I am paying £2 a bale for oat straw - ideally I feed it hence oat straw not wheat or barley - had some beautiful stuff last year but the harvest this year was a washout so this years is really only fit for bedding and the horses just pick out any nice bits. Again this is collected price.

If I was having hay delivered from a hay merchant it was £3.75 for ok but not great stuff last year so will only have been more this year.....

If I were to sell the hay we make ourselves, since it is such lovely stuff (lots of timothy and clover and all sorts of herby loveliness) I wouldnt sell it for less than £3.50- 4 a bale collected - small bale hay costs us about £1.50 in fuel/string etc alone with all the mowing and tedding and rowing up and baling and it is a LOT of work too so def would want a decent price for it to reflect the quality and work.
 
Currently paying £3.50 per bale for good quality hay, delivered and stacked (Colchester). Don't use straw. Have also bought some very large round bales of wrapped hay (equivalent to about 15 regular bales) from a friend for £42.50 delivered.
 
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