Hay - Ouch!!! - time to panic!!

As Slinky has said, the lack of rain here in East Anglia is going to be the biggest problem. I am hoping that my wonderful supplier will be as good as they have always been...
 
Puppy said:
As Slinky has said, the lack of rain here in East Anglia is going to be the biggest problem. I am hoping that my wonderful supplier will be as good as they have always been...
Click to expand...

My grazing field has gone nuts though the last month so hopefully we'll be on for a second cut. It's over my thighs now and I daren't turn my horses out on to it. They're getting about 6 inches more of it a day whilst I wait for it to die back a bit!
 
Quite alot being cut in SW but farmers arent saying how much gonna be at mo....dont know if because they are hoping to charge ludicrous amounts so don't want to tell folk yet or waiting/hoping for 2nd cut then could be same/cheaper than last year.......
 
ermmm, we've just finished the baling and, frankly, we needn't have bothered. We have to laugh, otherwise we would cry. out of 9-10 acres of grass, we managed to bale a staggering 130 bales :eek:
There is a bit left on the ground as it was so sparse the baler wouldn't pick it up properly.
Let's just hope other fields will be better and we will manage to get second cut, otherwise, we will be buying in massive amount!
And to add insult to injury, we managed to break the knotter in the baler, luckily we were just about to finish :mad:
 
We've just started baling our haylage this week. It seems thicker than last year but as we cut in blocks we won't know until fields have been completely mown. We got about 100 bales off 2 acres though. We've also got let overs from last years crop so no panicking for us! We'll take what we need & sell the leftovers, my horse lives fine of hay anyway so if we only make haylage she'll need even less!
 
marmalade76 said:
My OH mowed a field a couple of days ago and when I drove out into it I thought he'd already baled it! There was so little grass you could hardly see it!
Click to expand...

Right, OH baled this field today, all ten acres of it and it made 176 bales!!!! :eek: We have had over a thousand bales off this same field in the past.

Have been tod that the going rate for small bales straight off the field this year is £3.50.
 
bakedbean said:
i've just paid for 20 round bales @ £25 each and 200 small off the feild @ £3 per bale.
i bought 10 round haylege last month also @£25 and have 20 huge heston bales stored @£45

Some people are being greedy, cashing in on last years panic buying.

There are several Ads in my local paper for last years small bales @ £4.50 a bale. By next month, last years will be cheaper still.
A few Farmers round here have taken a 2nd cut and sprayed liquid manure in anticipation of a 3rd..and i'm pretty sure they'll get it too.
Click to expand...

What excatly do you class as 'cashing in'? I am fairly sure that you know just how much time, money and hard graft haymaking takes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, last year our diesel tank cost £500 odd pounds to fill up, last time it cost us £700 odd, now needs filling again and OH hasn't even done half his haymaking. One of his tractors has just had a new clutch fitted at a cost of over a grand, only this morning he had to have a puncture repaired in a rear tractor tyre, that's a few more £££, he had to buy haybob tynes, hydraulic oil and grease needed to get the machinery ready to work, he had to buy string to tie the bales with, he has to buy the grass to make into hay as he only has nine acres of his own, and then has to rent a barn to store the hay. Add to that, he hasn't been home before ten o'clock all week. I think he deserves to earn good money for all his hard work and out-lay, why the hell shouldn't he??? £4-£5 for a bale of hay is cheap!
 
bakedbean said:
I'm talking about the Hay merchants...not the farmers/contractors.

Those that travelled the length of britain buying what they could...storing it, and inflating the prices.

Your average farmer, i would imagine (no, probably i know) makes nothing on horse hay these days

Hay will again, this season, be a division...some areas will have plenty, others very little..i think this is where the supply and demand prices eminate from.
Click to expand...

Dont blame hay merchants. A hay merchant with an established customer base has to ensure that he has an adequate supply to last the season . And that is a huge tonnage and investment.It involves a lot of hard work and a lut of skill. Buy at the wrong price and you could loose a fortune. Fail to buy and you could loose your business. Running transport isnt cheap either,and the stuff might easily need to be hauled a couple of hundred miles .My experience is that the people who duck and dive about finding the "cheapest" hay were the ones to loose out last year. The established customers of established merchants were looked after and not in any doubt of their next delivery.
 
Find that amazing £7 a bale, don't see how they can justify that as most of the fields around us are baled and ready to go into the barn, if it is going to be that expensive, thank god I only have 1 horse!! :)
 
Mike007 said:
Horse owners need to start thinking in terms of cost per tonne. Admittedly most hay is sold "per bale" because of potential problems frm "weights and measures". Big bales vary in shape and size according to the make of baler used . Hay delivered in is probably going to cost at least £250 per tonne .Huge tonnages of straw have been commited to power stations on 6 year contracts and are not available so straw will be in short supply again. Spring barley round here looks worse than last year.
It never ceases to amaze me that horse owners will pay £6 plus for a 20kg bale of woodshavings yet begrudge paying the same for decent hay . The price of hay has stagnated for the last 20 years and completely failed to keep up with inflation.As a result both quality and quantity produced have reduced . Now market forces have made it once more a valuable crop.It is not going to go back down in price. Most horse owners could do a lot worse than buy really good hay(though I suspect that many wouldnt even know what that looks like)and cut down drasticly on VERY EXPENSIVE hard feeds.
Click to expand...


This ^^^^^
 
Aint it amazing! People buy carrots from tescos at ten times their cost off the field and dont blink an eye,yet they baulk at paying £7.00 for hay stored and delivered in because it was £3 off the field.And of course farmers and merchants are rip off artists because they cant afford to subsidise peoples horses.
 
I don't think it's really time for panic right now.

We get our hay from the nice farmer just down the track, I think he was charging £4.50 a bale last year
As long as I can get a small bale for under £10 during the winter months I'll feel okay.

Our farmer cut one of his hay fields early this year and I think he's aiming to get a second cut later in the year.

My only problem is that a land owner who was using his land for hay has started fencing up his land all poshly, we think he's trying to start up a big livery yard and that's the last thing we need. We'll have more horses and less hay fields.
Hopefully, he'll keep at least one of the hay fields. Maybe...

I suppose at the end of the day he's just thinking about what can get him more profit.
 
Speaking of established customers, I have always used same supplier for years but he has now given up. Cant get on anyones list now! How do you wangle your way onto another suppliers list!
 
Haylage ordered and apparently no problem according to the farmer, he has plenty of grass. Our usual supplier let us down last winter - and didn't let us know, so we were struggling! So we've stored 50 small bales of hay as a just in case emergency measure already. Hopefully new farmer will be much more reliable!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top