Hay prices - rumours of £12 a bale!!!!

PennyJ said:
Mike007 it isn't meaningless, your average livery doesn't buy hay by the tonne but by the bale. I buy 5 or 10 bales at a time from my YO, I haven't got space to store more than that.

I have noticed that bales have got lighter over the past few years too :( I thought it was me getting stronger thus finding them easier to lift, but its not at all. My hay bales I buy off my YO at £6.50/bale weigh 16 or 17kg each. I weigh out my hay for my good doers, so I know exactly how much each bale weighs out at. I shifted a few hay bales at my friends farm last week, now those were heavy!!! I would happily pay £8.50/bale for those! But I would much rather go back to 25kg bales from all my suppliers

So making bales lighter is another way of maximising profit when dealing with small users...
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WEll if iisnt meaningless then you probably realise that a 17kg bale of hay is incredibly light ,and at £6.50 a bale you are paying £382 per tonne.Or to put it another way,Martlin who posted earlier buys hay in at less than half the price that your Yard owner sells it to you.
 
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Does anyone know where I can get large round or square bale hay in the worcester area thanks at a reasonable price if there is such a thing! xxxx
 
medium hay bale £10 up from £5 last year.
large haylage £50 up from £27.50 last year.

Expensive . Hants based.
 
There many factors which determine the cost of hay.

The quality. Often because of the weather/grass type/whether purpose sown or not and the makers abilities.

Hay making here in East Anglia, has been generally dire. We are paying £5 per conventional bale for good, but not exceptional hay.

Cost per bale will again be influenced by whether they are made as flat 8s or flat 10s.

We've just bought in 8 x 6' rectangular bales, which were imported from Ireland. They were £42 each. Probably the equivalent of 8 x flat 8s. The quality is not good. Assured that it was purpose grown Rye grass, which it isn't. It was probably a hastily gathered second cut, and it's very soft. The brood mares, living out, seem to be eating it.

Previously we bought in 20 x 8' rectangulars, at £40 each, and they've all gone! Super quality, but very short.

Where hay producing conditions have been poor, last year, the costs, per bale have been just about double what they are in normal growing years.

If a really good quality barley straw can be sourced, and it can, then I wouldn't think twice about feeding that. It's what we will do, if we can't find a better quality hay, and then we'll top up with stud mix.

Alec.
 
I'm in Hampshire. Our YO cuts and supplies our hay. For years we have had good quality hay for about £3.25 a small bale that lasted us all year with no problems. This year, because of the weather, the hay he cut and baled is excellent quality but the yield was far less and we are on course to run out of hay by the end of February. He increased the price this year to £4.50 (first increase for many years), but we did not mind as the quality was excellent and there has been absolutely no waste.

He rang us all last week to let us know about the hay situation. He has managed to source some more hay but the best price he has been able to get is £7 a bale. One or two fellow liveries have been going around checking prices locally and most of the main suppliers are charging more than that. There is one small local place still advertising hay at £4.50 but they have now run out and are awaiting a further delivery but can't confirm the price and the quality of what they have been selling isn't brilliant. Unfortunately I don't have any storage space to buy lots from somewhere else, and I don't have a car big enough to transport more than a bale at a time so I am a bit stuck and will have to pay out the £7 a bale.

Roll on spring and longer turnout.
 
On the positive side, I'm in Aberdeenshire (very cold) and my 7 were going through 4 big bale hay/haylage a week. Put out 2 on Sunday and really only lightly touched with horses starting to pick at the grass. It would be great if we had an early warm spring and the profiteers got stuck with the hay.
 
My hay is included in my livery here at £40 per week, we're not limited to any amount of bales, but we just take what we need and don't take the p*ss.
At my old yard in Gloucester I paid £3.50 a bale, large round bales £25, quality stuff!

At home in Essex I paid £35 for a large round bale of low nutritional haylage.
 
I'm in North Northumberland and the prices have rocketed. Most people just won't sell hay round here now. The farmer that usually supplies me has had to keep it for his sheep.

Anyone that is selling is quoting daft prices, I was quoted £8.50 a bale the other day. It was cheaper for me to take my lorry 70 miles and buy a load at £4.75 a bale.
 
Double_choc_lab said:
To HHo Admin - I think the answer is in your title - RUMOURS!!!
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Exactly - I cant help but think rumours push the price up... Sellers take advantage of horsey folk panic buying! Up here in Scotland I know local hay merchants where taking lorry loads down to england the moment they heard these rumours and whacking the price up, but as long as people react to rumours this will happen.

Even with this going on I have bought 3 tonnes of good quality hay (horse is total fuss pot!) for 120 a tonne (think it was 40 bales in a tonne ish). I know for sure if I went into the horse feed merchants who sells hay by the bale it would have been a fiver for poorer quality, so it does really pay to shop round and go directly to farmers rather than people who market to the horse sector only. We pick up our hay ourselves which opens up a greater market. Another good idea is to considering picking it up from the field once its baled.
 
QUICKFIRE said:
If anybody is paying £12 for a bale of hay needs thier bumps feeling! think this is just a rumours for the sake of sensationalism and journalism!!!! things must be slow in the office. :-)
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Erm, afraid I agree with this. Please avoid a sensationalist article which will alarm readers and encourage suppliers to up their prices further. That would be called shooting ourselves in the foot.
 
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