hay prices

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horsey mad matt

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hi,

i currently pay £4 for a small bale of hay, which i know is pretty cheap, i'm thinking that a round of hay may work out cheaper in the long run. what do people think and what prices do they pay for there hay??

i'm in the dover area!!
 
If its anything like this way (somerset) they are like gold dust! farmers are buying them in for £40 plus so are selling them for £60+
Haylage is easier to get hold of and cheaper
 
I pay £28 for haylage at the moment (round bales) and £30 for hay (odd I know but he has run out of big rounds of hay and is buying it in, his haylage is still his own and he is lovely and not putting prices up etc unless he has to!) The small bales of hay are £3.50

I feed the round bales because I just leave them in the field with a fence round then, so they have ad lib, but if you are filling haynets etc I find them more awkward the small bales.

I am in north essex.
 
I have 4ft round bales as they go in hay rings in the fields and shared between 2 horses, a bale costs us £25 from 1st January 2011. The hay is made on the yard where the horse is kept.
 
My OH's boss went to a forage sale the other week and large round bales of hay were being sold for £95.00 :eek::eek:
Small bales for £9.50 :eek::eek:
We use large round bales in a feeder much easier to do evry ten or so days rather then every day.
 
Hay prices up here are getting stupid - our old supplier is now selling them at nearing £10 a bale for the small ones and keeps on going out of stock. Thankfully we found a supplier who's kept a steady price of £4 per bale, delivered and helped to stack, for the whole yard of 9 horses. He's supplying no one else due to limited stocks (enough to see us through until the next cut but no one else!) and everyone else is looking on in evny, hehe.
 
I so wish I was paying under £5 a bale here in Sussex. I paid £35 for a large round bale a week before Xmas and farmer can't sell anymore to me as the lambos are arriving and eating him out of house/home..... Another farmer is delivering me 70 at £6 at the end of the week as I've used half my hay at the moment and like to keep topped up.
 
The price of ours seems to vary!

We have paid between 33 and 38 pounds for the large square baled hay, the last lot wrapped.
 
I think most people down here have bought in there hay, the feed merchant the yard is attached to is marking there hay up by 100% so they would pay £30 a bale and charging £60 for it cos there money grabbing A*@#holes! Grrr it annoys the hell out of me if he had been organized he could have bought locally for £20 a bale and sold for £30 or £40 - don't think anyone, hope no one if fool enough to pay £60 for a bale otherwise were all doomed for next year if he gets away with it this year!
 
do you go around calling all business people after all lots of people make mark up on products you dont have to buy, you choose to have horses, like other people play golf at extornate prices, challenge you to find field grow grassand make hay, then you can call folk.
 
mon said:
do you go around calling all business people after all lots of people make mark up on products you dont have to buy, you choose to have horses, like other people play golf at extornate prices, challenge you to find field grow grassand make hay, then you can call folk.
Click to expand...

Yes we choose to have horses, but no one could have predicted such a high hike in prices, from around £20 up to£95 in one year, so what do we do??
We actually will be taking a cut ( or two) from the field next year, we had sillage off it this year, but was'nt very good as it had'nt grown, just went stalky and seaded because of the weather.
 
Be polite cprn prices gone throuh roof so beef/sheep feed dear £200+ ton so feeding them gone up 1/3rd, this weather does not help and we cant now supply our regular horsey customers feel sorry but dont deserve to be sworn at. your forage crop not upto much this year like 99% peoples
 
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I was being polite! And i did'nt swear at you :confused:
I know full well farmers are suffering as much as horse owners, tis a bad do all round, you have animals, they have to be fed, we are lucky OH works for a farmer, or we would be in the *****!!!
 
fodderprices have risen because oil/fuel price is high, [tractors need diesel] its difficult to get loans to buy machinery eg tractors and balers which cost £thousands, the priceof land itself is high per acre,fertiliser price is very high, lime is expensive too. add to that the costs of making,stacking, transporting [fuel and HGV lorries] handling.
This year is the last year we made hay to sell to others. We need to charge £5 per small bale for it to beworthwhile. Here in rural Shropshire people wont pay that. So next year all our horse clients will have to go elsewhere. We are only going to make enough for our own use and graze the paddocks with sheep. As stated above, fert and fuel and land price is astronomical, yet hay has remained cheap for many years due to economies of scale [big producers/contractors] and competition. It looks like a more realistic price structure /return is on the way. £2 or £3 for a small bale is way too cheap, realistically speaking . We will not produce to sell anymore. Hay prices at present are realistic, especially taking into acount that the crop was light this year, ie there is less of it about anyway ,coupled with the cold weather and people needing more , not just for horses but for sheep and cattle too. Unless fert and interest rates reduce substantialy and land prices drop like a stone I cannot see there being cheap hay anymore. Infact there is likely to be even less next year given these factors.
 
I just had to pay £5 a small bale....yikes!!!!:eek::eek:, but stocks of small bales are low in our area. I am the only livery who has hay so storage is limited, the rest have haylage but it gives my horse colic. .Roll on summer when I can feed less!!!! :D
 
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