Hay prices

I’ve just moved yards. Old yard £6 small bale. At new yard I have to source my own hay and paid £7 a bale delivered. It is nice hay but the bales feel light.
 
We make our own but I'm regretting selling as much as I did as we didn't get a second cut. I don't think we will have enough for the whole winter but I'm being very careful at the moment with it. They are out as much as possible and we do have plenty of grass so luckily I can keep rotating fields. I'm another that is being stricter on what I throw away too!
 
I use small rectangles as I have limited storage. Gone up from £3.75 a bale to either £7 or £8 depending on the quality you want - the £7 are horrible & stalky, so looks like Ill be paying more :rolleyes:
 
My neighbour who i get round bales from told me a couple of weeks ago that he doesn't have any spare 😬 he will review after Xmas (he has his own pony herd) we have less ponies than last year so hoping I can eke out the haylage we have until April.
Rang another supplier, no from them either
 
6.50 up from 5 for a small bale. Farmer has mentioned he’s not taking on new customers and is charging those that aren’t regulars 7.50 a bale.
 
We no longer make our own hay so paying out for it this last year has really hit home how expensive it now is.

But compared to some of you maybe not so bad. We get ours from a near neighbour 50 at a time and he assures me he has stored enough for us to carry the donkeys through to next spring. He charges €5 a bale, delivered and stacked. At today's price that is approximately sterling £4.38. I am more than happy to pay that and even better to support local farmers.
 
My 2 boys have been on box rest and I very quickly discovered that we had less round bales than I thought + the ones we did this year had too many rushes 🙃 I was pretty gobsmacked to find small bales were £7.50 each to tide us over to a Heston delivery. They cost me about £75 in 4/5 days in small bales 🤢 large Heston (6 string) was £95, two of those have lasted a month so that’s much cheaper by the day… now waiting for a 4 string delivery & hoping they aren’t significantly smaller as they’re still £80 🙃 I wish I’d paid more attention to how much hay we were making this year 🤦‍♀️ they don’t eat haylage fast enough it goes warm in the middle … no, I actually wish they were both sound and out in the bloody fields where they should be!!
 
AdorableAlice said:
Yes they will, supply and demand rules. If there is plenty about and a choice of sources the price will drop. If we have another 2025 summer god help us all.
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It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I have stocked up to last hopefully until June/July next year. I really didn’t want to as I feel a lot of panic buying going on but I can’t risk it.
My hay supplier called me and said he’d ‘found’ another big bale of hay in his barn and said he’d drop it in if I wanted. I said yes. He arrived and said it was £75.00 🤦‍♀️. He’s normally £45.00
To add insult to injury he’s said he’s “found one last bale” to 5 other people in the village and delivered 🤣🤣🤣
 
AdorableAlice said:
Yes they will, supply and demand rules. If there is plenty about and a choice of sources the price will drop. If we have another 2025 summer god help us all.
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It's not just supply and demand. It costs the same to grow, cut, and turn 20 acres of grass whether you get 50 or 100 bales per acre. Actual baling costs might be a bit lower for a smaller yeild.
 
spotty_pony2 said:
We make our own but I'm regretting selling as much as I did as we didn't get a second cut. I don't think we will have enough for the whole winter but I'm being very careful at the moment with it. They are out as much as possible and we do have plenty of grass so luckily I can keep rotating fields. I'm another that is being stricter on what I throw away too!
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Snap I will probably have enough but it will be tight. I got it sold quickly and then my horse was diagnosed with EMS and laminitits so ended up on box rest with hay. Which of course having made the best hay we have ever made now need to soak all that lovely goodness out!
 
rabatsa said:
I dont think that the inputs will go down, wages, fuel, net and wrap. These are the things that really up the price of production. I am not a huge supplier of hay but my prices will not be falling next year.
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Here, farmers put in their usual input and got back 1/3 of their usual product (not wrapped). So each unit of that product cost more as a division of input and needed profit.

Prices have fluctuated before and gone down again after unusual years. I think in this case it will depend on the yield and price increase as to how far they will drop if the yield is good next year.

My local small scale farmer who simply sells off his excess hay (sadly now deceased) went from £5 to £6 per small bale this year. Probably wouldn’t have dropped much.

Bigger operation using wholesale markets went from £6 to £9 this year per small bale. His prices always fluctuate with the market - they rose after the last drought and then fell again. Not all the way back, but they fell.
 
Cragrat said:
It's not just supply and demand. It costs the same to grow, cut, and turn 20 acres of grass whether you get 50 or 100 bales per acre. Actual baling costs might be a bit lower for a smaller yeild.
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No one seems to factor in time, fuel and machinery. I have given away my grass for two years because finding someone to cut turn and bale is not cost effective. The farm that took it employs contractors that bale hestons and they just go from field to field over about two weeks or less. This year they wrapped it because they wanted to get what there was quickly. It was half the yield of last year, but only the bale costs would have been less. It was only worth while because the grass was free.
 
Cragrat said:
It's not just supply and demand. It costs the same to grow, cut, and turn 20 acres of grass whether you get 50 or 100 bales per acre. Actual baling costs might be a bit lower for a smaller yeild.
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Most fields are fertilised for hay, fuel for cutting. Then at least fuel for turning twice a day for at least four days, fuel for rowing up, fuel for baling, fuel for collecting and transporting, fuel for stacking. Plus time, grass seed, wear an tear and string.

All this is shared across the cost of the bales produced.

We stopped selling hay as it isn't worth the trouble of making it and lots of people have done the same.
 
I got 2 round bales delivered today (£45 per bale) but hoping not to use until after Christmas. My two girls are still on Summer grazing and I’m strip grazing! Got 3 acres of Winter grazing then! I’ve never had so much grass and hoping mine can stay out 24/7 most of the Winter!
 
I’ve had a complete nightmare here in West Yorkshire.
Last year I used 4 different suppliers.

2 don’t have any this year.
1 has disappeared off the face of the earth.

The last hadn’t been able to deliver yet as he had surgery but hopefully next week.

I finally found someone who will sell to me and I’ve collected a bunch of small bales and doing another load tomorrow at £6 a bale. I usually use large bales for cost effectiveness but I haven’t got the means of moving them myself.

My supplier who is in hospital is selling wrapped hay (the medium bale size) for £36 which is the same as 2 years ago, not gone up at all. So am hoping he has plenty. If not, I’ll continue weekly runs of small bales. My neighbour has offered up her barn for extra storage. I’m not usually a panic buyer but I can’t simply not feed my horses!

The wrapped hay is lovely but he can’t deliver it to my barn (down a steep track) so we have to toss them down one at a time.
 
My hay supplier had said we have enough good quality hay to last until the end of January, after which it will be lower quality second cut. It will be tight, but they will hopefully have enough to see us through which I'm incredibly grateful for. A local feed merchant is currently selling round bales at £100 and small bales £9.50 😳
 
Sussex, gone up £10/bale making it £70 but it's local, low food miles, excellent quality. Hadn't had a price increase in three years, so I was expecting something like this.
I am grateful my farmer kept me on as he had to cut off many other customers due to low yield, but as bridleways run through his land and I always check his gates and fences and let him know where I find wild campers setting fires, I think he felt he couldn't cut me off! Best for me if he will bring me one or two at a time, as and when I need them which is good as I don't have much storage options (and worried about theft too!).
 
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