Hay situation

Cambridge :)

I had a tiny bit of land that I wanted baling, and couldn't for the life of me find anyone to do it. I ended up grazing my fatty on it for the first part of winter, until the snow struck.

My friend who used to do all the hay and straw dealings round here has packed it in, as even at £5 a bale he says it's not worth the work & outlay.
 
Im on big bale hay {2 to the ton i think} i got 6 bales in a few weeks ago for £50 each, we collected 12 more bales to day and they are now £65 each {BUT he is a friend so he charged us £50.} he is a hay and straw dealer, and he can not keep up with people ordering hay.
 
ofcourseyoucan said:
winter happens every year. this winter was predicted very early on. like a girl guide the motto is be prepared!!!! buy and pay for it in june/july even if you have to pay a bit of storage for it!!! good luck finding hay/haylage now.. it will all be premium price
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How helpful!

I'm in Kent, my normal supplier will not let me have more than 2 large bales of hay at a time and even then he grumbles, and would certainly not let me buy in bulk earlier in the year (even if I had had space to store it, which I didn't) as he is short and wants to be fair to all his customers. He is enquiring about buying more in and 1) is struggling to find any, and 2) is being quoted £70 a bale trade price.....

Mine are getting straw now to pad out their hay as I need to stretch it to last as long as poss, and I am getting a bale of not great quality haylage delivered tomo for £45 (!) to go out in the field now we have more snow.

Oh and I had 3 acres to cut for hay this year and it did not grow at all, it was so dry this summer where we are. I will also echo what others have said re people nicking forage; I had my bedding nicked recently so am loathed to even consider buying in bulk small bale hay for someone to come along and help themselves too.
 
Puppy said:
Crikey! I feel very lucky reading this, as I've had no trouble at all.

I am buying two types of haylage for mine.

The top notch fattening stuff for my veteran is £34 for 220kgs.

The meadow haylage, which is also second cut, that I requested as something less rich for my fatty is £32 for 220kgs, and very dry for haylage - it's more like v good quality hay.

These are the same prices as last year, and although I know my supplier is super busy, he hasn't mentioned shortages to me at all. I tend to buy 4 220kg bales at a time.
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Who are you using Puppy? If I'm allowed to ask and it isn't a well kept secret!
 
alsxx .. how was my comment not helpful? every farmer that makes hay in june/july has hay for sale. you can pay for it and get it stored (might have to pay for storage) and get it when you need it. i paid for mine, put half in my barn and the other 2000 bales in the farmers barn. paid and secured. JOB DONE. and funnily enough winter DOES come every year and those who dont budget for 70+ bales per horse will pay premium.
 
Not everyone can handle large bales, economical or not. I've got a little barn at the side of my field, and look after my horses on my own. No track to the barn so delivery can be tricky, and dealing with euro bales or round bales is very difficult, if not impossible.
 
It is not a very good situation! My hay man wasnt sure if he would have enough for me or not, a few weeks ago he said def til mid feb. I spent a long time looking for haylage. Large bales were going for £35 but no where to store it, or no tractor to off load this end! So found small haylage £5.50 per bale. A couple of people have totally ran out. 2 other suppliers say they have enough haylage until mid Jan. Fortunately for me, my hay man and I have been talking and realised I am using less hay, hence he has enough for me until end of March (fingers crossed!)

My horses live out 24/7. I have a winter and summer field. The summer field has very short gass and has been resting since September. How long do you think I will need to feed them hay for, or until approx?
 
I'm not complaining and I understand the economics of the situation, I should do after so many years of horse owning. But remember this thread when you're 50 with a dodgy knee and you'll understand that sometimes it's not just a matter of "those who say i cant do this and that" there are those who really can't do it. I shove my wheelbarrow up and down hills, cart water because my hosepipe is frozen, stack my own hay... but obviously I'd have to be bleedin' superwoman to move a Heston bale about in limited space.
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No, you have to get it into your barn in the first place. Deliveries stop at the top of my field, I wheelbarrow my hay down and stack it in my barn... I know, horrendous innit?
Mind you, to be fair, normally I can get 200 - 300 small bales easily from my hay man and get them delivered down to the barn staight off the field in the summer when he can drive across mine. This year is exceptional.
 
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I noticed a couple of adverts for small bale hay in the local rag (Kent). Both had price of £4.50 per bale which is not giveaway but probably about right. If anyone wants the phone numbers drop me a PM.

Its the first time I've seen any advertised for quite a while
 
ofcourseyoucan said:
alsxx .. how was my comment not helpful? every farmer that makes hay in june/july has hay for sale. you can pay for it and get it stored (might have to pay for storage) and get it when you need it. i paid for mine, put half in my barn and the other 2000 bales in the farmers barn. paid and secured. JOB DONE. and funnily enough winter DOES come every year and those who dont budget for 70+ bales per horse will pay premium.
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Not in my bit of Berkshire. Tried from 5 suppliers to buy in the summer, would have paid upfront and taken it away, but I am new and not a regular customer so there wasn't any for me that any supplier would commit to selling me more than a dozen bales. Hay was 1/3 usual crop as here it was just so dry, so I can understand their problem with a new customer.
 
Seriously, I'm 50 years old dealing with a knee injury that was operated on and went wrong early last year. I have to be sensible or I'll stuff myself up so badly that I'll have to stop riding. I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you're a bit younger than me. I've done the sort of things you mention in the past, but now, life is different. As I said before, I'm not complaining and I understand the financial implications. You seem to be treating this conversation as some sort of contest, but it's just a casual chat on the Net.
 
Nativety, I used to have a lovely yard where things worked much better but it got sold. They're like hen's teeth round here, and expensive, so just have to deal with what I've got. I'll admit though that it was a lot easier before I allowed the NHS to deal with my knee!
Anyway, I was right, you are younger than me. If we took up flower arranging we would quickly turn into lumpy old women who struggle with a flight of stairs, so we've got to keep on fighting.
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I seem to be very lucky, I'm paying £25 per large round bale haylage, I'm in the Midlands. I asked farmer today if he had enough to see his customers through winter and he said he had plenty. I get 2 at a time delivered, my access is limited and difficult but farmer comes in a jcb with the bales on forks on the front. No problem getting up to my field no matter what the weather. I just seal up the holes made by the prongs on the 2nd bale till we're ready to open it up.
 
I get the big long bales £25 delivered.
I have difficult access problems, so always have deliverys during very dry, cold weather, so tractor can get in, farmer unhitches trailer and brings a couple in at a time on spike.
Have no barn, put tarp on ground, pallets on top then hay, then lorry tarp on top, have 6 delivered at a time. Farmer will happily bring one though.
Same farmer cut some small bales from my field in the summer for £1.50 a bale.

I can pay for a winters supply up front, he will store it on his farm for free. Never needed to do this has he always has plenty.

I feel blessed.
 
We were told there was going to be a shortage from early summer so I planned for that and booked as much as I could as early as I could even if I was paying slightly more than normal.
There was very little active grass growth in the summer and I had to feed all summer.
I have split the hay with good barley straw for the good doers, but if small bales are £6+ a bale why not look at pony cubes etc. When they are offer they are cheap roughage and top up with less hay and straw.
To be honest I feel more sorry for the dairy farmer as this is their livelyhood and they are having trouble finding fodder.
 
when was that and what firm, we use 18% concentrate nuts, only food we can get at that sort of price is meal with waste biscuit in it. pm if you want
 
joeanne said:
Then you could buy a nice big tarp, and some decent weights. Problem solved.
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I hardly have any room to store hay. But this is what I do. The round bales are delivered to the field and they are placed on pallets and covered with tarpaulin and tyres. I use the merchant builders bags to drag the hay across the field. When the round bale was a t the top of the field my friend and I carefully rolled it down the field, possibly dangerous but no other choice. Winter is hard, but I just have to get on with it and deal the best I can.
 
I'm so glad I have a dutch barn. I do cheat with the feeding the horses situation though and just open the field gate - the horses can come up the drive and munch if they want. Most of the time they spend their time digging in the field though :rolleyes:
 
mon said:
when was that and what firm, we use 18% concentrate nuts, only food we can get at that sort of price is meal with waste biscuit in it. pm if you want
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I bought some a couple of weeks ago, from Midland Feeds in Bottesford, they advertise in Farmers Guardian. I feed 16% general purpose pellet/meal mix, but they do have pure pellet as well. I have a couple of bulk bags, about 1.5t left, but have switched to straights as I have plenty of that :) I mix whole oats with rolled barley and sugar beet pulp - they are doing really well on it.
 
I bought 8 big square bales at the end of october (needed more as was feeding most of summer!). my lovely farmer came with his tractor and stacked them 2 wide and 4 high for me. Doesnt take up a lot of room and i just have them covered in tarpaulin, cosidering the weather they have kept remarkably well! I can't big up the square bales enough, find i get much more value for money with them.
 
ofcourseyoucan said:
alsxx .. how was my comment not helpful? every farmer that makes hay in june/july has hay for sale. you can pay for it and get it stored (might have to pay for storage) and get it when you need it. i paid for mine, put half in my barn and the other 2000 bales in the farmers barn. paid and secured. JOB DONE. and funnily enough winter DOES come every year and those who dont budget for 70+ bales per horse will pay premium.
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You sound very pompous - This is all very well if you have your own storage or you can find other storage. At most DIY yards you are lucky if you can store more than 10 small bales at a time or one large bale. Most do not have lorries, forklifts and other means of getting large stockpiles of hay. And it doesn't help that people have stockpiled way in advance because it has caused a shortage even when the winter hadn't even started. I bet there are loads of people sitting on hay they don't really need driving the price up for others.
 
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