How much do you pay for small bales of hay?

Cinnamontoast

Cinnamontoast

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And would you mind mentioning whether you have to buy it from the YO, whether it's bought in by you or someone else and is it decent quality? Also, please mention vague area eg South East, near London etc. Thanks!

If you're on a yard which produces its own hay/Haylage, are you allowed to but off yard?
 
South West, Gloucestershire - £3.50 for my guy but going around here is usually about £4 - £4.50.

Very good quality. Usually bring in ourselves but go it delivered last year. Only has to chuck a few bales couple years back because we ran out of storage and had to store under tarp - went mouldy.
 
£3.50, bought in buy me, not delivered, Midlothian. Been using the guy for 5 years, never had to chuck a bale and he lowered his price after a good harvest last year.


eta prices in my area run from £3 per bale from field to £5/6 per bale.
 
£3.75 delivered by local farmer. Good quality hay. Just paid him £3.50 for the last load as he brought it straight from the field and saved him storing it. I'm in devon.
 
When I was on DIY in herts last year I was paying £5 per bale the quality was variable sometimes YO had to send it back when lots of horses would not eat it and sometimes it was quite dusty. I am now on a different yard on part livery and pony is on the "meal deal" where hay and feed is included and it is very good quality no dust and judging by the speed which he eats it very tasty too. They have the big bale hay.

The yard which I was first on which was in London I paid 7.50 for a bale of hay and that was nearly 8 years ago and he would not eat it so quality was very poor. They also had big bale hay for the RS ponies and in the end he had to have that.
 
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West Yorks, just today I bought 4 small bales of last year's hay to use immediately, as our usual supplier can't get here until possibly Tuesday and we are feeding hay all yr round. We were offered these bales at £4.50 last summer but decided to continue to get big bales for £35 each, which works out much cheaper, we have them delivered, one or two per week. The small bales were made by a neighbour while the big bales are made and delivered by a YO/farmer who makes and sells a lot of hay/haylage as his main business. I think small bales are on offer at£3.50 this yr.
 
I was paying £5 a bail last winter after I moved to a new place (before a friend brought it all and I paid her weekly for half of what was used I think she paid £2.50 a bail) luckily I only bought 4 bails as he was in 9 acres by himself and he wasted a good bail cause it got wet and refused to eat it. This year I will either get the contact off of my YO or get her to order me some when she does hers £40 for a huge square bail which is the equivalent of 12 small ones - Berkshire
 
I would never pay over £3. £2.50 if im buying bulk. I always get good quality hay, but last years. I buy off my neighbour when i need to, but mostly i have a look around on gumtree.
 
I can get it from the yard for £4.50 for really big small bales however hay is included in my livery so I only very rarely go over my allowance.

On a private yard about 18 months/2 years ago when I had to buy it in we paid paid £3.50 for OK ish stuff but then paid £4.00 for really nice stuff which worked out cheaper in the long run as the horses did better on it. That's in East Herts.

Whenever I've been on yards that produces hay or haylage it's been included. They wouldn't really have minded if I bought some in but they wouldn't have given me much space for storage or discounted my livery so you wouldn't really.
 
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I think we are selling for £4 but not sure. We have a livery yard and customers must buy from us. This is the policy of all farm based livery yards within a 5 mile radius of us.
 
equi said:
I would never pay over £3. £2.50 if im buying bulk. I always get good quality hay, but last years. I buy off my neighbour when i need to, but mostly i have a look around on gumtree.
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How can you guarantee the quality and it being ragwort-free if you get it from a random on gumtree?

We pay £4/bale delivered and stacked, South East. It's generally good quality, you get the odd batch of dusty hay but at this time of year it's superb.
 
North Yorks here.
We charge liveries £3 per bale for our home-grown meadow hay. If any of the bales are looking a bit worse for wear (but still edible!), we'll offer them at £1 for liveries to pop in the field if they want to.
 
cinnamontoast said:
And would you mind mentioning whether you have to buy it from the YO, whether it's bought in by you or someone else and is it decent quality? Also, please mention vague area eg South East, near London etc. Thanks!

If you're on a yard which produces its own hay/Haylage, are you allowed to but off yard?
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Ours are £ 5 per bale and owners can buy it from me or somewhere else.
 
NW Surrey, delivered in & stacked for £3.50 a bale direct from the field.
If later in winter, then £5 per bale delivered & stacked, direct from farmers barn.
Been using same farmer for yrs (inc for muck heap, harrowing & rolling), never usually get a manky bale, but if I do then he will swap it :)
 
Does everyone's suppliers stack it for them? We're going to have to change this year and our previous suppliers stacked it all. We get about 100 bales & I can't do it myself!
 
I'm in North Yorkshire, I pay £4 a bale delivered and stacked. I always help stack it though as it's kind of free delivery- the farmer charges £4 a bale if you collect it too.
 
£2.50 delivered last year's hay beautifully stored and not dusty. I like to get his 2 year old hay if I can as it is still lovely and my pony is laminitic. I soak it for 12 hours anyway but not for dust as it is great. I am in Sussex. My friend in a posher part of Sussex pays £5-6 a bale for vastly inferior hay.
 
Last year I was at livery, North Staffs area.
Exceptionally good, small bale, meadow hay was £2.50 a bale. This was direct from a local farmer who would deliver, unload and stack with help from YO, me or another livery. YO did not mark the hay up and you could buy your own if you wanted to.
On my own place now & using big bales atm.
 
South Wales/Herefordshire/Glos border
Got horses at home now, and hay was £2 bale from local retired farmer :) it's lovely stuff, I had it last year too. Sadly he only does it for pocket money so hasn't got enough to last me as I feed hay all year round. We collect and stack ourselves.

I will top up with big bales that are equivalent of £3.50 a small bale.

I've always been on yards where I could get my own in from outside, but tbh the hassle factor has meant I've always bought off YO in the past. There isn't usually sufficient storage on DIY yards to benefit from bulk buying yourself.
 
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