If these bad summers continued, what would you pay for top quality hay?

[ed&arch]

If a company were too devise a machine to mechanically dry grass, to produce hay of a very high standard, i.e-Canadian hay standard ( better than normal UK hay) what would we all be prepared to pay for it? Would we be prepared to pay £8-£10 per conventional bale?

 

[Tinsel Town]

Do u mean a normal small bale? And no unless there was nothing else I wouldn't be paying £8-10 for a small bale!

 

[fidleyspromise]

No, I wouldn't pay more than a tops of £6 - especially as I buy big bale = £25.
I don't need top quality hay as I have natives, so I want good quality stuff but nothing that will put drastic weight on.

 

[guido16]

If it got that bad, I would be looking for an alternative to hay altogether. In saying that, I use haylage.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

No, I flaming wouldn't. Already paying too much for the hay mine are getting now.
The climate in the Uk has been unusual this year, so, on that basis, I don't think farmers will be investing in expensive machinery to make hay for their livestock -or is this higher price just for anything with the equine prefix ?

 

[Littlelegs]

No way. I don't want top quality hay anyway, I prefer late cut hay so I can feed it ad-lib. And very wet years like this, most people just make haylage instead.

 

[mturnbull]

I wouldn't pay it for hay but if you find a machine which will dry the ground if we get another summer like this you can have anything you like!

 

[ed&arch]

Bump

 

[scewal]

No i wouldn't pay that amount for hay. My current supplier still has a massive stock. I pay £30 for the huge bales. Quality of the hay is super.

 

[Elsiecat]

I feed ad-lib so I wouldn't want something too 'rich'. But that aside no I wouldn't pay 8-10. If it came to that I'd sell the horses. 6 pounds absolute maximum.

 

[Hippona]

No. There is no shortage....just scaremongering. Either soak if its a bit dusty or feed haylage if desperate. That said id rather soak hay and feed it adlib to mine rather than haylage.

 

[amandap]

I'd rather growers concentrated on making low sugar hay or good quality haylage. I pay 35 euro a round bale but would pay 40 for guaranteed (tested) low sugar and starch hay.
I have found that even 'good quality' hay can be lethal for sugar sensitive horses. There are a lot of sugar sensitive horses, in fact, I believe they all are to varying degree.

 

[cambrica]

After the worry of whether we would have any hay/straw earlier this year. When it was finally cut we have had the best quality hay and straw that I've seen in years. Plenty of it too. Our farmer lowered the price as the year before we had good quality but the quantity they baled was low.

 

[Wagtail]

I only feed haylage. I do pay over £8 for 22kg high fibre horsehage for my laminitic mare, but couldn't afford that much for all the horses. However, if these summers continue, even good quality haylage will be scarce and so yes, I would pay up to £8 for a small bale of excellent quality hay. Livery prices would have to go up though.

 

[gryff]

We have paid up to £8.50 a small bale here in south west Wales, not this year, but last year. If it's all you can get, you have to pay it.

 

[Polos Mum]

If the weather was really that bad I suspect the ceiling price for hay would be equal to the cost of shipping it in from Canada (or equivalent)
My big horse has a whole bale a day (we make our own) if it was really £10 a bale I'd have to seriously consider whether we could keep them or not and I think this would tip a lot of other people over the edge.
People would have to open their minds to alternatives, just straw (as they feed in lots of overseas countries) or speedibeet / other forage replacers in full

 

[Toast]

Absolutely not. Just as we wont be paying the £40 that my mums yo has quoted her for big bale hay.

 

[honetpot]

The farmer I get my hay from has a peice of kit that cost him £2000, it senses the moisture in the hay as it is baled and dries it as needed. He can dry out grass up to 20% moisture and is able to bale when other can not. He is charging me £3.25 a bale delivered, its not green but is least dusty hay I have ever had.

 

[canteron]

The farmer I get my hay from has a peice of kit that cost him £2000, it senses the moisture in the hay as it is baled and dries it as needed. He can dry out grass up to 20% moisture and is able to bale when other can not. He is charging me £3.25 a bale delivered, its not green but is least dusty hay I have ever had.

I wouldn't like it but would end up paying what I had too. I guess that as hay becomes more of a crop and less of a side product of cattle grazing, then machinery like this will become more widely used.

This year I saw so many fields with ragwort that got turned into hay that I am paying a premium price already as I will only buy from places that I know are ragwort free.

 

[AppyHacker]

If these bad summers continue...We will be taking an earlier early retirement to Portugal

 

[Theocat]

If the weather was really that bad I suspect the ceiling price for hay would be equal to the cost of shipping it in from Canada (or equivalent)
My big horse has a whole bale a day (we make our own) if it was really £10 a bale I'd have to seriously consider whether we could keep them or not and I think this would tip a lot of other people over the edge.
People would have to open their minds to alternatives, just straw (as they feed in lots of overseas countries) or speedibeet / other forage replacers in full

Agree.

I'm in the very lucky position where I could cut back on other horse costs to afford hay at those sort of rates (cut back on lessons, get a sharer, switch to cheaper livery etc) if I had to, but it's perfectly possible we could see costs rocket if we had a couple of stinking years and everything had to be imported, and I suspect it could push a lot of owners over the edge. I have no idea what imported hay costs, but it can't be cheap ...

 

[Skippys Mum]

Does anyone else remember maybe 20 odd years ago when there was no hay to be had and it all had to be shipped in from Canada? I seem to remember it being £4 a bale back then! I dont really think that hay has increased a great deal in price over the years.

 

[Suelin]

Imported hay was quoted to me at £14 + delivery per small bale last season. It would be a question of whether one would have to pay that much at the end of the day. If there is no alternative what choice would one have?

 

[lee1984]

Im paying 36euro for big round bale, its not really the best of hay but better then other suppliers round here.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Imported hay was quoted to me at £14 + delivery per small bale last season. It would be a question of whether one would have to pay that much at the end of the day. If there is no alternative what choice would one have?

I think at those prices a lot of people would be feeding it mixed with straw - I use oat straw to supplement hay supplies and the horses like it (altho this years harvest was terrible so it is more bedding quality and pick bits out than feed in haynets this year).

Not easy to find oat straw but with the level of work most horses have it could make up to 50% of the forage and providing its balanced nutritionally and horse doesnt have issues with teeth/swallowing/colic etc then it generally works well.

I pay £2 a bale for oat straw if I collect it, £3 for hay. Neither are as nice as the beautiful hay we make ourselves but a lot of that never got baled this year due to the weather....

 

[maisie06]

I don't need top quality hay for my lot! I use oat straw if hay is short or even beet and grass nuts. I think we in the UK have an over reliance on hay - look at other countries, they cope without and have healthy horses!! I think a realistic price is going to be £6 - £7 per small bale in a bad year. Some horse owners need to realise hay is a nightmare crop to deal with and bloody hard work, not to mention fuel to run the machinery is going up and up.

 

[windand rain]

No I couldnt pay more than I am at the minute so the ponies would have to go

 

[maisie06]

Another thing that surprises me is with an obesity epidemic amongst the equine population there are horses and ponies being fed ad-lib hay that simply do not need that amount of food, far better to weigh the forage and make the animal work for it either via small holed trickle nets or if able to splitting the ration over several top ups.

I can understand ad-lib for hard working horse or poor doers - but some of the fatties seen stuffing away on top quality hay or haylage is, ummm "interesting" Why not bulk out with straw??

Also the amount of hay simply wasted and trampled into paddocks is criminal.

No offence meant, just my observations.

 

[amage]

Hay driers already exist. You have to remember they do t make crap hay good, it just makes it dry!!! We buy in Canadian hay, €500 a tonne which is €25 per bale. The bales are heavy....I couldn't come close to lifting one and the sections are very small, you feed less of it than conventional hay, a bale does one of ours about a week, we feed it 4 times per day plus turnout. I won't feed it to the broodmare though.....far too high in nitrates!

 

[TeamChaser]

Have found this winter challenging in terms of hay supplies. Initially horses would just not eat hay we had - looked and smelt fine but both would hardly touch it. Changed to haylage, initial batch quite wet which basically went straight through them! Now have drier haylage which they're eating and tummies have settled. Not turning out at moment so they have access to ad lib haylage. Have had one of my boys for 10 years and the other for 2 and a half and have never struggled so much to keep weight on in winter which I can only assume is due to poorer quality forage. They are in fairly hard work (fit for hunting and team chasing) but didn't need much hard feed last winter as had ad lib good quality haylage which they did fine on. This winter, I'm finding they're having to have a lot more hard feed to maintain weight and condition. I'm hoping the most recent supply of haylage which seems to suit them better will keep the weight on better so I can cut down hard feed a little


In short, I've had to change forage twice in order to get something decent that suits them so guess I would pay what I had to pay to get this and have healthy horses. As someone else said, would have to cut back on other stuff to afford it. Praying for a decent summer though so I don't have this hassle next year!!