Prep suggestions for what might be a hard winter ahead.

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Sandstone1

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Thought it might be a idea for suggestions of how to prep for what could be a hard winter ahead regarding hay being in short supply. Any ideas of how to mitigate hay shortage etc.
 
Got as much haylage in as I can store, it was sufficient last year but won't be in a hard winter.
I track my summer grazing and trying to keep an area ungrazed which I will use for early turnout when winter grazing runs out.
Got extra topspec in the August sale.
Always keep an eye out for rugs in tack sales as I have a wrecker.
 
I think the most sensible thing to do is to weigh your hay. Calculate how much your horse actually needs and weigh the hay to be really accurate with this and avoid waste.
A lot of fodder ends up wasted, so you may be able to get it to go 20% further by doing this.
And if you can buy it in now then do.
 
Sanversera said:
Put extra money away now incase prices go up.
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It is a given that forage prices will go up in the majority of the country and even in regions with a decent crop and availability to sell the price will have to rocket. Hay is coming into the midlands from Wales at the moment, small bale at £7.50 plus. Anything with crop in it will shoot up, bread. cereal, beer etc. Root veg is much smaller than normal too.

Hopefully rain through September will push some grazing through that will provide some feeding into the autumn for some owners. In my area the feed merchants are limiting the number of small bale they will allow a customer to buy, these will be the single horse/pony owners that don't have a long term relationship with contractors. I use Top Spec zero chaff for my tricky to feed mare and tried to buy a couple of bags yesterday. Out of stock at 3 of the feed merchants, apparently there has been a run on it. Plenty of the alfalfa chops available, but I don't use anything with alfalfa in.

If you have space and can source hay it needs to come into the barn. Early made haylage might be easier to buy but won't hang about in the big bales. I can see some welfare issues in mid winter if not before, especially with ponies on the bare paddocks now that won't be moved to give the ground chance to recover.
 
If space is short could get a few bags of grass nuts/beet pulp/hay blocks - as an emergency back up.
My feeling is that the prices are only going to go up so if you horse is ok with them it’s not a bad investment (lots of feed companies are offering advice).
The barley straw this year is comparatively fine and sweet - so more digestible, but I know some companies don’t recommend as they think it carries pesticide residue.
 
I'm doing extra shifts to bank a bit of extra cash.

I am thankful that summers are relatively light cost-wise - I'm using just over a bale of hay a week, whereas in winter I am easily on 3, sometimes 4 bales.
 
My regular hay supplier told me last month that they would only be able to supply me with hay until Christmas but yesterday when they delivered two large rounds (I use one a week) they advised that I can only have a another 2 !

Fortunately I had been able to source some haylage and large bale hay to get me through from Christmas to spring after my first conversation and spoke to the new hay supplier yesterday to see if I could have some more hay and he thinks it will be OK.
 
Gloi said:
Buy hay from up north. We had a good year.
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I think everyone is catching onto this, A dealer near us is taking trips across the channel bringing lorry loads of hay back. I dread to think what he will be selling those out at.
I'm ok for hay but I am still going to try and be a bit more careful this year. I waste a lot and that is stupid when there is a shortage.
 
A friend has just jumped on a delivery from Scotland to Essex. She can't store much but they were doing a big delivery so happy to throw some small bales on for her. She said the cost wasn't too bad.

My hay store runs out at Xmas so I'll have to see what's around from Nov onwards.

I'm prepared for opening up the full 6.5 acres from Jan if needed. Won't do the summer fields any good (underground springs make them very wet) but it'll be extra fodder to keep hay volumes down.

Hoping for a benign winter but it'll probably be the beast from the east .....
 
It's raining and the grass is growing. But autumn has definitely arrived. Although it's an upfront outlay I'm glad I bought rubber mats a few years ago. Use much less bedding now and that's a saving .
 
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