So the hay and haylage crop is nearly in,how many of you have had a big jolt about th

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Well I'm down by 123 bales this summer and have been told hay in this area going for £8 per small bale. Bad winter and hot and dry summer, so grass has disappeared and I'm still feeding my 4 horses a large shortfeed to keep their weight on twice a day. (Don't want the RSPCA on my back). So how are others coping this summer and for the winter.
 
Luckily worm inflates just looking at grass (or that rubbish brown stuff masquerading as grass atm) but can't imagine how anybody with poor doers is coping
 
Got plenty enough grazing to go around here, plus back up grazing in winter if needed.
Can always get haylage whenever, though is extortionate in prices [£40 bale]. Got hay ourselves this summer for any that stay in overnight and the little pony in the starvation paddock to eat.
Over winter, all ours are on more hard feed than haylage as are out hunting most the time.
 
YO has just finished making our hay, it looks pretty good this year!

We have loads of grass at our yard - Ellie is knee deep in places in her field, and it's only about 1/2 acre. Everyone is moaning about too much grass, as opposed to not enough! And the horses certainly all look.....ahem....'well' :D
 
Our yard produces its own haylage and I was asking the YO the other day what the crop was like this time. It seems we have got a similar amount per acre to last year (which wasn't an excessive amount), but they rested and cut an extra field this year so got more in total, if that makes sense. Have to say it makes such a difference being on a yard when they cut their own. Quality is good, price doesn't fluctuate and none of this ringing round in the panic when supplies dry up.
 
The place I get my hay from usually cuts 10,000 bales I popped in yesterday and they had finished cutting and have only got 5,500. Out of that, they have already sold 2,500 bales to a hay supplier and he is coming back for more. So thats my day planned tomorrow.
 
We have made half our hay so far and we usually have twice the amount of bales so yeild is very low, but the quality is excellent.

I have been told off by the OH for letting some friends have it too cheap as he is worried the he is making it at a loss.

I'm not sure how much we will be able to charge for it this winter - the last we struggled to sell it at £3 a bale, any less and OH will have done all the work for nothing.
 
Where we are, I would think the quality is going to be excellent on the whole, as conditions for baleing have been good this month.

Although I don't think many people will get a second August cut though if this heatwave continues, so I can see that we are going to be short again :(
 
Marmalade76 tell your OH to hang on for awhile, before selling, unless you have a storage problem. My hay is good but as I have said 120 odd bales short from last year and I had to buy in late May-June this year. I'm on sandy soil, so this hot weather has burnt off any grass I had. Did fertilise, but no rain at the right time. May have to reseed next year.
 
You might be importing from Scotland, our grass is waist high and weve just had about 10 days of hot dry weather, plenty of hay coming in. Unlike last year when it was Sept before the miserable sodden remnants were gathered in.
 
Our yield was down too, although we didnt fertilise this year so hard to directly compare. Have heard from lots of people that yield is way down because of the cold spell earlier in the year the grass didnt start growing until later.
 
190 last year 110 this, direct comparison, cut at the same time.

thankfully we sold 80 bales last year so will be ok with that.

I know several who normally find it a hassle to make hay but have decide to this year, and several farmers that are going to try and cut again late aug/september at least for silage to get enough forage.
 
johnrobert said:
Well I'm down by 123 bales this summer and have been told hay in this area going for £8 per small bale. Bad winter and hot and dry summer, so grass has disappeared and I'm still feeding my 4 horses a large shortfeed to keep their weight on twice a day. (Don't want the RSPCA on my back). So how are others coping this summer and for the winter.
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Oh I must have missed july august and september.... so no one got a second cut in then !!!! oh well too wet to make hay last year this year too dry!!! ... seasons vary as do yields some years better some not so good .. some farmers have lucky years depending where they farm good year for some bad for others.. lets see where we are in the autum shall we folks????
 
I am down to my last 2 bales of hay from last year and have been mixing haylage in the make it last. We normally pay £2.50 a bale off the field and £3 or £3.50 delivered, the hay from this year will be about £5 a bale apparently and we are going to have a big shortage in our area, no rain has put paid to good crops. I think its going to be an expensive year :rolleyes:
 
Yields are very down around here, and we have been shafted by our normal suppliers and are 100 bales down on what we need. Thankfully we had already negotiated a price of £2.50 off the field for 200 bales, but will prob have to pay around £4 for the other 100 we need. Not sure where you are John, but £8 per bale is ridiculous. It seems to be only the south that is having problems, Staffs and Shrops seem to be OK, and further north from what I gather, but happy to be corrected :)
 
Our YO makes his own,has no shortage this year in fact should have heaps as he never made silage as no cows this year.BUT what worries me if there is a shortage in England tend to use it to put prices up here so fingers crossed its not too bad.
 
I've got a ridiculous amount of grass on my field (that my horses aren't allowed :rolleyes:) and I want to cut it for hay, but can't find anyone to do it. Even with the prices going through the roof most people I know have quit baling as they say there's no money in it!
 
Puppy I've no idea where you are but am sure if within 5 miles or so of here I'm sure I can persuade OH to trade cut & bailing for some bales!

We just got our last in, and when you consider we didn't cut the paddock the ponies are in or the neighbour's (both too dry not enough grass) we've approx half last year's number of bales and the quality is superb. OH has just gone back out to fertilise as rain is forecast for Friday (he's working late tomorrow so has to be done today), and is hopeful if we have a damper July / August we might get a 2nd cut. Last year we didn't cut till September as he couldn't get the dry days off work in June. We then sold most of our hay at £2 a bale, thinking we'd not get ponies till this spring, unfortunately they found us sooner so we had to buy about 80 bales in which is sooo annoying!

I have a friend in Herefordshire who has a hay supplier in his village where I can pay £2 a bale, my car (aka tardis) will fit at least 10-12 bales, the difference in price to here (£4.25-4.50/bale will pay for my trip down to see him. I've also a plan to talk to the sheep farmer across the road, he's not cut yet but he has less sheep now, and more fields of grass, so will see if we can buy some from him I think. I also have him and another chap with a good big field I'm going to ask about winter grazing, which I could share with a lady up the road who has similar problems to us regarding not enough grass if not enough rain.

Also have 2 or 3 good hay suppliers around who we know tend not to run out albeit pricey, so all in all I don't think we'll be short but might have to pay ££ for it. I'll know by the end of January if/ how much extra we'll need, as we rarely get snow laying after then.

So all in all I don't think we'll run short here. (hopes not famous last words!)
 
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The yield is down this year for us, last year off one particular field we got 540 bales, this year only 305.
Luckily we have acquired more land to cut this year so have made up most of the the shortfall all bar 60 bales but doesn't help when the contractor has put his prices up by 1/3rd

The quality is excellent as it was got without a drop of rain but a pity there isnt more of it.

The contractor has said that everywhere he cuts is down by alot this year.

I think there will be some excellent hay about but will be scarce in numbers.
 
Thanks, Dubsie. :) That's very kind of you, but I'm in Cambridge, so a fair bit more than 5 miles away from you :(

It's such a pain cause my old girl has cushings and so can't be allowed on the grass, but also therefore requires alternative forage all year round now. Plus, it would really help the field if it was cut. It was fertalised at the most perfect time, mid April, and is beautiful grass. It will be such a waste if I can't get it baled. Doh!
 
Well I've seen hay for sale in the south Cheshire area
for £1.50 per bale collected off the field and weed free.
Luckily I've still got 100 bales from last year.
 
puppy can you put a note up in your local ag merchants? I can't believe noone would have it!

I know we are having increasing trouble getting hold of someone with a small baler (well the lad who mows and turns it for us is) because many find they just aren't worth keeping working.
 
Got the first 100 bales of the first cut delivered today. Another 70 coming tomorrow. Beautiful hay, but we ordered 250, and the 80 we will be short will come from the 2nd cut if we are lucky. Supplier has had to cut everybody's order to 70% as we have all ordered more than usual (unsurprisingly!) and the yields are lower. Fortunate that we have always been loyal to supplier and she supplies only 8 people (including us) and makes sure we all get something. We have the small square bales - £3.35 delivered. It would have been £2.50 off the field but too much hassle - they help us to unload & stack them all when they deliver - they don't leave until the job is done!
 
We took our first cut some time ago and yields were down however this has happened lots of times to us over the years. Growth since taking the first cut is well up on last year though so we expect a good second cut. We made more than enough in our first cut to see us through though so we are not worried about what we get later in the year.
 
Yes, my problem is that I really need someone with a small baler, else I can't get it into my current storage area. I'm going to ask at 2 local feed stores tomorrow, I have a couple of local names that I'm hoping to catch at home to ask, but if all else fails I might have to beg some other storage room and see if I can get someone with a large baler.

It's only a couple of acres, so for most it's not worth their while, but it would be a mega handy bit of hay to have (the old girl has hayalge, but since Be is retired I can't give her 100% haylage so after years of just haylage I have had to start buying plain hay again now), not to mention that the field would benefit. Plus then I can move both girls off their starvation paddocks and get them sprayed, fertilised and rested...
 
yup thats our issue too, our storage is a double garage really, we can get 7 round bales in just so can't store enough, much easier when we can stack it to the roof. The lad that does ours was just found by asking about really as he had some small kit, though he had to do some serious networking the night before he baled it to find a baler (his broke last year and he cant fix it!)
 
hay crop in warks is excellent so far!!! i have bought my 3000 bales which should see me through! he who panics gets in trouble first, yes june hay is generally the best but july hay is still very good if made at right time! my own comes in around 90 p per bale and i buy off the field for 1.50, and buy the stored off site off the field at £2 to 2.5 delivered as req!!! i do think some of you are being ripped off, but you have to buy it and pay for it now if you dont want to pay mega prices in jan/feb/march!
 
The farmer I get my hay off said the grass was coming very late (if at all) and his hay to quote him "isn't making". I think what he meant by that was that the grass was of lesser quantity & at a younger stage of growth than it should have been for the time of year. My farrier reports having to pay £5 for a standard sized bale of hay whereas I was paying £2.50 through the winter. I have no grass on my field and am feeding hay plus hard feed once a day (only the Welsh B is holding his weight), the paddock that has been resting for 2 weeks has barely grown an inch so by the end of this month I am shifting them all to my mother's field to allow this one some time to recover. Bring on the rain I say, not too much but just enough to spur some growth in my grass!!
 
We have our first cut in, the whole pathetic 450 small bales... We cut 13 acres of a first lay Italian Ryegrass.
Some rain is forecast for next week, so we are going to fertilise the 13 acres like mad and pray for good second cut. Just in case we are also removing sheep from another 6 acres to add that to the second cut.
If it grows well and then there is some nice dry weather in early September to cut it and bale it, we should be OK, if not... well, we'll worry about it when we get there, but probably just spend fortune on whatever forage we can get.
Some horse paddocks are decent enough, cows and sheep have just about enough, but it's all burning out in the sun.
 
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