What are hay prices like in the UK?

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TrueColours

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27 December 2008
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Location
Wilsonville, Ontario. Canada
www.truecoloursfarm.com
My husband listens to a lot of PodCasts on his way to/from work and he likes listening to the farming related ones

According to him, hay and straw along with bedding is in very short supply over there due to the terrible weather you encountered in 2008

We are paying CAD $4.25 for a 60 lb bale of nice alfalfa or timothy/alfalfa mix which would equate to about GBP 2.30 or so

What are your hay prices like over there right now?
 
We pay £3.50 for a small rectangular bale - sorry have no idea of the weight! the ones that are about 1m long by 0.3m wide ish. Its just meadow hay, and most bales are pretty good quality - good enough quality for our greedy pigs anyway!
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Used to be £2.50 last year I think
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There are a few companies offering quality Canadian hay for "Florida prices" £8-£10 a bale. The question would be how much are they selling at that price since people who want high quality forage here also have the option of haylage, which is more expensive than hay but I would guess still cheaper than imported hay. I'm not exactly sure of current import and customs costs with exchange but having just imported a horse to the UK, I'd doubt it's negligible!
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I did look into this when I came, for my commercial hay producing Canadian friends and we decided the best/only real option would be to work with a supplier here, rather than to try to set up independent distribution, and to work in relatively large scale.

Feeding horses is not wildly different here, obviously, but there are differences which would impact on a feed based business. A big issue for most people here is storage - very few people have anything like the onsite storage standard in Canada. There is also the fact that many people have at least some year round grazing, which may not have much nutrition in it this time of year but reduces the need for pasture hay. Also - and please, no one take offence - many people are used to different quality standards here. I'm not saying the hay isn't just fine to feed, but I have certainly seen good yards here feeding hay that would be a hard sell in Canada, just because of what people are used to. But the people that feed it are used to it, have developed systems for feeding it, and would not necessarily see a need to change.

Sorry, not really to the question, but I think I know where you're going with this . . .
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I didnt find this years weather to be bad at all? Last year was horrific and hay quality was crud. But this year, our hay is excellent. We buy from our next door neighbour who makes it purely for us and a couple more horsey folk. We help bring it all in so get it at a reduced rate - I think we pay £2 a (small square) bale.
 
In a word not as good as they should be!

We are selling retail small bales at £2.50 or some super dooper June hay at £3. To merchants we are still only getting £40/t which is around £1.50 per bale (the advantage being getting the bays shifted rather than having lots of people coming or making deliveries)

Large bale (mini hesstons) are around £14, but again only £40/t
 
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