What will you do if there is a hay shortage this year??

Our hay went up to £6.50 a bale this winter so we fed less hay with speedibeet and hi-fi lite as a hay replacer. Horses loved it, maintained weight without piling on and it worked out much cheaper as well.
 
I will be mixing hay or haylage with oat straw. I will also feed fast fibre and hi fi! I will not be bringing them in until begin of November (begin of Oct last year). They will go out early at 6 am and I will be bringing them in later, probably around 6pm. We are lucky that we have loads of grass in the winter so will making the Most of that unless of course it snows again!
 
Jane_Lou said:
Our hay went up to £6.50 a bale this winter so we fed less hay with speedibeet and hi-fi lite as a hay replacer. Horses loved it, maintained weight without piling on and it worked out much cheaper as well.
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....does it actually work out cheaper to feed hi-fi lite than hay??(.....serious question!?)....A bag of hi-fi lite must be nearly as much as a bale of hay, if not more, and I would have thought, to feed it as a partial hay replacer, you would have to feed a fair bit of it??
 
Weezy said:
Good Lord, and people were paying that?!
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yep, and in some cases, it was hay bought cheaply from further north and then sold on at profit to us Southern mugs. Still apparently thats supply and demand and NOT just greed. (small bale hay bought at £3 a bale and then sold on at £7)

In answer to the original poster, Im hoping to buy in from across the country and have it hauled to mine. It works at at £5 per big bale of haylage to get it artic'd in. Which when the haylage is only £35 a bale makes more sense than buying from local companies who want £45 plus delivery. Only draw back is I need to take it all at once but its worth it to save £500 this year in haylage costs.
 
My supplier last year was only bringing me 12 large bales of haylage at a time and in the snow he could not get here so I had to get some from a local farmer which was a lot better. organic and a bit more expensive! However because of the quality and the fact there was no wastage I have just arranged to have all my hay/haylage from him.
 
to those thinking about using straw, the large hay & straw merchants are concerned that straw will be as lacking as hay will be this year :(

I've shopped for good last yrs hay from locals who were clearing out barns back in March & early April (when it was very hot & sunny) and it was going for about £4-5 a bale collected (as compared with £7.95 delivered from feed merchant) so have just enough to cover the winter on basic rations, if I have to fall back on it.
Otherwise, am keeping 40% of grazing back too, just in case......
 
Maisy said:
....does it actually work out cheaper to feed hi-fi lite than hay??(.....serious question!?)....A bag of hi-fi lite must be nearly as much as a bale of hay, if not more, and I would have thought, to feed it as a partial hay replacer, you would have to feed a fair bit of it??
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It's about £11 for a 20kg bag so actually works out more expensive than hay.
S :D
 
Well i am hoping it wont be a problem for me. I spoke to the farmer i clean for yesterday and he assured me not to worry and he will make sure i have enough for my neddies.:)
But I have heard that prices will be going up again the year considerably!
It's just awful! No wonder the rescue centres and jammed full!
When will it all end!
Kate x
 
What I did last year! - oat straw as a long fibre for them to pick through and keep them occupied, then, good old fashioned sugar beet, low energy pony nuts and hifi in a trug as the nutritious bit! - all of mine looked very well on this through a long and cold winter and I for one will not be worried by a lack of hay as it's perfectly easy to get by without it! After all, there are some countries where hay is unheard of and if we keep weather like this which doesn't suit hay production, we may all have to think outside the box and look at alternatives!
Most feed manufacturers make a hay replacer of sorts anyway, albeit they are very expensive.
One of my lot hasn't any teeth to speak of anyway, so she doesn't get anything but her porridge!!
 
Unfortunately the only way it will end is by us having lots of rain! I am in Norfolk and until very recently we hadn't had rain for months, there is nothing anyone can do... It has been so dry and the ground has been rock solid - thankfully we have had rain for the past day and a half in spurts so obviously my dancing worked!!!
 
Well I have lots of grazing; 6 acres to last my two ponies all winter :) My 4 acres paddock will be cut for hay in July and I sell it to my neighbour ( its not been cut since last August and is currently up to my waist! )

I probably only use one small bale of hay a week if that.

I may do some liveries this winter if anyone around south Leics area is interested, I have more than enough!
 
I'm hoping we'll manage to find enough, even if we have to pay a lot for it, and if required then we will have to give more bucket feeds. I work where the horses are so if necessary can go out several times a day.
 
Maisy said:
....does it actually work out cheaper to feed hi-fi lite than hay??(.....serious question!?)....A bag of hi-fi lite must be nearly as much as a bale of hay, if not more, and I would have thought, to feed it as a partial hay replacer, you would have to feed a fair bit of it??
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We fed speedibeet with a double handful of Hi-Fi mixed through, so mainly speedibeet, the speedibeet lasted 10 day between 3 small horses and a sack of hi-fi about 3 weeks per horse. When you are only getting 3 12lb haynets out of a bale of hay costing £6.50, yes it saves money. Ok ours are all very good doers so they were not on ad-lib hay (so shoot me!) and we had lots of grass over winter as well which helped.
 
I'll be resorting to hay replacers too, so plenty of Hi-Fi, unmollassed beet, fast fibre etc. I've tried feeding oat straw in the past but none of it got eaten, even with hungry horses and I ended up using it as bedding. Don't know whether it had been sprayed with anything that affected it, but I don't fancy feeding it again.
 
We don't have hay here, and obviously we have it very dry. Round here they grow alfalfa and cut and dry this for hay, so this is what mine have been having all their lives. It grows really quickly even with very little water, and generally the local farmers get 4 cuts a year from it. Maybe farmers in the UK should begin considering this....
 
I have heard from more than a couple of different sources that hay this coming Autumn/Winter is expected to go up to 12GBP a small bale :eek:

My hay is included in my part livery fee so even though I dont buy it myself I am sure I will see a rise in my livery fee sooner or later due to the hay situation.

Sadiemay
 
You guys that are feeding speedi beet etc and hi fi what amounts roughly do you use. I've aways been able to get hold of hay as mums partner is our supplier but he doesn't know if he will have enough this year to feed his cattle let alone sell to us. Have 2 that i could put on haylage but my old man wont touch it so looking at alternatives in case. Hoping though if he does get hay in we'll be at the top of his list!

xx
 
For now, we're OK and horse can all be out 24/7 if wanted. Mine's not eating when he comes in during the day, just sleeping. Come the winter, tho, we'll be screwed if we don't source some. YO bales his own and says there is none growing due to total lack of rain until yesterday and he falied epically to get more in when he could because he's not very bright and just buries his head in the sand. Facepalm. :mad:

If he doesn't sort it out, I may leave. Not just the hay situation, lots of other reasons.
 
Becca-84 said:
We don't have hay here, and obviously we have it very dry. Round here they grow alfalfa and cut and dry this for hay, so this is what mine have been having all their lives. It grows really quickly even with very little water, and generally the local farmers get 4 cuts a year from it. Maybe farmers in the UK should begin considering this....
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I asked a local farmer this as Alfalfa/Lucerne is grown locally but all goes to Dengie etc.

Apparently we don't have dry enough weather to rely on to dry the long Alfalfa needed for bales. In this country it's cut/harvested shorter & goes to driers before being processed for the feed companies.

I think simple systems can supply it in bales but it's much more expensive than hay & imported I think.
 
Supertrooper said:
Just curious as to what people are thinking they'll feed xx
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I think I'll cry and then pay whatever it costs to get my supplies in. My hay fields look pathetic, but the grass has gone to seed, so I need to cut it anyway next week and then hope that I can get a second cut in August...
We've cut the number of cattle this year and hope for the best.
 
martlin said:
I think I'll cry and then pay whatever it costs to get my supplies in. My hay fields look pathetic, but the grass has gone to seed, so I need to cut it anyway next week and then hope that I can get a second cut in August...
We've cut the number of cattle this year and hope for the best.
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My hayfield (all 2 acres!) looks like a slightly overgrown lawn:(

As you say, it's gone to seed, but didn't realise it would have to be cut so soon! The weather isn't looking great for cutting & drying either now.
 
I'm hoping, that as last year we'll just get by for hay - it was more expensive last year (diesel prices don't help!) but wasn't as bad up here as it was in the south.

I wouldn't be able to feed mine oat straw as a replacer - they had it once as bedding, fatty nibbled it and just went mental! :eek:
 
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