2022 Hay prices

[Obsidian_Fire]

@Calvincrowe

My cost per ton (roughly 17 bales, three string orchard) went from $360/ton picked up at the hay sheds to $480/ton.

I am budgeting for $600/ton, per my conversation with hay guy. And that won’t count delivery, and/or my hiring some teenagers to help get it stacked.
It’s already at nearly $500/ton, for what is already in the barn.

I am ready to pull my hair out. I have some nice timothy I got last summer, from Eastern Oregon. It’s great hay and the test on it was perfect. But, timothy. It’s coarse. Miss maresy thinks using it as bedding is a better alternative than hoovering down every last scrap. I like the fact that being a coarser type of hay gives more chew time, as I am a “24/7 hay in front of you” feeder, and she’s a TB. If I fed nothing but orchard, she’d scarf it down and then be standing around.
All this to say I’m on the fence about what to put up this year. I’d like more timothy, and I always have alfalfa, but I’m wondering if I can source out some mixed grass instead.

[clanter]

@Obsidian_Fire

Miss maresy thinks using it as bedding is a better alternative than hoovering down every last scrap.

three years ago we switch to TEFF … nothing is left, zero waste

[Obsidian_Fire]

Clanter you have air ferns. LOL.
Teff is hard to get. I leave it for the folks feeding IR horses, it’s hard enough to get tested hay without somebody who doesn’t really need it buying it all up.
And, I did buy a couple bales once. Not very well liked, so I sold it to a friend with an IR horse.

[saddleup]

I just had 220 small grass bales delivered at $21 each. Yikes. That included a fuel surcharge, and I paid 4 local teens to unload and stack it at $40 each for about 45 minutes of work. But…I’ve used this hay guy for 15 years and have never had a bad bale. There are cheaper options here, but I’d have to pick it up out of the field and bring it home and stack it, and I just don’t have the equipment, time, or will to do that, even though it would save me money. It’s the most I’ve ever paid, and he was apologetic, but everything’s more expensive in my life, and I just handed over the check with a smile. He said his cost for fertilizer has tripled this year. The world’s a crazy place.

[candyappy]

@Obsidian_Fire

but I’m wondering if I can source out some mixed grass instead.

I am lucky to have horses who eat basically everything I put in front of them but I am a huge fan of mixed grass hay. My horses do real well on it and they like it.

If you can find some that wasn’t cut too late and is not full of thick stems / stalks that some horses refuse to eat ( mine eat them) It would be worth a try.

Prices here are holding at about near double. We are just about finished getting hay up for our customer and most people who were fortunate to not have equipment issues ( we did) are done.

What we are is hot and excessively dry . Pastures are starting to decline rapidly and I am watching to see if the prices start to reflect the need for summer supplementing feeding. Pastures here are normally very good Mid April- November.

[clanter]

true, Morgans have historically been an economical horse otherwise Figure would died at an earlier age …his ability to survive hard work and poor feed made him and his offsprings valuable to the subsistence farming of New England …they were Cheap to maintain

[fledermaus]

In California alfalfa was always cheaper than orchard grass. Different growing conditions etc.

[vxf111]

Mine love teff too

[clanter]

@vxf111

Mine love teff too

before we had fed or tired everything, of course they would eat alfalfa ($530/ton) but shortly become overweight, the Giant Bermuda ($510/ton brought in from the Imperial Valley they would eat about 90/95% even though it all was great, local Bermuda $333/ton delivered was thought of as bedding (get this for the goats ) Orchard Grass have not priced forever as well as Oregon Timothy which are well priceless to get here (Oregon Timothy is $810/ton picked up at a central warehouse that imports) (all ton pricing is current as of this morning)

TEFF delivered and stacked is still one that takes one’s breath away at $532/ton (last delivery two weeks ago) …that up from $375/ton last fall

But there nothing wasted with the TEFF, horses are in good weight

[Obsidian_Fire]

@clanter

(Oregon Timothy is $810/ton picked up at a central warehouse that imports) (all ton pricing is current as of this morning)

I’m about to faint.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Clanter are there Teff growers anywhere around you? It’s a warm season grass. My understanding here in Oregon is it needs replanting every year since it won’t survive the cold Eastern Ore. winters.
Seems like in your area, well I know you get cold too, but ??

[clanter]

@Obsidian_Fire

Clanter are there Teff growers anywhere around you?

not that I am ware of, I “believe” what we are getting is coming from New Mexico. We have an advantage of being less than four miles from the regional Purina horse feed mill (it is on the east side of Fort Worth) …we have a “local” feed store that is located in Denton who we have arranged deliveries to our place when they have some special needed feed from the mill (in excess of a standard 18 wheeler, the store’s trucks can get eight pallets of feed) Rather than running empty to the mill we have them deliver stuff to us. They Could bring us four tons of TEFF at a time but just get two tons plus if we buy shavings by the pallet there is a 50 cents per bag discount matching or bettering Tractor Supply which I would need to go pick up.

[Calvincrowe]

Teff is harder to grow, as Obsidian hinted: it needs to be replanted yearly for the most part and is not the norm, so growers sometimes get it wrong (too dry, too wet, etc. when cutting/baling). I’ve yet to find a decent supply of it that is consistent and not more expensive than 2nd cut orchard.

The more hands touch hay and the farther it has to travel, the more expensive it’ll be no matter what year we are talking about. Picking bales out of the field 5 miles from home? Cheap! Getting a trailer load from the broker’s barns 30 miles by freeway away, where it traveled 300 miles from the fields? Much more $$$. Across the country by semis? OUCH!!

The majority of Timothy hay grown in the PNW is shipped overseas-- it is hard to find here and is $$$ when you do. I don’t like feeding it, as my horses have traditionally not liked it as well as orchard, thus wasting it (and it can be super stemmy/seedy). All that compressed hay you see in feed stores? Yup, born right here in the PNW-- there’s a compressor in St Helens OR, which loads onto ships bound for Asia.

[quietann]

@Calvincrowe

All that compressed hay you see in feed stores?

The compressed hay was not something I was familiar with until I moved my mare. Until now, the barns where we have been have used ordinary small bales from a variety of sources.

She is getting compressed first-cut hay now, and it’s hyper local (as in, there is a hay field next door that may be a source of some of it, and another one across the street.) The bales seem tiny, but they are easier to handle, and neater, so I can see the attraction. My mare loves this hay.

First cut is all in in my area, though late, but with the drought we are in, second cut will either be very late, or not happen at all. Eeep.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Calvincrowe I think I remember that a good majority of our timothy gets sent to Japan?
Anyway the timothy I’ve found both now and in years past has always been quality hay. Coarse, yes, that’s just how it is. I used to have a farmer here in the valley I got from every year. He’s gone now tho.
They do want to leave the stemmier pieces tho!
I still want to find a mixed blend this year.

[Djones]

2 of my 3 are now reacting to Bahia as a food allergy, but they are 100% fine on Bermuda or Timothy. I need about 200 bales per year give or take.

I’m in AL, so all Timothy is shipping into a local feed store; I can drive an hour RT to get roughly 60 lb bales of Timothy/Alfalfa 80/20 mix for about $21/bale ($4200)

I can drive 2 hr RT and get 60 lb bales of good Bermuda (not the colic-inducing super-fine shake, this is a bit more fibrous, longer stemmed) for $8/bale loaded out of the field onto my flatbed trailer in 21 bale bundles ($1600). I get to have lunch at my favorite mom-and-pop place on the way.

I like modest road trips and good food.

[SusanO]

I try to buy Western hay in the Fall to carry me over into May of the next year. Last year I found some 3x4x8 bales of the most beautiful timothy I have ever seen shipped in from some place out west. No stems, very leafy, green and smelled wonderful. I think I paid $250 per bale ( somewhere between 1200-1500 lbs). I don’t want to even think what that might cost this year, if it is even available. the only bad thing about it is that the horses refuse anything else when they are eating it. They even preferred it to alfalfa.

I spent $10 a bale for Tennessee OG this spring out of the field. I drove up and they loaded 21 bale bundles on my flatbed trailer. It was a little stemmier than the timothy but still very leafy and it smells wonderful. The horses leave a few “bones” but gobble the rest up. I wish I had better storage. I would have bought twice as much and been set for the year. But it is so humid here in the summer it would be pretty musty by next year. I did spring for some really crappy OG hay for $13 a bale because I had sucker stamped on my forehead. I only got 20 bales and it makes good bedding but I erased that seller’s name from my address book. Never again!

I am gearing up for higher prices this fall. We have had humid weather but rain has been spotty and it has been HOT! So I imagine warm season grass hay will be at a premium unless we get some real rain and then drier air to get it baled. The really premium Tennessee hay seems to be grown in the north east corner which is a LONG drive for me ( 6 hours) but I am watching what is available up there. I like to feed the good stuff over winter but $21 a 50 lb bale is a little rich for my budget. I hate long road trips but you do what you gotta do!

[Calvincrowe]

I gotta say-- a bigger tractor and a flatbed 5 ton hay trailer would allow me to make the 4 hour drive to buy direct from the growers. The big half ton bales (those 3x4x8 suckers) sure are a bargain! Need that bigger tractor to move them/stack them though. I wonder if I could get my boarding barn/trainer to look into them-- they have a big gooseneck flatbed and a big tractor, as well as storage space for 30-40 tons of hay. Hm…maybe at chat is in order!

[SusanO]

I have an overhang on the side of the barn. I back my 8’x16’ flatbed trailer in there and feed off the trailer. If the weather is really rainy and windy I will put a tarp over the bales but generally they are fine for the 6 months I use them. My tractor is not big enough to pick up a 3x3x8 800 pound bale much less a bigger bale. This is the best solution for me but better storage and a bigger tractor would be even better. The really good stuff is trucked in from out west. I WISH I could get it from the grower. It generally takes 3.5 to 4 hours to just get it from a reseller. I can get 5 bundles of small bales or 5 big bales with my truck and trailer. That pretty much holds me until the next hay buying season.

[goodhors]

Curiosity question here. In the humid locations, does venting, use of fans moving the air, help prevent mold/musty smell on the hay?

I was talking to a farmer about wet or damp bales from the field (Michigan). He said he makes a sort of tunnel with the damp bales, with a big air mover fan at one end. He runs the fan and dries the bales as air is moved thru the bales. He says they dry well, never lost any to mold, with this method.

We often have very humid air in summer, all seasons, though not always warm air, it is still “wet air” in the cold. Yet we seldom have the issues mentioned by other areas of long-term hay storage. 2yr old hay put up dry, stays dry, no mold or “growth” fuzziness on it. I would feed it to my horses if it was not dusty.

So I don’t know if use of fans blowing on stored hay would be a helpful idea or " been tried, not helping" addition to what a person could do to keep their hay edible. You might gain the ability to buy in bigger quantities when hay is being cut, for the lesser prices. Call your Extension services to ask questions! There has to be some ideas they have learned over the years to keep hay edible and less moldy.