That is bad news!! If they tedder it out it may be usable in some form , for some animal…
I am not holding my breath on the subject of rain anymore! I don’t think it rains near me anymore.
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We got a total of 2 inches of rain Monday and Tues. together. Been a week since we got 3/4 of an inch, nothing of rain for a while before that. A real blessing since pastures are pretty short. The hay fields are green but only up about 8 inches since first cutting came off end of May. Rain was spotty, not everyone locally got some. No puddles, it all soaked right in.
Now we have the smoke haze, bad air to deal with. Hope no one is baling now! Not even supposed to be outside, let alone working with numbers so bad!
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Just looking at CL and round bales of grass hay are advertised at $150-$190+ !!
Large alfalfa squares were $300 on one ad and I was shocked to see some decent looking 1st cut Alfalfa small squares for a measly $8 ( going fast the ad said).
My area is in a major rain shortfall right now and that may be area specific but OUCH 
We ARE getting the weather we need. Two of the little grass fields were cut yesterday, and perimeters of two of the alfalfa fields were cut the day before. He will probably continue with that plan today, and do at least perimeter cuts on the other two alfalfa fields. Then we turn and bale the perimeters, which allows the machinery to turn for the long straight runs on the interior of the fields without damaging the cut crop on the perimeters, as it is already baled. Started cutting this way a couple years ago, and really like it.
I was doing “fawn watch” on the alfalfa fields. Because we hate running over newborn fawns with the mower. Their mothers put them in the tall grass, where they are “safe”, and they don’t move. And they are HARD TO SEE, by definition. I’m standing in the cab, the DH is driving. I have a bit more elevation standing, and can see DOWN better into the long grass than he can from sitting in the seat. I yell STOP!!! when I see one. The true newborns won’t move at all, just lay there and die, but the ones that are a few days old will get up and run away (hopefully in a direction AWAY from the mower, not INTO the mower) if you give them time to think about it. We don’t think we have killed any of them yet this year. If we have, I find the body under the windrow when I turn the hay with the rake. That has happened in previous years. I don’t tell him when I find one, it upsets him to know that it happened.
This is one of the reasons why we tend to wait into mid July to cut hay, give those guys a few more weeks to mature, so that they aren’t still at this stage of life. But the weather is here this year, now, so we are taking advantage of that. As carefully as we can. Other farms in our area just blast along with the mower, I dunno how many fawns they kill. More than we do, I’d guess. And yes, there are plenty of deer. too dam many, and they are a PITA (one got into the veggie garden yesterday and did damage!!!). But we do what we can to preserve life.
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our hay guy mowed one fawn this year. It kinda sickens me inside to find them…
Oh, and your perimeter then interior plan sounds great! Good luck getting a LOT of alfalfa. (I’m kinda jealous btw 
)
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Up here in midcoast Maine, the weather has been terrible. Rainy, cloudy, muggy. Fields are too wet to get on. First crop is going past but is still standing in the fields with no end to the weather pattern in sight. We are running out of last year’s hay. Most years the new hay is all in by the 4th of July.
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I am in west central MO. Hay is hard to find, the scammers are having a field day on Facebook.
I found a seller with very nice brome 3 miles away. He just has a sign by the road, doesn’t even advertise. Glad I called! My previous hay sources all flamed out or had crap hay.
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Got over 2.5 inches of rain in the last 3 days 
and more for this week. Our second cutting looks better with every drop we get. I can’t fathom how it survived the drought as it stayed green and was slowly growing. I am just so thankful.
I have had several people call us asking if we have any hay to sell. Hopefully other areas of MO are getting rain too. There should be something decent to cut late Summer if they do.
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Just picked up a ton of 2022 hay from my broker’s sheds to get me started on putting up my 7 tons for the year. His supplier’s 2023 first and second hay is cut, baled and stacked— all 80,000 tons. Yup. You read that right. Lots of snow this winter in SE/Central Oregon so the hay production was excellent. I’m sure it’ll cost a bit more than 2022, but those 110-115 lb bales of Timothy/orchard are gorgeous. Hard to stack at my age, but we manage.
Fingers crossed that you all continue to get rain when and where you need it.
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Can I ask what the new stuff is running, if you know? I decided to stick with timothy after all and paid $36/bale on the five tons I got in the fall… Ouch. I do have some left over and this time of year I go through one flake a day, which is very nice, but The Annual Purchase is coming.
A nice surprise, I got my check the paltry 11 rounds taken off my place and it was the same as last year. So price and demand helped me in that end, it will nicely pay for my farrier appt on Friday. Assuming I’m not tempting the gods yet again, will post more on that later.
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I paid $485/ton (18 bales/$27 a bale) today for the 2022 hay. I’m guessing the new hay will be $500/ton. It tests in the 8.5 range for NSC according to my BO who buys the same hay. It’s located in Mulino, OR. It’s fine stemmed, mixed grass primarily orchard and timothy. A few weeds rarely but my horses leave no waste. That’s a win at current prices.
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Damn that is a total win. I wonder if the gas would be worth it 
the alfalfa i bought this year was 509/ton
Get a big flat bed trailer, make a vacation out of the trip, and bring home a prize load of hay. Totally worth the gas!
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I consider a trip to Ellensburg for their timothy, it’s closer for sure. I could do it in a weekend and know some people with nice flatbeds I could borrow or take my Dad’s big dump trailer and load it up, then pay some local teens to unload it because yikes.
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Singing my blessing today. Found a localish hay guy that has a smaller farm, he produces around 2k square bales a year. Since he had a hard time finding buyers last year, he just sold me 45 lb bales at 6.00 a bale delivered. I purchased a 100 since this is my first time buying. It’s nice hay for the money. Not as good as my 14.00 a bale alfalfa/orchard I get from western WV, but plenty good enough for my fatties.
He’s got 500 bales saved for me if this batch is good. Which I’m 
going to purchase. It cuts my hay bill from last year by 40%.
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Thought I would bump this up as we are doing second cutting now and yields are equal or better than the first cut 
I had the presence of mind to record each field and what we got just because it was so much lower than normal.
We had huge rains in July and Aug had been unusually wet until a week ago and the hay looks great. I hope others are as fortunate in getting more hay . About everything we get put up will be sold except I will get some good squares for my goats , for when they kid.
My horses just don’t need the " good stuff" even though they would love it.
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Our hay guy still can’t make hay. We have yet to be able to string together more than 3 days of no rain. The fields are wet, wet, wet. He has two tractors stranded at the moment—can’t get them out without rutting up the field. Most fields haven’t been first cut yet, and the grasses have gone by.
He cut a couple of fields either the second or third week of July, fields on higher or sandier ground, and tried to give everyone enough to get through. We are seriously worried.
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Hey guys - send that rain down here. Dry as a bone and no rain in the forecast for weeks, not that the last few weeks forecasts panned out. And up to 105 next week. I imagine the local Alabama and SE hay will be in short supply this winter. I am glad there are spots in the rest of the country that has had rain since I will probably be shelling out the big bucks for western hay this Fall. Right now I have grass and my horses are grousing because the Tennessee hay I bought for the summer isn’t up to their standards, Sorry - you are lucky to have this.
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Well, no rain here in the I-5 corridor of WA/OR, especially south of Seattle since early June. Drought is no fun. Most ‘local’ (re: native grasses, not managed, pasture type) hay is only first cut and that is in. I do not feed that. The farmed hays of central and eastern Oregon are on their 3rd cut (that would be for alfalfa) and the first two look pretty darn good. My hay broker that I buy from said for his farmer at least, the yield was good and cost less than last year. There seems to be a bit of leftover hay in many barns locally, as folks really stocked up last year, but there’s always those who pay no attention when the hay is being cut and sold, then freak out when there’s none ‘left’ to buy (there is, it’s just now more expensive as it’s in barns, being sold by dealers).
He has some 2022 left-- a hundred tons or so, but I bought the first cut of 2023 hay. The horses are chowing down on it, and best part? It is $50 less a ton than last year!! Woot!
I am so sorry for those of you in the wet areas who cannot get hay in. Hoping you can make something happen. The export hay from WA is not great this year, as it got rained on early, but there’s still plenty of it. Granted, it’s expensive. I’m getting a bit of a bargain at $22.50/bale for 100 lb three string bales.
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