How Are You Feeling About Buying A Horse Right Now?

[eponacelt]

Congrats on the new horse.

I liken horse buying to marriage after a speed date. Almost no-one is willing to trial horses any more, so you get 1-3 rides and a PPE, after which you need to make a decision. It can always go poorly. But you sound like you’ve had good guidance and you’re taking your chances with what seems like a good one.

I bought a mare 4 years ago after just 2 rides. She’s everything I could have hoped, but we’ve had our ups and downs. She’ll be Third level dressage this year and I love her to bits. The horse before her, I rode once, and based on my trainer’s encouragement, I bought him and brought him home. He took me from First Level to PSG and was the most wonderful unicorn you can imagine.

Have fun and enjoy the ride!

[ThreeWishes]

So lovely. My Current horse is a grey. Wishing you and your daughter all the best. What’s his name?

[TheDBYC]

@eponacelt & @ThreeWishes, thank you!! His name is Arold. His previous owner imported him 4-5 years ago. He is capable of jumping big. However, he’s also into energy conservation & swept his first ever try at hunters last month. Hoping he will make a nice 3-ring partner for daughter for a few years. He was a tad reluctant to load leaving his old barn (I felt bad because his friend was calling for him as he left ) But he got off the trailer, briefly checked out what will be his stall for the night, & then went out with daughter to hand-graze. He ate his dinner & was making friends with the little stallion next door when we left. He looooooves the trainer, too. Actually whinnyed when she arrived at the old barn to pick him up

[Bristol_Bay]

[SusanO]

Very pretty! I like how he came in Holsteiner Gray.

[Red_Barn]

Congratulations! He’s VERY classy looking.

[FatCatFarm]

CUUUUUTE!!! Congratulations!

[EssexFells]

@TheJenners

You guys are super funny (as I sob over $23/bale timothy, and only going to go up).

$23??? I would faint. You probably don’t want to hear that I just put 6 tons in our hay shed, for the low low price of nothing-- I split the hay from my fields with the baler.

[TheJenners]

It was actually $25/bale for the last ton I bought last week. I’m trying to find another person to buy from, not because of price but because he deals in tons more and my normal person usually has more customers who buy fewer at a time, and I don’t want to leave people hanging by buying five tons… But I NEED to get a quantity in and soon. I anticipate probably $1800 or so

[lenapesadie]

@TheJenners

But I NEED to get a quantity in and soon

For real.

I’m in a hay buying frenzy over here. I put up 1.25 tons weekend before last and am hoping to put up another 2 tons this coming weekend. All in two string squares. To be safe I think I’ll get some round bales, 6, which would be another 3 tons but I anticipate quite a bit of waste feeding rounds. I don’t bother with netting them or god forbid pulling them apart.

The local farmer I’m buying from will be sold out of horse hay by Turkey Day and I’m keen to get as much put up as possible as it’s way cheaper than the imported Timothy/Teff/Alfalfa I’ve been feeding.

I’m uncertain how long this hay is going to last my two boys. They are big eaters. I guess we about to find out.

[TheJenners]

@lenapesadie

I’m uncertain how long this hay is going to last my two boys.

I do rough maths based on weights, like my big gelding weighs just under 1300 so he logically needs 13-26 pounds a day, so I say 20 and do the math. I go way lower on the senior because he doesn’t eat a lot of hay (never did even when he had teeth, he will sort of munch here and there but mostly leave it) and he gets a complete feed that meets his needs, so the pony and the yearling plus the donkeys I say about 10 lbs per day for them (5 ea/donk, which is on the heavy side) and break out ye olde calculator… I come up with 5.25 tons for seven months, to be safe.

I don’t feed rounds tho, so I can’t help there.

[clanter]

but I anticipate quite a bit of waste feeding rounds. I don’t bother with netting them or god forbid pulling them apart.

When we used round bales it was during and afterwards of an extended drought … round bales of about 800 pounds were over $120 each so that would have been $300/ton Also the quality of the round bales really got to the point I had to stop using them, I am still fighting the weeds introduced into the pasture from those bales.

I always took the bales apart by flipping them onto a pallet then pulling off what was needed that feeding, then put a canvas tarp over the round bail to protect it (if not surely it would rain)

Baled hay got to were it was between $500 and $600 a ton.

So, these days I am paying just under $400/ton for really nice high quality Teff hay stacked into my hay barn seems cheap

[lenapesadie]

Very sensible way to calculate! My horses are both larger specimens with big appetites. So I’d say 25 lbs per day each would be a conservative estimate.

The round bale hay I’ll use in the paddocks and the square bales in the stalls mostly. Though I’ll throw some of the PP hay in the paddocks like I do the alfalfa currently. Previously I’ve found that these round bales last one horse one month when given 24/7 access. I may need to try to get more than 6 to be safe.

I’m a little sketched out as we are predicting lower than average rainfall here this winter which will halt my rye grass growth. So thinking I need more hay.

hay frenzy continues

[lenapesadie]

@clanter

round bales of about 800 pounds were over $120 each so that would have been $300/ton Also the quality of the round bales really got to the point I had to stop using them, I am still fighting the weeds introduced into the pasture from those bales.

Yikes!

I can get Alicia Bermuda with no weeds to speak of 1000 lbs rolls for $65. It’s so cheap I’d be dumb not to have some on hand.

I’ve un rolled and rationed out hay off round bales before. Not doing it again unless the situation is dire.

Delivery is hard to get here unless I order a semi load. Labor shortages I guess as one man said he’d deliver if I wanted a weekend job being the delivery driver lol

[eightpondfarm]

i bought 24 tons of pure alfalfa for this winter. (9.50/bale delivered) I have it delivered 7 tons at a time. The bales are two string 55#, but come in bundles of 21 that i can just stack three high in a shed and it’s pretty easy, (with pallet forks on my tractor) I always put up 4 tons inside the horse barn for to use on days when it’s just toooooo inclimate (ice or sleet or something). I’m really stingy about using it out of the loft! In addition to the alfala i free-feed round bales. Under roof. They are free to destroy and waste at will. This year i have 200 roundbales. About 1000# each. From our own hay fields which i curate assiduously. I pay a guy to cut and bale and pay him $22/bale (netwrapped)

[clanter]

Yikes!

What added to costs was many local hay producers sold drilling rights on their farms…the first one had three wells drilled, I was picking up some hay asked him if he was going to continue raising hay? Yes. Well that change after he got his first production check. Same thing played for number two. Number three was a large ranch owned by the third generation who said there is no way they would stop raising hay… their drilling rights contract was over $10,000,000 plus 25% of the production… they stopped baling hay.

So we started buying on contracts through hay brokers.

Recently we switched to a feed store some 40 plus miles away who has been very customer service orientated and will deliver here into the heart of the city for $20?. We basically have asked them about “can you get” such and such …the answer so far has been Yes. Since we have needs for some oddly used items in this market place such as shredded straw bedding and Teff hay and this store has been welling to get these products we switched all of horse and most of the goat needs to that store. It not a huge amount but does run about $17k a year…I have just agreed and accepted this as a cost of having horses in the middle of a large city (we have the funds set aside in our retirement money to fund this ever ongoing cost)

Our last delivery a few weeks ago, the driver said since they started bringing the Teff hay they are selling a truck load a month which is getting close to needing a truck every three weeks.

[EssexFells]

See, my husband has no idea why I stress over hay every year-- he just says it always works out, relax, they won’t starve, the world’s not gonna run out of grass. But this thread is exactly why I stress. And newsflash, they don’t starve because we all put so much thought and work into making sure that’s the case!!

[TheDBYC]

I swear I spent every other waking moment thinking about hay the years that I kept horses at home & ran livestock! Even the pigs ate hay. Who had it; for how much; what kind; and could they deliver?? I quickly figured out that I could juuuuuuuust push a round bale in the neighborhood of 600 lbs by myself – never underestimate the power of a petite yet sufficiently pissed off Irishwoman. You haven’t lived until a scrappy little longhorn bull shows his appreciation for the arrival of new hay in brutal 13F weather by charging & crashing into the other side of the bale you’re pushing

[Bluey]

@TheDBYC

I swear I spent every other waking moment thinking about hay the years that I kept horses at home & ran livestock! Even the pigs ate hay. Who had it; for how much; what kind; and could they deliver?? I quickly figured out that I could juuuuuuuust push a round bale in the neighborhood of 600 lbs by myself – never underestimate the power of a petite yet sufficiently pissed off Irishwoman. You haven’t lived until a scrappy little longhorn bull shows his appreciation for the arrival of new hay in brutal 13F weather by charging & crashing into the other side of the bale you’re pushing

[clanter]

the world’s not gonna run out of grass.

might want him to read up on the hay needs of China

For the second consecutive year and the third time in four years, total U.S. hay exports in 2020 eclipsed 4 million metric tons (MT). This was accomplished largely because China got back into the alfalfa trade market in a big way compared to the last two years

Thank China for record alfalfa hay exports

so along with the extended drought out west, hay being produced is being shipped to China

(4 million metric ton equals about 68 Million 130 pound bale of hay that your horse will not have a chance to eat.)