Hay delivery with stacking is kinda new to me. How much do you tip the guys? (The delivery fee is already included in the price…)
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I don’t. They’re not wait staff paid a sub-minimum wage. They are workmen like plumbers, electricians, or carpenters. I do offer cold (or hot) beveridges and provide the cleanest place for them to work (get out old hay, etc.) and make sure any machinery or equipment I provide is ready and in working order.
G.
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I haven’t had hay delivered, but anyone coming here gets something! Plumbers, electricians, AC guys, FedEx, Farrier,etc. Everyone gets some Pecans or Figs or Satsumas or whatever I’m swallowed up in at the moment. I also take a big bag of my best pecans to my hay guy (I pick up) for his wife to bake with. He usually gives me some of his home grown no-chemicals hamburger, YaY!
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What Guilherme said.
My former hayguy used to pay his helpers $10/hr - not a bad rate for High School kids doing Summer work.
Yes, it is hard work, but better than flipping burgers for less.
Current hay supplier is neighbors - father & son - they deliver & stack in addition to cutting/baling a very small L-shaped are of my property.
They keep the hay they get off this, in return my place looks civilized.
They also store loaded wagons in my indoor - always leaving me plenty room to ride, even with 3 wagons in there.
And when the last wagon leaves they drag the arena for me.
Like allons-y, I also gift farrier, vet & the hayguys with excess eggs or anything that is growing a surplus in my garden or orchard. 
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I suppose it depends on the price of the hay and availability. Around here hay is rarely in short supply. As a producer market prices are just OK. I don’t tip and no one has offered me a tip when I deliver.
Personally I don’t feel any one that I am witting a check, paying is doing me a favor by taking my money.
There are the odd times that a supplier, vet, farrier etc, or even an employee go beyond the call of duty and token of my appreciation is warranted
That being said “grease/tips” help make the world go around in a lot of ways. Make life easier for the giver and the receiver. Move one’s name to the top of the list be it at a restaurant or when in desperate need of a hay delivery.
If one’s farm/hay storage takes extra effort to access and stack. A decent tip would be in order. I have turned down some delivery orders because the hassle, extra work, extra millage, size of the load wasn’t worth it.
For those who get small loads, 20-40 bales and the seller charges the same as large loads. I would suggest to offer a decent tip to keep their future interest.
I tip my hay guy w/brownies made w/fresh eggs and pecans and if my hens have been working hard enough, a dozen fresh eggs. My ferrier gets a very cold diet Mt. Dew ( no fresh eggs for him as he has his own hens). I have 5 horses, so all I can afford to offer is a token of thanks. They both seem to appreciate my little tokens. My ferrier says he is just happy that I am there when he comes. I guess allot of folks just leave a check and don’t meet him. I am fortunate that I can leave work to meet him and bring horses in for him.
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Don’t tip hay guy who brings the loads of hay. My husband unloads it with bobcat and puts round bales in barn. We pay for the hay plus his fuel cost to deliver it, once here we do the work to get it in the hay barn.
Even the one or two years we did square bales the guy helped unload /stack we never gave a tip. Just like current hay guy we paid for delivery and fuel cost good enough. We’d provided a cold drink while he was here, helping unload stack hay but that’s it.
Coffee and cookies. I only buy a couple of tons at a time and the guys are paid by their employer…but now I’ll wonder if I should be tipping and if these guys would even accept it.
I don’t tip my hay guys - but I pay for delivery, which they do at their convenience, which means I may or may not be home at the time.
I collect and unload/stack 100 bales myself. It’s good for you!
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I don’t tip my guy. He factors delivery and stacking into the price.
Hmmm. Okay, thanks for the input.
Just had over 9 ton delivered. About 430 bales. The guys who deliver and stack do this full time, AFAIK, and it’s not high schoolers with a summer gig. They also put ~30 bales up in the loft for me that were on the main floor…hay I’d brought out from MN. They RIP through it, and it took maybe 90 mins. Two hours from rolling in to rolling out with the untarping and packing up. It’s just amazing how fast they work, and how nicely it’s all stacked.
Gave them $50 each, which they are happy to accept.
I never tipped the hay guy in MN, but that was large bales delivered with the skid steer. For small bales there, we would go get the hay rack and take it home and stack ourselves.
I feel like some extra cash is nice when it’s all this manual labor (especially when it’s something I sure don’t want to do!) If the general consensus is to not tip, I guess I’ll stop fretting over whether what I have them was “enough” 
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I’ve never tipped, but the guy just drops off the hay wagon and picks it up when we’re done. We do all the unloading/stacking.
PlanB, yeah, I wouldn’t tip there, either. These guys bring the hay and the elevator and stack it all in the loft. I don’t touch it until I need to feed it, which is pretty amazing to me after having to be much more hands on with it!
That is a wayyyy good tip. I don’t tip my hay guy because I pick up there and do all the manual labor myself. But in regards to tipping for manual labor, I’m in charge of some landscape crews and send out plant/tree deliveries that would be equivalent work-wise to hay. They are paid very well by us, but do get the occasional tip. The most I’ve ever heard them getting was $20 for a full day of work. The usual for a delivery load, no matter what size, seems to be $3-5.
I tip $5-10 (and cold water in the summer). Usually I’m only getting <10 bales to top the hay shed off, but even a few 100-120# bales is a major PITA for me to wrangle alone and I really appreciate the hay guys.
If my delivery was going to be in the hundreds of bales, I’d be tipping $50+ too. That seems more than fair.
$10 each. Which is not enough as the 2 guys are great, but I get expensive hay once a month and the delivery charge is $15.00. So the guys only get $10 each. If I win the lotto, they will get more.
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I don’t tip either, because I pay extra to have it delivered and stacked. I do make everything as clean and easy as possible, however!
Our hay delivery help is the hay seller(s). We don’t pay more because we’re already paying for the delivery.
My gratuity is all able-bodies pitch in and provide a cold drink afterwards. If I was unable to help with the work I think I still wouldn’t offer cash. Maybe order a pizza delivery or something.
It really was a whole lotta hay :lol:
This is really all the hay we need until late next summer, so I won’t be seeing them again until then.
