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Anyone else with HAY PROBLEMS!!!!!?????

2K views 28 replies 17 participants last post by  enjoytheride 
#1 ·
Hay is so scarce around here, because of the drought last year. People are selling great horses for $10 at the local sale barn because they have no hay. If you are lucky enough to find hay, it is around $5.50 a bale for just 1st cutting grass hay. I can remember when nice 2nd cutting alfalfa was $1.75 a bale. We have 12 goats, 2 sheep, 1 mini donkey, and 4 horses and we are down to less than 10 square bales that look like straw. Our goaties are sick of it, but they munch it down because they have too. I am pretty scared. Today I am going to take them out 2 at a time so they can all get a full belly of lush grass. That should make them happy. Yesterday we rigged up a wire fence around our large yard for the horses since there is some grass there, but none in their pasture. But they broke it. The local bulliten comes out tomorrow, so hopefully I can find some hay in there. We are trying to sell our donk and one of our horses. We paid $2000 for her, and we have had for sale for like 2 months, and can't get $850 for her. :cry: :( Is anyone else having hay problems. Everything is so expensive right now.
Ashlyn
 
#2 ·
new hay should be getting ready to be cut soon - unless you are in a colder climate then I am.

Right now hay is getting ready to be cut in like 3-4 weeks. But last year hay was SO hard to find.

Sounds like you are doing what you can. Sometimes animals just don't get it though :roll:
 
#7 ·
1st cut is $7 around here and 2nd cut is anything above that lol. Last time I bought a bale of alfalfa it was $13 that was in Feb. So I know the price has gone up on that.

Even hay pellets can be a pretty penny. :(
 
#9 ·
It's so bad here- I heard talk of hay going to $28 a bale. I just talked with a friend who bales her pasture- she's having a hard time getting a small job person to do it. Last year they almost lost their whole crop when the baler broke down and, since it's so old, they had to mail for a part- hay got rained on.
I told her, that if it is a go, then I would happily take 40 bales (oh my aching back- all the involved parties in this are 60 or over!) and I have to pick it up in their field. And local hay never cures enough to over winter- not that that much would last til winter but I will take what I can get and be grateful for it.
 
#10 ·
I've been getting 1st cut alfalfa for $5.00/bale, he just called and has marked it down to $4.00. So I'll go get some. I think ours is high because they've been shipping it out west. Liz were are you getting $2.00 hay? I'm going to have to get those big 3x4 bales this year, it's less expensive and the small bales are hard to find anyway. I can have them delivered, I think, or I'll just go get them with my trailer two at a time and rent a bobcat to move them around, lucky me the rental place is about 1/4 mile down the road.
 
#11 ·
My moms landlord has the farm I grew up on and since we help stack it when the time comes I get a "deal" he normally sells the straw $3 a bale, square bales of hay $4 a bale and the big round ones $25 a bale....of course that's when he has it available!

This is a mixed grass hay...really leafy with Timothy and my goats love it!
 
#12 ·
Wow! $28 a bale! That's alot. We are getting a round bale tomorrow, and that will cost about $100 for the hay and shipping. It is big too. We bought two from him like a month ago. The hay is great on the outside, but the inside is junk. You have to wear gloves because of the pickers. It is pretty dry though. But the goats love all the pickers and weeds!! The goats don't have very much grass in their pasture though. I am hopeing we can cut our field soon. That will give us 6-maybe more round bales. We put the round bales on our driveway, covered of course, then we pull out what we need then put it in a wheel barrow and take it to the goaties.
Ashlyn
 
#14 ·
Our problem is always our isolation- big trucks can't get all the way up on the highway here and we're 200 miles from any poplulation centers. The haul over the mountains to the east, while closer is also a gas hog over a lot of two lane roads. So the feed places don't have to be too competitive- same with a lot of other stores. No one is going to take a 3-4 hours drive to save some money unless the savings were very large.
We have a navigatable bay but no real dock facilities. Maybe with gas costing so much, that will happen.
 
#16 ·
Reading the title about hay problems I had to open, because that is always a lively discussion. I cannot tell you how completely SHOCKED I was to see you talking about bales of hay with a single digit price!!!!!
Hay in the Willamette Valley (Oregon) sells for $10 to $20 a bale, depending on what you are getting. We are getting a decent alfalfa orchard mix trucked (to our supplier) in from eastern Oregon, we are paying $270 a ton, and that is 15 bales a ton.

Straw is selling for $9 a bale. (three string).

I had an idiot that thought she could get me to lower the price I had put on my goats because feed costs are rising! I said HU? when feed costs rise, I have to raise the price of my goats to cover that! Grrr. some people!
 
#17 ·
I feel we are very fortunate to be able to grow our own hay. We have 30 acres of hay right now, and we just planted another 30 this year. We cut next week, and just barely made it through the winter with the hay that we have now. Our straw is running low though.

I think hay is going for around $4 for grass alfalfa mix hay.
 
#18 ·
In winter (its still winter here! - but the snows going away) people ship hay up, i know our neighbors who are paying..get this.. $38.95 for one bale of timothy! ahh! .. but you can get the lower quality for $10. Heres what you do: get hay before winter (we get permanent fund divedents and we all buy hay then, and get enough for winter. i still have 20 bales left and 1 to 2 months.
 
#19 ·
I've heard that hay bales are bigger in the west. Here in PA, I just paid $4.00/bale for alfafa (1st cut). It was $5. but he dropped the price to get rid of last years hay. The bales weigh about 45-50lbs. I got 50 bales, I'll be ok now. So, I felt pretty good about the price. But, this year I don't want 1st cut, or maybe it was just this guy, it was baled to late I think, pretty stemmy, too much waste.
 
#20 ·
AlaskaBoers- that is the summer price. I do buy to get through winter. This year the price in last summer and this winter has been the same- it's just high. I think it was a ripple effect to some extent- people were paying premium prices for hay so hay was taken by people who usually buy more locally.
Some of what people are talking about is that due to drought conditions, hay was not available even in the summer in some places. People were talking about having to buy baled cotton or corn stalks to get anything at all.
Mostly the bales that are imported here are 110 to 130 lbs.
 
#25 ·
The first year I had my goaties, they would not go out to the pasture at all- they just hung around the hay feeder, lounging and calling to me for more food (even with the feeder full.) I thought they were just afraid to go to some place different, so I escorted them out to eat. They would follow me but stayed only as long as I did. I had fat, lazy goats- not healthy.

So one day I lured them into the farthest pasture and locked them in!!!!!!!! Ha- they became fond of that place after awhile and now will go from the hay feeder to the pastures all by themselves. But still only when the hay feeders empty.

Aren't I a cruel goat mom? Making them eat nasty browse and grass.
 
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