Excess Hay Supply

[misfitmorgan]

Last year was a bumper year for hay crop here and there is a huge excess. This year looks like it will be the same, first cut has been ready to take for over a week now but people are scared to cut cause their barns are still full of last years hay.

So that leads me to my next question which is really an idea a friend of ours had, altered a bit.

We have been considering for a few years now, running loads of hay down outside of michigan. Our friend suggested and wants to take them to flordia..i think flordia has a lot of imported hay already and other places suffer with far less.

So would anyone consider buying hay that was trucked in? Is there a preference, square or round bales? What type of hay do you have locally and what is the typical cost?

We usually have in michigan 1st and 2nd cut grass hay, 1st and 2nd cut grass/alfalfa mix, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd alfalfa hay.

Here grass hay is normally a mix of clover, brome, timothy, orchard grass, trefoil, festulolium, kentucky bluegrass, and fescue. Grass/alfalfa mix is the same with something like 5lbs to the acre alfalfa added.

 

[OneFineAcre]

I know individuals who buy truckloads of hay from out of state.
There are also various feed supply places that get hay from out of state.
When the local stuff I get from the farmers ran out in early spring, and the rain kept everyone from cutting, then I was buying square bales from a feed supply place of timothy/orchard. 2nd cut when he could get it, first cut when he couldn't.

There is a very limited supply of local grown alfalfa, so most of that comes from out of state.

 

[OneFineAcre]

Oh and Florida probably produces a lot of hay themselves. Florida is a big cattle state.
They have a type of forage that only grows in Fla, and S. Ga, over in to AL called "perennial peanut". Wonderful product. A legume comparable to alfalfa.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Oh and Florida probably produces a lot of hay themselves. Florida is a big cattle state.
They have a type of forage that only grows in Fla, and S. Ga, over in to AL called "perennial peanut". Wonderful product. A legume comparable to alfalfa.

Flordia probly does produce a lot of its own but from hay going out of state from michigan, flordia and texas are the destinations usually. DH old boss until about 4 yrs ago used to run semi loads of hay to flordia and he would do roughly 45 semi loads a year of all square hay, had a warehouse down there and everything. Mostly because the hay he sold up here for $3/bale in flordia was $12/bale so taking a semi load of 300+ bales down more then made it worth it for him. He only stopped because his brother who was the CDL driver died. THere is also a hay buyer up here who buys round bales for $30-35 all he can get and trucks it down to texas, i saw him go to one farm and buy all 125 rounds bales from the guy and cut him a check on the spot. 2 days later the hay was all gone off that place. A lot of farmers here will sell directly to hay buyers because it is gone and done with and he has his winter money instead of trying to sell it for months and possibly getting stuck with it over winter. Other farmers will never sell to them because the hay seller pays roughly 0.50 less per square bale then they can sell at and $5-10 less per round bale.

Atm round bales from last year here are $15-20 for grass, $20-30 for alfalfa....or free. Lots of farmers are cleaning otu their barns and giving the hay away or selling square bales at $1/bale and round at $5/bale. This yeah looks like it is gonna be a hay flush again for us, we are going to start our first cut this weekend on one of our feilds. Thankfully we are down to just 48 Acres of hay to cut for ourselves but we are custom baling about 30 acres for other people. Hay yield this year will be high again roughly 150 bales per acre per cut compared to two years ago in the semi-drought with 60 bales per acre.

So we should come out with an estimated 10,800 square bales after second cut(averaging second cut at 75 bales/acre for grass hay)... we might skip second cut cause our loft only holds around 5,000 squares

 

[Ferguson K]

Man I wish I could find hay at those prices, year old or not!

 

[misfitmorgan]

i know its cheap compared to what some of you guys have to pay...i saw someone say they got a really good deal on these round bales for $75 so they got 5.....for me thats Even more insane is some guys up here take rounds to texas, then unroll and rebale then to squares...makes roughly 27 square bales they sell for $10-15 per bale so they turned the $45 bale into a $270-405 bale....34 round bales to a load makes that load worth $9,180-13,770....which is why farmers here get mad cause they only got paid $1,530 for that hay. Most hay buyers prefer atm to take hay to texas.

The highest price here is $45/round bale maybe $50 if it is top top quality and heavy hard heart bales, but even at $45 thats 2nd or 3rd cut pure alfalfa with no rain stored inside and net wrapped, average 1st cut alfalfa rounds net wrapped stored outside are generally $30/bale..less if you take if from the field.

Honestly i dont think i could sleep at night if was charging that much for hay, it would make me sick. We rebale rounds sometimes but its a $45 round and comes out worth $67.50 for us as we only charge 2.50/bale for hay. Straw we sell for 2/bale cause it is a by product.

 

[OneFineAcre]

In North Carolina we have plenty of fescue and coastal Bermuda.
Not much Timothy/Orchard.
Very little alfalfa.
So those products are being imported.

 

[misfitmorgan]

In North Carolina we have plenty of fescue and coastal Bermuda.
Not much Timothy/Orchard.
Very little alfalfa.
So those products are being imported.

Whats the price difference on those then compared to the locally grown? We dont import any here so its rather novel for me.

 

[OneFineAcre]

You can get local grown Bermuda or Fescue for $5-$7 per square or $40 for a round.
I have a source of local alfalfa for $8-$10 per square, and some round bales for $60 (this first cut was late and is stemmy)

I go to one feed store and buy 1st cut Timothy/Orchard for $9.75 and 2nd cut for $10.75. I got some with a lot of clover in it for $9.75.
Mule City Feeds in Smithfield NC has the large square bales (75+ lbs) of pure Alfalfa for $18.75 but it is really high quality. I think they get it from Nebraska.

 

[misfitmorgan]

You can get local grown Bermuda or Fescue for $5-$7 per square or $40 for a round.
I have a source of local alfalfa for $8-$10 per square, and some round bales for $60 (this first cut was late and is stemmy)

I go to one feed store and buy 1st cut Timothy/Orchard for $9.75 and 2nd cut for $10.75. I got some with a lot of clover in it for $9.75.
Mule City Feeds in Smithfield NC has the large square bales (75+ lbs) of pure Alfalfa for $18.75 but it is really high quality. I think they get it from Nebraska.

Merm...wait a minute. If a Large square is 75+lbs...whats a normal square?