Hay prices

[casportpony]

Here are the current prices for 100-110 pound 3 wire bales in my area. The grass/alfalfa said $18.95 under the tag.

 

[Alaskan]

Here are the current prices for 100-110 pound 3 wire bales in my area. The grass/alfalfa said $18.95 under the tag.
View attachment 37011

 

[farmerjan]

We have had a fairly wet early spring/summer and had some trouble getting hay made but are done with first cutting. Due to the over maturity of some of it, being stalkier than we like but had some nice green 2nd cutting coming up through it, and the easy winter and early warm temps, there is hay available everywhere. We get $35-50 for 5x5 or 5x6 round bales of orchard grass mix usually has some fescue in the fields. For our 3 pure orchard grass fields that are fertilized we get $40-60 for 4x5 round bales that are net wrapped and $4-7 for small squares that weigh in the 45-55 lb range.
Alfalfa is rolled or chopped for silage and later cuttings are mostly made in small squares, $7-8.00 and the large squares that are 3x6 or 4x7 or so are 125 to 175 ea. We don't see the old 3 wire 100 + lb bales that I used to get when I lived in Ct and hay came from Canada alot of times. Most dairy farmers here are the ones that get/make /use the real big squares....they weigh 6-1,000 lb all according to size.
We sell about 2,500-3,000 small squares to some regular horse customers we have had for years. They mostly want 2nd cutting as the hay is a little finer stemmed. We did get all our 1st cutting orchard grass made dry and only one field of grass hay got about 2/10th of a rain shower on it then it was tedded out and baled in good dry condition. We sell about 100-250 round bales a year on average but on years when it has been dry we have been known to have people lined up begging for it too. We also will often buy hay from friends and feed it and use a couple of our hay fields for rotational pasture where we have fences.
We deliver all the small squares to the regular customers we have, although they mostly all help to unload. Extra .50 per bale delivered and we try to take about 200 on the flat bed gooseneck trailer. In fact have 3 customers that are about 50-60 miles away and one can only hold about 50 bales in storage so we combine the 3 and all are happy with the deal. At least 2 get hay at a time so it is worth our time to take a full trailer.

Now have a llama customer who gets about 50 small squares at a time, delivered about 20 miles away. $7.00 bale but they are picky so we make sure the hay is clean with nothing but orchard grass. Have one guy with a couple of horses that we deliver round bales and put in his field if he is out of town for work in the winter or just deliver 2 at a time and he can move with his small loader tractor. Close by to deliver with the truck with the "bale bed".
We have had some trouble with johnson grass in one field, the cows love it and is only a problem if stressed or frosted with the prussic acid, but we feed any of that to our own animals.
Most of our first cutting is round baled but we did about 500 small squares this year for someone who wanted 1st cutting orchard grass. We also did about 150 squares of wheat strawy/hay with the grain in it for bedding and the animals can pick through it. Didn't do any grain as the wheat was a nurse crop for the orchard grass planted late last fall.
All the barley was done as hay, made it dry didn't have to wrap any since the conditions worked.

We have about 500 big round bales left from last year so bush-hogged one field this week as high as we could, to knock off the dry tops and the thistles and weeds and turned the cows into it to graze. Doing the same in 2 other fields that we would cut for hay and the cows won't go there until after hunting season. Hope to have grazing there nearly all winter this year unless the snow gets too deep. This will just put the dry matter back into the soil and feed the microbes, and earthworms, and improve the organic matter and save on the fuel and wear and tear on the equipment when we don't need the hay. We have lost 2 pastures and 1 hay field this year but are still way ahead. Never know what the weather will bring next year so try to be thinking ahead and be prepared.

Had some major trouble with the big round baler and my son was saying maybe we just should stop trying to fix and buy a new one. A "plain jane " 5x6 NEW round baler is $ 35,000. HOLEY MOLEY nope, spent about 1,000 and repaired and replaced some stuff....just replaced the discbine mower last year over 22,000 but we did get 10,000 on the old one as a trade in. But with the number of acres we do in a year we can't be "broke down" for a long period of time and the old one was needing some serious replacing of parts as they just get worn out.

You might think that hay is expensive, but the equipment to make it is too. And another thing, getting help to make small square bales of hay is a real challenge. Kids don't want to work, don't want to get hot and sweaty and not be able to play with their phones and stuff. There are different pieces of equipment made so that you can get the hay put into square "pods" and another grabber that will pick it up and put it on a trailer, in lieu of manual help....... but that stuff costs big time too. And anything mechanical breaks down..... so repair costs are high too. And then there is the weather as you all know we can just put in our order so we get rain and sun when we want....

 

[misfitmorgan]

New balers or any fashion are not cheap. A buddy of ours just bought a brand new (but from 2015) hard heart new holland round baler and paid 37k for it....because he got a "deal".

I've seen around here round balers from the 70s still selling for over 2k easy, square balers from the 60s with broken needles for around 1k.

No kidding on the labor part we were offering $14/hr and free food to come and help do square bales and we couldnt get a single person under 30 interested. So we paid those guys but this is not good at all because they are gonna get older just like we are and then who is gonna do the hay? 2 yrs ago we had a guy who was 57yrs old come and help with hay and man did he work good.

 

[greybeard]

I loaded, hauled and stacked tons of sq bales for a nickle a bale (and less) when I was a teenager.
Hot dirty, dusty fields and even hotter and more dusty barns and even old houses to stack it in. Ants, skunks and snakes in the bales, sometimes a fawn's leg sticking out, all those thorns and briars in the prairie hay that used to be baled out at Tarkington and Atoscosita..

But, I wouldn't trade those days for anything...

 

[Alaskan]

Uh...


Wowsers

 

[Farmer Connie]

New balers or any fashion are not cheap. A buddy of ours just bought a brand new (but from 2015) hard heart new holland round baler and paid 37k for it....because he got a "deal

Last year we were trying to buy local and in bulk. I hooked up with a guy on craigslist and drove out to meet him. We were prepared to buy 7 round bales of coastal. That is a fair price here where we are, actually a deal.
But when I asked for break if I bought 10, his tone changed. He pointed at all of his tractors and implements and said..

. I COULD HAVE BOUGHT AN APARTMENT COMPLEX FOR WHAT I OWE THE BANK FOR THIS STUFF. YOU GET THE BANK TO GIVE ME A BREAK, AND I'LL GIVE YOU A BREAK..

 

[Alaskan]

Yeah, equipment cost is high

 

[misfitmorgan]

I think a lot of that depends on how many current hay buyers a person has and if the hay is already a good deal or not. If hay is the normal price or high most people are more likely to give a deal on bulk. I dunno how it is down there but here you get no discount at all unless your buying 20-25 rounds at a time or about 600 small squares at a time.

 

[Alaskan]

Oooh! To have barn space for 600 squares