Higher hay prices ?????

[Stubbornhillfarm]

Around here, the first cut crop was huge! Prices are coming down! Our "best quality" hay guy usually sells his huge round bales for $75.00. He has so much of it after first crop that he sold us 12 bales for $50.00 and told us that if we take another 30, he will only charge us $40.00! We need this break.

 

[mikecoen]

I just re-read some of these posts from last season. Very dry summer in Colorado has led to high prices. Currently, you will pay $10 to 13 for small bales.
You can't get hay for under $300 a ton, even for cow hay or goat hay.
I put up all the ensilage I could which is 22 barrels stuffed tightly, but for my two cows that means a 5 gallon bucketful daily for the pair in order to make it to April. The supplemental rangecake or pellets plus some poor hay is what I hope will get us through to better times. We did just get a rain which makes about 3 since last snowless spring! I watered from a small well and kept them pretty well through the summer on a little over an acre of pasture per cow. Calves due Christmas Eve.

 

[Royd Wood]

I just re-read some of these posts from last season. Very dry summer in Colorado has led to high prices. Currently, you will pay $10 to 13 for small bales.
You can't get hay for under $300 a ton, even for cow hay or goat hay.
I put up all the ensilage I could which is 22 barrels stuffed tightly, but for my two cows that means a 5 gallon bucketful daily for the pair in order to make it to April. The supplemental rangecake or pellets plus some poor hay is what I hope will get us through to better times. We did just get a rain which makes about 3 since last snowless spring! I watered from a small well and kept them pretty well through the summer on a little over an acre of pasture per cow. Calves due Christmas Eve.

Hi Mike
Yes its a post from last year which at the time $45 bucks a round bale (5 x 4) sounded like a tough winter ahead but move on to 2012 and its $100 a round and worse still nobody will sell because they know everyone in Feb / March will be running out so they are hording to get 130 bucks a bale ( asoles all of em) We are trying to get a truck load in from out west which will cost about the same but its the princaple eh. I'm over to an old soldiers place tomorrow as he has a barn full of 4 year old hay. Last year he was on about dragging it out and burning it so it would be cool if a few of us go round and buy the hay and clean up the barn for him. My Galloways will either eat it or bed down on it and a good few bucks in the bank for the old boy- win win

 

[ourflockof4]

I have been watching this thread for awhile, but with a lot different perspective then more of you. I produce hay for our own livestock, and also to sell. I always think its somewhat interesting that most people always list the price they paid by the bale, and not by the ton. Small square bales can range from as little as 40lbs to as much as 120lbs, round bales are between 400lbs to as high as 2200lbs each. Per ton price is a much more accurate number.

Anyways thought, I don't think that a lot of people look at the true cost of production. I see people selling hay for less then what it cost the, to produce it. By the time you figure land cost or rent, fertalizer, lime, seed cost, fuel, equipment purchase/upgrade, equipment maintnence, and labor to do it, it isn't cheap. In general it cost more to produce an acre of hay then it does to produce an acre of corn or beans. Round bales are cheaper then small squares because they take less labor, and are just easier to produce. In my area less and less people are making hay. If it can't pencil out to make the same profit per acre as corn or beans then it's getting plowed under for row crops.

I get a little flusterd with all the bleeding hearts whining about how farmers are ripping them off with these high hay prices. Really? At last years hay prices I was losing money to make hay. I could have rented my land out to the guy down the street for grain and had a set profit per acre. Has anyone priced equipment lately, or fertalizer, or LAND? I have close to $20k just in equipment to be able to make the small amount of hay that I do in a timely maner. Fert. is $700/ton, fuel is $4/gal (my tractor burns 4 gal/hr) land is $5-7k/ acre in my area, $12-20k/ acre in the corn belt. Would you want to have that much money invested just to HOPE to make a profit? You can't buy crop insurance on hay ground in most areas like you can grains. You also cant hedge your futures a year ahead to lock in a profit. All you can do making hay is spend half your summer making it and hope it's worth your time, and your wallet isn't empty when your done.

If you think it's expensive now, just wait. It needs to be in the $250-400/ton range to compete with current grain prices. If it isn't that high then guys will stop making it, and we all know how supply and demand works. And yes, hay should be more expensive in the winter then off the field in the spring. How do you think that hay gets from the field to someone's nice dry barn? How do you think that barn got there in the first place? Doesn't it seem reasonable to get a little more out of it when you have to pay for a barn (upkeep on it & property tax) just to store it for a couple months, plus the fuel and labor to get it there? I would much rather sell it off the wagon while I'm making it and not sell any in the winter.

Sorry for the rant. I'm sure there are other producers on here that will agree with me on this though. The average animal owner probably doesn't understand what it takes.

And just to clarify, I did have to buy hay this year myself. I sold half of my first cutting to a regular customer in small squares for a fairly cheap price off the wagon. Then the rain stopped and I didn't get anything off a new seeding field, and not much off the other. I have bought several loads of round bales for more then I sold my first cutting for. I never comlpaned about the price of what I had to buy if for or tried to beat them down on price. It was a good price and we both knew it. I have leaned a valuable lesson this year about selling hay though, make sure you keep a reserve before you sell a bale or be prepared to sell some livestock

 

[Queen Mum]

Wow Ourflock. That was an EYEOPENER. I never knew that is what it takes to grow hay. Now I do and I will never complain about hay prices again.

 

[Southern by choice]

I get a little flusterd with all the bleeding hearts whining about how farmers are ripping them off with these high hay prices. Really? At last years hay prices I was losing money to make hay. I could have rented my land out to the guy down the street for grain and had a set profit per acre. Has anyone priced equipment lately, or fertalizer, or LAND? I have close to $20k just in equipment to be able to make the small amount of hay that I do in a timely maner. Fert. is $700/ton, fuel is $4/gal (my tractor burns 4 gal/hr) land is $5-7k/ acre in my area, $12-20k/ acre in the corn belt. Would you want to have that much money invested just to HOPE to make a profit? You can't buy crop insurance on hay ground in most areas like you can grains. You also cant hedge your futures a year ahead to lock in a profit. All you can do making hay is spend half your summer making it and hope it's worth your time, and your wallet isn't empty when your done.

your barking up the wrong tree here flock of 4.... Nobody on here is complaining OR saying farmers are ripping them off! Everyone on here understands what's going on we are talking about the hardships it is causing all over the country! AND that includes you!!

Anyone in any kind of farming knows that only people outside of farming don't get it!

Believe it or not we are the very people who care, our farmers are our most valuable asset in this country! They are under appreciated and undervalued. Nevr knowing if they are even going to come out even that year, or be further in the hole.I deal with the same kind of issues on my poultry farm(just way scaled down way,way,way scaled down). Land, care, feed, heat, etc to grow healthy disease free chickens. Raise them pastured and sell 6 month started pullets or prime 1 yr old layers and people honestly think that the bird should cost them $5. These are the ones who have no value for what you do. Goats are the same.

People out in the mid-west who have been hit so hard- the crop growers and the livestock owners...I think about them EVERYDAY!

Flock of 4- If you never hear it from anyone else just know I DO THANK YOU for what you do. I get angry too! and your right it is going to get worse. For what it worth for what you do. I know a long distance thank-you and hug doesn't pay the bills, it's more to say I do care!

Sorry if I mis-spoke for any other BYH's on here!

 

[meadow1view]

If you think it's expensive now, just wait. It needs to be in the $250-400/ton range to compete with current grain prices. If it isn't that high then guys will stop making it, and we all know how supply and demand works. And yes, hay should be more expensive in the winter then off the field in the spring. How do you think that hay gets from the field to someone's nice dry barn? How do you think that barn got there in the first place? Doesn't it seem reasonable to get a little more out of it when you have to pay for a barn (upkeep on it & property tax) just to store it for a couple months, plus the fuel and labor to get it there? I would much rather sell it off the wagon while I'm making it and not sell any in the winter.

Sorry for the rant. I'm sure there are other producers on here that will agree with me on this though. The average animal owner probably doesn't understand what it takes.

The problem is most individuals do not speak from experience. You clearly have run the numbers and demanded a return on investment (your hay enterprise) as anyone should. I had a friend who decided to track all of his costs one year while making hay........he later told me he regretted collecting the numbers since he had finally come to realize that he had never made any money all the years he baled and sold hay. His off the farm income hid his losses well.

Hopefully others will understand that you and many like you are not laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

ourflockof4,

I can only speak for myself, that when I say "hay is expensive" or "whoot!, we are getting a great deal on hay", that is just a matter of fact statement. It certainly isn't stating that I think my hay guy is ripping me off. It just is what it is. Prices go up, prices go down. Sometimes it is expensive and some times it isn't. As others have pointed out, I don't believe that most people that raise animals and work hard think that any farmer of any kind is getting rich quick. I think that most of us do understand the amount of work it takes in any type of farming...a lot!

Best wishes!

 

[Royd Wood]

Hi ourflockof4
Bleeding hearts - I dont think so. The point I was making is that it is wrong to tell customers you have no hay available now and hord it to sell in Feb / March for even more dollars. Thankfully some out there are honest but others who spot an opportunity to clean your clock are suddenly buying up hay from everywhere putting it in the barn and rubbing their grubby little hands waiting for animals to reach starving point and their owners begging for hay - they are now on a boycott list for future years.

 

[jodief100]

Ourflockof4-

Thank you for spelling it out so clearly. I think all of us "knew" this but sometimes you have to hear it. I crunched the numbers on hay a few years back. We were trying to decide if we should buy haying equipment or not. We found it was MUCH cheaper for us to just buy hay. We only had a few acres we could reasonably hay and the payback time was decades. We frequently get $1.50-$2.00 a bale and I wonder how those people make any money. I just bought 160 bales of third cutting mixed grass for $240 yesterday. I know he can't be making any money but he seeemed glad to have someone take it. I have 3 people I buy from and one is more expensive than the other two. I make sure I always buy something from the expensive place because when the other two figure out it isn't worth it to them I want to have that business relationship with the third.

I think all farmers experience this to some degree. We have expenses and they are much more than Agribusiness who can buy feed by the hundred ton and sell birds, beef or pork by the thousands. I hear all the complaints from "customers" who expect to pay the same price for pastured poulty and eggs as they pay for battery chickens in Kroger.

Plain and simple, Americans are SPOILED when it comes to food prices. We pay a smaller percentage of our income on food than any other country and get better quality.

I do have to agree with Royd on one thing. Don't tell me you have no hay now and expect me to pay twice as much in January.