Hay prices and the things people say

Anonymous-0 · Jan 21, 2012

OT. For people in the business of selling hay,or anybody else who wants to chime in.What do you say when at a hay auction a person that is buying hay states-This hay is way to high.I think to my self,What price do they think it should be.You can't expect it to be the same price it was 5 yrs. ago can they.Nothing else is the same price as then,why should hay be the same price?Just my peeve for the day.Thank you.

Roy Ward · Jan 21, 2012

I sell my extra hay every year, but I had very little extra this last year at all. In 2010 it was selling for $45 for a 5X5. At the beginning of 2012 I had no choice, I went up to $60 sold out in one day. Then the next week and right now it's $110 if you can find it. I think $60 is a fair price and I plan to stay at that in 2013 if I make enough to sell some.

ridgelane · Jan 21, 2012

I agree. Many people in my area have sold hay at 3 cents a pound for years. When fuel prices skyrocketed and machinery costs have climbed, the price is still 3 cents. Many people use that as a standard even when costs have escalated on inputs.

During dry years and resulting hay shortages, the price spikes dramatically but the returns to that magic 3 cents/pound.

I like to pay that price when I have to buy but it makes no sense to me why it stays that low.

Jerry/MT · Jan 21, 2012

We paid $90 a ton for grass/alfalfa in net wrapped 1250 lb bales from the guy who custom hays our place. the other local hay shaker was asking $120/T for twine wrapped bales.

I had a friend who used to grow timothy hay in the Kittitas Valley of Washington. We were laoding up on some $80/T hay when an old timer pulled in with a 1 ton truck and said he bought a few calves to feed for the winter and wanted some hay. He asked the price and Ted told $80/T. He turned as white as sheet and said the last time he"s bough hay it was $25/T. Ted said that must have been eons ago and the only thing he had in that price range was the stuff on the floor of the hay shed! he was in shock and left.

The moral of the story is that some people think that if their dad bought hay at $5/T fifty years ago, they should be able to also. Never mind that the $1000 car now costs $25,0000, that quart of milk that used to be 20 cents is now a dollar plus and 25 cent gasoline is now between $3 and $4! Ain"t no accountin" fer people!

Dick L · Jan 21, 2012

Several years ago I took a load of no rain green hay to the auction before I had a conditioner. One person said will horses eat this. The answer was not if you don't put it in front of them. Didn't make a difference in the price. It sold right with the other green no rain hay. I would guess that most there just thought, what a dumb thing to say.

dixon boy RL · Jan 21, 2012

whn i was in business of selling small squares,and got that i simply said raise it yourself then. most of the time the ones wh took it to consignment auctions did not come out so well by the time figure load haul unload to sight and pay commision. i alays sold direct or out of field was best. last few years sold the hay crop standing in the field.

Ken Macfarlane · Jan 21, 2012

Here hay was 2$/square bale from about 1985 on. You can still find people selling it for that. I sell at 2.75 out of the barn and still sometimes get complains about price. I tell them to buy round bales if they don't like the cost of feed.

ChrisinMO · Jan 21, 2012

We don"t sell any hay anymore, but sometimes we buy hay. I don"t really care about the price of the first bale. I usually buy one bale, feed it, see what it looks like on the inside, and then decide if the price is right. Then I"ll buy more. I usually have an idea of what other people are charging for their hay and I keep in mind what the costs were of making hay last summer. I figure if this guy makes good hay, and I might need to buy some of it from him next year or the year after, then I better make it worth his while to sell it to me.

Christopher

Paul from MI · Jan 21, 2012

I haven't raised any hay for about 15 years, but I always found that if I had really nice hay, I made out better sdelling it myself. If it had gotten wet or stemmy, I did better at the auction barn. Just my experience.

Anonymous-0 · Jan 21, 2012

I don't say anything to 'em. I know exactly where they're coming from. They're entirely within their rights to buy from someone else if they can find it cheaper. I'm within my rights to ask whatever I feel I need to. And to some extent, I agree....It IS too high. Then again, so is fuel, equipment, land, fertilizer, twine, labor, taxes, ect. It is what it is.

What's so funny (in a not so funny sort of way) I remember hearing people whining about prices 30 or 40 years ago. Some people will complain if you GIVE it to them.

If you think it's expensive NOW, just wait a few years until the current administrations policies being enacted NOW have enough time to have their full effect. You ain't seen NUTHIN' yet!

kyhayman · Jan 21, 2012

I get the 'thats too high, or its cheaper down the road' quite often. It used to make me mad but now I simply say, then thats where you need to buy. I had a guy here with a semi getting a load, with it about half loaded he started complaining about the amount of alfalfa. This man had just spent 2 hours deciding which lot he wanted. I politely had my guys unload it and I stuck out my hand and wished him a safe trip back, about 1100 miles. He sat there kind of dumbfounded and thats fine. I went in the house and closed the door. Ive always sold out by the end of the second year. If I dont some time, I'll buy more cows and feed it.

Animal · Jan 21, 2012

I am going to chime in here with my 2 cents worth. Considering the price and up keep on equipment, fuel, twine and net hay is cheap. Now I want to get into the other part of hay, the mind game. I try to have the best product that I can produce, to me that means you are not buying weeds but hay. Those folks that think your hay is too high, I wonder what they were doing while you are watching the weather forecast and the humidity, I will guarantee you they were not trying to figure out how to get that hay mowed raked and baled with out getting it wet. How about when the weather man is off by a day and you do get it wet, you either feed it to your own cows or sell it for bio mass, before bio mass I took it to the ditch, cause I will not sell it unless it is right. At any rate who takes the hit on that? What about a long stretch of rain and it gets stemmy? Who takes that hit? As far as I am concerned good hay is worth at least a hundred dollars a ton. Anyone can put up something that resembles hay, but to put up good hay is darned hard work!

souNdguy · Jan 21, 2012

some things ARE the price they were 5ys ago.. or 20 ys ago.

I work in the construction industry.

it's been in the toilet for about 3 ys now.. and never even great after 9/11.

we are bidding work with unit prices for labor and whatnot from 20ys ago

Anonymous-0 · Jan 21, 2012

Supply and demand will dictate the price.Here it is approx $40 now, when we had the drought it was $120 upward. That is oats in 5x4 round bales.

northvale · Jan 21, 2012

I sell hay AND feed it to our sheep. I always caution folks to make sure none gets wasted. Otherwise, it is expensive. Good hay, with no waste, is the best value.

johndeereman · Jan 21, 2012

Simple solution is if you want it cheaper come help make it the more I handle it the higher the price goes. Threaten the complainers with physical work and they back down most times

JDseller · Jan 21, 2012

I don't see how you can sell hay for $2.75 a bale. For even a forty pound bale that is only $137.50 per ton. Grass round bales will bring more than that around here. Good alfalfa small squares start at $4.00 and go up.

showcrop · Jan 21, 2012

My customers are saying they are selling or giving their horses away. My highest volume customer told me this morning that yesterday she gave away a brood mare that she had paid $10,000 for four years ago.

Dachshund · Jan 21, 2012

Around here - Ethanol and the price of corn has driven the price of hay/alfalfa way up from where it should be.

OLD HECTOR · Jan 21, 2012

Sold some small squares to a horse guy one time(got it for sons horses) a few weeks later he approached me and wanted to give back a discount on the hay because the sons horses were only eating half of it ,I told him to tell his son to feed them less per feeding then they would not waste the other half...

Shetland Sheepdog · Jan 21, 2012

Makes me realize just how blessed I am with the local hay market!
Late summer of 2010 I was able to get on some low land and harvest about 15 tons of old type RCG in idiot cubes! It hadn't been hayed for 3-4 years. I sold it out of storage for 100.00 per ton last fall!
I just delivered 1 ton of 2011 1st crop mixed grass hay for $325.00 (40 lb bales @ $6.50).

Edit: Here's a picture of the RCG I baled in 2010

Stubble after baling

CenTex Farmall · Jan 21, 2012

I make my own hay but ran out and didn't have quite enough due to the drought. I don't like how high the prices have gotten, but I can either pay it when I have to or sell out and take up basket weaving. Supply and demand and also fuel prices. I don't like it, but it is what it is.

Some of the stuff shipped into Texas has been good and some of it is crap somebody unloaded. Just have to inspect the bales before buying.

I don't complain to the sellers as I don't know what they paid or what the shipping was. Fuel is not cheap and the bales are coming from half way across the country. There's several places I can buy from and believe me I do shop around for best prices.

What ticks me off is locals who have old hay or crop residue that are sticking it to their neighbors just because they can. The hay dealers are simply working a niche business.

GordoSD · Jan 22, 2012

What should it be?

Ron in Nebr · Jan 22, 2012

We don't sell at auction but this year we've sold several semiloads of big rounds just 'cause we've got extra and the market's up...

What I think is that if they dont want to buy it, that's fine. They can find some other or put up their own, makes me no difference. We can always feed it eventually.

We always sell our hay but usually run it through cattle and convert it to beef first.

Hay prices and the things people say

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