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LYNDILOU
Platinum Member
 United Kingdom
13976 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:01:22 PM
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for hay ! I cant seem to find any for less than £4 a bale ! because there is a shortage, farmers are asking such high prices , but who will suffer ? the horses and owners struggling to keep their horses I fear 
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www.dreamfield-arabians.com |
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Pashon2001
Platinum Member
3575 Posts |
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Vera
Membership Moderator
United Kingdom
8652 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:09:48 PM
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Think yourself lucky! I have been paying £6 for the last few years. There is a place near by that sells it for £3.25 but you can pick up two bales in one hand, no need to cut the baler twine either because it pulls right off, so really not worth the money.
I wish I could store large bale hay. The farmer says that the large bales are the equivalent to 12 of his small bales and they are £35, half the price of the small bales. |
    
Hampshire |
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suyents
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1651 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:14:23 PM
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| makes me quite irritated...keith couldnt sell his small bale haylage for £4.00...so we've eaten it!! :) |
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sarahlock
Platinum Member
England
1535 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:22:26 PM
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I was always led to believe that a round bale was equivalent to about 10 small bales but now im not so sure ?
I was feeding my 2 on small bale hay up until a month ago & was getting through 8 bales in a week
Now im feeding big bale haylage & its lasting me exactly a fortnight , the hay was £3 a bale & the haylage is £25 so i`ve cut my feed costs by half now ! |
     
Brixham (South Devon ) |
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littlearabians
Gold Member
1323 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:46:17 PM
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where are you?
where I am we have more then plenty hay in good quality... YO charges £3 pr bale... they are quite big though, I can fill 3-4 haynets from one bale. |
www.littlearabians.com
Classic Polish Arabians
Worcester based
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georgiauk
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
2605 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:50:20 PM
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A good way to keep round bale hay or straw outside is to use the wrapper from a round bale of haylage, it will pop over the top and keep it dry. Put it on pallet and position it somewhere reasonably sheltered.
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Suelin
Platinum Member
England
2514 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:53:28 PM
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| We always buy our winter hay all at once off the field, which is much less expensive. We can now store it all at our new yard but before we built it I used to buy all my hay at once and the farmer stored it for me in his barn and then he delivered as much as I needed when I needed it. Having already paid for it I knew it would be there when it was required. It is much easier now to have it all on site and of course not everyone is in our situation I know. |
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geegee
Platinum Member
England
3682 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 7:54:24 PM
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Well I have been paying out over £11 a day for haylage because I can't find good quality hay for love nor money. Knee deep in mud, now snow again and emigrating is beginning to sound rather appealing  |
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Cinnypony
Gold Member
1160 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 8:05:49 PM
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| My small bale I bought in Jan was £3.50 a bale - normal size, but now on round bale haylage at £30, which seems to be saving money, as less than I paid last winter... |
    
Cinnabar Moth --------------- -----------CF Matilda ----Red House Gaia
Susi
https://www.facebook.com/CinnabarEndurance/ |
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Annette
Platinum Member
England
1551 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 8:09:10 PM
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| I know I am very lucky here in Leics. I am paying £2 for good sized small bales that are top quality hay. I have been using the same supplier for about 12 years and in all that time have had only 1 price rise rom £1.75 to £2! |
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xsara
Gold Member
822 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 8:12:15 PM
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| I usually buy what hay i need in the autumn it is £2.50 a bale but they are big bales and is really top quality. But at the moment we are lucky as found a farmer that has big black bales and it is only £20 a bale. It is made for his cattle but he works it before he bales and it is long cut so it is just like wetter haylage. We are getting 10 days out of a bale for 5 horses so has cut the hay bills right down. The yard owner charges 10 per horse per week for haylage so 40 a month per horse it is costing me that for 3 |
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fidodido
Gold Member
England
797 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 9:12:20 PM
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I'm currently paying £3 a bale for small bale hay which has been of very good quality up unitl the last couple of weeks. I'm now looking for a new supplier, unless my current one buys in some more. Either way i'm looking at paying £4 for good quality stuff. Unfortunatly for me haylage is no longer an option as one of mine has recently had lami, we do have some good suppliers of haylage locally though and it's normally priced at about £28-£30 a bale. I just wish my wages increased as much as the cost of feeding and bedding did  . |
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T42
Bronze Member
England
215 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 9:20:13 PM
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| I usually make my own for ~50p bale & it's absolutely 1st class. I lost 2 fields this year & have had to buy in at £2.50 & it's poor quality & very variable. I'm fed up too. |
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Roseanne
Moderator
United Kingdom
6708 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 9:33:14 PM
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Got any transport Lynda & Co?
My local farmer is supplying haylage at £22 a large bale which is doing my two for a fortnight, ad lib.
The other local farmer (all very friendly with each other) asked me last week when he delivered the eggs, if I wanted any of his good 2-year-old seed hay at £3 a bale. He's just used enough of last year's to uncover it! He'd charge me a bit extra for delivering and stacking in my shed (I'd take loads but haven't the space!!). But if any of you has a lorry you could come up and fill it and still probably win pricewise.
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Roseanne |
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Ziadomira
Platinum Member
England
1635 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 10:14:28 PM
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Over forty years ago we used to pay £2 to £3 for a bale of hay and one year when there was a bad summer it went up to over £5 a bale. Since then the farmers' costs have increased but hay hasn't. We have always found that it is best to have about two or three farmers willing to sell hay as quite often when one loses their crop another might be lucky.
Zia |
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Annette
Platinum Member
England
1551 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 10:27:26 PM
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40 years ago I was paying around £5 a TON for hay. Hay was normally sold by the ton back then and there were around 40-50 bales to the ton. That also included delivery. The first year I remember hay shooting up in price was the drought year of '76. Hay then "rocketed" to £1 bale round here and straw shot upto 50p a bale! |
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Sirius
Bronze Member
England
102 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 10:27:52 PM
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To follow up georgiauk's advice on reusing the wrapper from a big bale, you can also buy big-bale-bags from your local agricultural suppliers. These are the biggest binliners in the world, made of very tough black plastic, and can be used for a lot of big hay bales before they become too damaged. They are about £1.50 each, but come in a pack of 10. They are very easy to use to cover round HAY bales (not haylage bales which go off after about 5 to 7 days)as they are larger and so looser.
What is still available in most places is large square bales of hay (we call them hestons), weighing about 1/3 tonne so you need a tractor to lift them for unloading, for bagging and for putting in place. They can be worked slice by slice while still inside the bag, unlike round bales.
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Sahir
Gold Member
England
847 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 10:27:57 PM
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Well I'm buying good quality meadow hay for £2.50 per bale 
They are small bales & delivered into my barn, guess I'm just lucky (for a change )
Elaine. |
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jaj
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4324 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 10:40:59 PM
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I'm paying £3 per bale for really nice hay and £1.75 for straw delivered directly from a nearby farm.
Great idea re the haylage wrappers as now that I'm on my own at chum's house I don't have any storage so have a wretched tarpaulin flapping about the place and lots of soggy hay. Will hot foot it to the agri stores tomorrow!
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Kuraishiya (Maleik el Kheil/Kazra el Saghira) and Sahara Bey (Kuraishiya/WSA Charismma) |
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Debbie
Gold Member
United Kingdom
1138 Posts |
Posted - 22 Feb 2010 : 11:36:23 PM
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| Well we sell our good quality meadow hay for £2.50 per bale and small bale haylage (85lbs) for £5.00 |
Debbie
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LesleyA
Silver Member
Scotland
328 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2010 : 08:46:40 AM
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| I'm in south east Scotland and we are paying between £4.50 to £6.00 for hay and £6.00 to £9.00 for small bale haylage. |
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gossy
Platinum Member
England
3639 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2010 : 09:23:04 AM
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| £2.50 down here in Bristol, and i get huge square bales of very nice hay for £25 which lasts me about a month. |
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Karon
Gold Member
England
1411 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2010 : 09:37:43 AM
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£2.50 a bale off one lovely supplier last time I got some off him, £2.75 off another (not such nice hay) and £3.50 off yet another (his timothy hay is £4 a bale though). Needless to say I'm sticking with supplier number one! He's now doing big round bales instead which are a pain to handle (I looke like I've ben showering in hay) but lovely stuff, £20 for a huge bale that lasts my 5 horses 4 - 5 days.
I'll be glad when winter is over though, my hay bill is half as much again as it usually is for winter already. |
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Kazzy
Platinum Member
England
3335 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2010 : 09:54:10 AM
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Same here in Cheshire!! At the begining of winter it was about £2.50 a bale now it has shot upto about £4.00 a bale!! I wish i had got more hay at the begining because now I am paying £4.00 a bale!!
The fella who I buy mine off has said there is truely a shortage this year because of the weather we had in January, the sheep farmers were buying it all to feed the sheep.
They dont normally have hay in the field because we have an abundance of grass but because of the frosty mornings I have been putting hay out.
This summer we are cutting some hay for ourself, he does have 30 acres and the hay will be sweet meadow hay, he didnt have any cut last summer due to the death of his Mother so next winter we should be ok, fingers crossed we get a decent summer so we can cut it.
Janet |
     
Sunny Cheshire |
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xsara
Gold Member
822 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2010 : 11:24:21 AM
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| We used to get very nice hay made for horses of a local farmer for £1 a bale and if he came acroos any bales he thought were bad like end of hay shed he gave us it for nothing he had been making it for years but sadly died and that was only about 7 yrs ago. though managed by luck get a load of hay 2 yrs ago from a person who makes it for horses had an ad in paper when it was short and had to refuse to sell any more only as so many people called up so we were one of the first and he only supplies his regulars so now we can get as much as we want as we have his number from before. |
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Topic |
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Crippling prices...........
