Hay Prices?!?!?! What are you paying?

[Livinwright Farm]

In NH, depending upon where I get it, regular hay is 6.50-9.50/bale... the only way to get alfalfa hay around here now is either buying the alfalfa pellets, cubes, or shinkwrapped "bales" of Alfa Supreme by Lucerne Farms... and those are $12.50/"bale". None of the feed stores carry the alfalfa hay anymore because, "People were complaining that it is just too rich for the horses"... I really wanted to look the guy at the local grainery(who said the previous quote to me) that that is fine and dandy, but what about all the people who have dairy goats?!?! Oh well. My little herd will just have to deal with the best cheap hay I can find.. for now anyways.

 

[Ariel301]

Arizona is not a good place to try to buy hay, especially in the winter! I'm up in Kingman, in the northwest part of the state.

I paid $10.25 a bale for my last delivery of hay. It was cow hay, so not very good stuff, but their regular was $15 a bale, and I couldn't afford that. I feel a little cheated over it, the bales were advertised as 120 pounds, but they're only about 80, so I'm going through them fast. Not much I can do, since it's all there was that I could afford. :/ I'm supplementing with alfalfa pellets ($8/50 pound bag), brewery grain (free) and bucketloads of weeds from the wash behind our property.

Why in the world are we trying to raise livestock on hay in the desert?!

 

[Be Bop N Bubba]

Depends. We have orchard grass. Timothy and timothy/alfalfa mix we do ourselves and sell for 2.75 - 3.50 a square and rounds are 50 so I talked to a local hay trader and we do some swappin when I need a few alfalfa bales. I have a friend who gets the huge squares from canada for her show horses and shes only paying 50 a bale when she buys a full load.

 

[GrowURown]

God Bless! We were LUCKY (I felt at least) - to come across DECENT quality - not great, just decent - at $8 a bale (50-60 lbs sq bales) for the coastal and $16/bale for alfalfa (HUGE 3 string bales though, easily close to double the grass hay in weight!) The guy we buy from has been trucking that stuff in as his barn was empty of the stuff from his own field 2 months ago except what he had kept for himself....

SOON it will be cheaper I know, but right now it's a challenge for us to find anything good enough to give the horses AND the goats - the goats being the issue, as we had originally put up ALMOST enough for the winter FOR THE HORSES and high prices that come with winter time, but then got goats and had to get more hay as we were using more (and we blew threw a bit extra when it was really cold using it as emergency bedding for the hog - she looked chilly my wife said and threw her in a bale or 2 to bury down in)

But yeah soon enough it should go down - last year we paid $4 - $6 for the sq bales after the 2nd/3rd cutting and YES I KNOW it's cheaper in the long run to do round bales, but my wife HATES them and won't let me! Says it is worth it to have something she can easily move around where she needs it....so we are stuck with the square bales....by order of the queen

ETA: we are north of Houston texas just by a bit...just realized that was missing...

 

[Cuttlefishherder]

I know we payed something like 13$ for our bail of burmuda for our goats, but this is Arizona and only cacti grow here naturally! lol

 

[miss_thenorth]

Just picked upanother 5 big round bales at $40 a pop. Same price we paid for in the summer (same supplier) What we got is grass hay Normal prices areound here are $35-45 round bale, (small and large accordingly) and about $3.50 for a small square second cut grass alfalfa. I haven't seen it vary from summer to winter in price and we always have to get a few more bales come this time of year--mainly cuz we are always adding new critters and underestimate our hay needs.

 

[julieq]

Last year we paid about 4.00 for a 50 lb bale of pure alfalfa. Unfortunately we increased our herd size and didn't buy enough last year to last until second cutting in July this year. Now we're paying 10.00 for 100 lb bales, which are extremely hard to find for some reason. We may have to finish out the season with one ton bales. So the increase isn't bad, yet. But with fuel prices and inflation we expect a solid increase in prices by July.

 

[Ariel301]

Just picked upanother 5 big round bales at $40 a pop. Same price we paid for in the summer (same supplier) What we got is grass hay Normal prices areound here are $35-45 round bale, (small and large accordingly) and about $3.50 for a small square second cut grass alfalfa. I haven't seen it vary from summer to winter in price and we always have to get a few more bales come this time of year--mainly cuz we are always adding new critters and underestimate our hay needs.

I really miss those round bales, I used to buy them for my horse in Colorado at about that same price. Sure would be nice to get those for the goats!

 

[his1911]

For bermuda or bermuda/timothy I can usually get sq bales ( 60 lbs or so) for $5. Same mix or some with a little to alot of fescue ( cow quality) round bales 5x5's I can get for $20 . In Northern GA,

 

[RPC]

I don't pay anything for my hay or straw because we do custom hay baleing....Well my dad does and I just work for him when I can. We charge right now $2.50 for straw, $4.00 for grass, $5.00 for Alfalfa. These are the small 70 pound square bales. I don't know how in the world some of you can afford to keep animals at 13-15 dollars a bale.