2007 Southeast Hay Outlook is Bleak
Posted by Bill on Jun 18 2007 at 10:57 pm | Tagged as: Horse Ownership Costs
Speaking of hay, the word from the hay farmers in east Tennessee is that 2007 is shaping up to be a very bad year for hay. The first harvest of the year was about half it’s normal size and the lack of rain since the first harvest could mean there is no second harvest. In Tennessee, we had a hard freeze well into spring that seems to have slowed the growth of just about everything this season. That’s probably the culprit of the smaller-than-normal first harvest. Local farmers say we’re in the drought end of a 10 year moisture cycle in these parts.
What all of this means for those of us buying hay in east Tennessee is high prices and low availability. Last year feed stores were selling 30-40 pound square bales for up to $5.50 each last winter. I wonder what the price will be this year. If these farmers are correct, the best time to purchase hay is right now. As long as we keep them away from moisture, the bales will easily last and we have the room for it now. We’re planning on stocking up on round bales for winter and square bales for daily roughage. Worse-case scenario, we’ll supplement this winter with bagged alfalfa but I’d rather not do that. If you live in the southeast, this might be a good year to consider building some hay storage.
Luckily the midwest seems to be having a wet summer so you horse owners out there are probably in good shape. Heck, we might be importing hay from you guys this year!
I’m not sure how hay is doing out our way this year, but I don’t think it’s doing very well either.
Thanks to your site though, we’re having our first round bale delivered this week! We’re excited to try it. We were told the bales are about 800-900 pounds, and only 45.00, so we’re going to get one round bale to see what it’s like, and then the regular 60 pound square bales. Right now they are 6.00 each here, which still seems pricey to me. The round bale is a MUCH better deal so we hope it works out. My only fear is a mess of hay everywhere, and the bale not lasting near as long as we hoped, which is why we are purchasing both round and square.
How many pounds are your round bales this year?
Wow, someone took our advice! We’re so flattered.
We were told that to avoid the mess and waste with the round bales, you should really have a hay ring. I think we’ll be investing in one of those with our round bales this year too, because there was a LOT of waste with the round bale. There was hay EVERYWHERE.
We haven’t shopped for round bales yet, but we’re going to look into one soon. The dry weather is not only threatening the hay crops, but severely cutting down on the grass in our pasture. We’re having to supplement with the square bales already. It’s making us very nervous.
$6.00 seems pricey to me too! At the lowest point of winter our first year with Valentine, before we had our inside source, the most we paid was $4.50. We almost choked on that, since we had been paying $3.
But in Arizona, we saw a sign for hay for $8.50 a bale. Ouch!