lisa m asked:
Everyone is talking about a shortage of hay this winter which doesn’t worry me because the farms here in Lexington, KY will just ship it in from Canada but it will drive the price up. I’ve just bought a ton for my own horse (not work) and paid $5.25 per bale. Wondered what the situation was elsewhere, how much you are paying and what state?
Thanks
horse owning
horse owning
Paying $17.00 for blister beetle free 3 string alfalfa, and $8.00 for coastal in here in Dallas / Fort Worth
horse owning
In the San Antonio region of Texas Coastal was $9.00 – $10.00 (on average) everywhere just a few months ago, even from private farmers. Now you can get it from $4.00 – $6.00 from private farmers, but the feed stores are still at $9.50. I personally get it for $5.50 just down the street from my house.
Up until a year and 1/2 or so ago it was an average of $3.00 for as long as I have been here, which was refreshing from Florida prices.
Alfalfa is about $12.50 or so and hasn’t really fluctuated.
I would have thought hay would be a lot cheaper in KY – blue grass state and all.
Thanks for that question, it’s cool to see the differences and lack of.
horse owning
In southern California, we are paying $14.75 for a 14-flake bale of alfalfa, $12.50 for oat mix, and $18 for timothy. The alfalfa is grown 40mi away, so it isn’t just the transportation cost alone that’s driving up the cost. Water rates have tripled and drought has been declared, so I’m sure it will climb even higher, and soon!
horse owning
I’m in texas paying 8.75 a bale for coastal. All the rain and flooding and humidity has made cutting horrible! And bales that I had stored in my garage covered with a tarp still molded because of all the moisture. This winter is going to be worse than last year because no one has been able to cut anything!
horse owning
We grow our own, but the second cut stunk big time, so we’ve been pre-buying for winter at 2.75 a bale for a nice grass mix hay. This is a hay growing area, so we have little trouble, but have had to pay as high as 6 dollars a bale if we needed some towrds the end of winter in a really bad hay year, the last being about ten years ago. Oh, shoot. This is Southwest Lower Michigan.
horse owning
In Northern California hay is getting scarce already, we had a dry winter/spring so every ones crops were pretty light.
Our regular suppliers are already out as they do not have a 2nd or 3rd cut so we are driving quite a ways to get a load next week to hopefully get us thru winter. We are buying it at $6 a bale (grass hay) which I will happily pay considering I pay $12-15 at the feed store up the road.
horse owning
I live in eastern South Dakota and for grass round bales it is about $80/ton. I don’t know the price of alfalfa because I am lucky and have small alfalfa bales from last year.
We didn’t have rain for 38 days straight but the last 2 weeks we have been getting dumped on. I was happy to get my grass hay put up right, and now there is alfalfa still in the windrows that people can’t get to cure from all this rain and humidity.
Most people I know that have shed space for their hay aren’t selling this year because of the crazy weather patterns lately.
Take care!
horse owning
I live in Canada and i payed 1.50$ a bale for mine(quality, no dust, not been rained on) I have 3 horses and 2 cows, the horses get a bale a day and the cows get 4!
horse owning
I live in Australia and due to the drought here a square (small) bale of grassy lucerne hay is currently $30 AUD per bale, as you can guess many cheap horses here at the moment even yearling race horses well bred are only a couple of hundred dollars at the sales they are being sold for less than the price of entry in the sale no profit, and that doesn’t include the price of the service fee to get the foal in the first place. I know this hasn’t really got anything to do with answering your question but just wanted to let you know what can happen to hay prices when a drought hits, we have been in drought for a couple of years here. I think you should buy as much cheap hay as you can while you can. I hope your drought is a short one. its really horrible people can’t give horses away in some places here, and the doggers are buying some great horses cheap because people just can’t afford to feed them. sad really.
horse owning
$5 for a 75 pound bale in Tennessee at the Ky state line
horse owning
I paid $130/ton for grass alfalfa hay, ten tons total, delivered and stacked. There are 30 bales per ton.
The feed stores are already charging $8/bale, which has been the cost at the end of winter. I have heard it is a combination of fertilizer and gasoline costs as well as terrible weather, which has pushed the hay costs up. With all the flooding in the mid-West, prices will continue to rise.
One of our country’s top exports to China is hay.
horse owning
$16 a bale is the best price my friend and I can find just on oat here in California. Alfalfa is even more. The grass mix is getting up there too
horse owning
im from MI and I get mine for 2.50 a square bale good 1st and 2nd cutting delivered and put in my barn guess im lucky after hearing some of the prices out there I pay 3-350 for good 3rd cutting at the sales its bringing between 2 and 5 dollars a bale 2 for the junky hay and 4 and 5 for the nice stuff round bales are between 20 and 40 dollars alot of people are saying it will jump up though as alot of the farmers didnt get a second cutting or the bales are so sun bleached they look like straw
horse owning
I’m in south Louisiana(New Orleans area) and hay is running $5-6/square bale for nice local grass hay. We had a lot of rain earlier in the season and were having problems baling, but luckily my horses were on pasture through that. That said, my BF and I help a friend bale hay so we get paid in hay(20-40 bales every time we help)…and whatever we need to purchase we get for about $3/bale. Round bales run $25-35. It was really bad for a while, but now we’re getting to bale regularly and it’s really nice grass hay so I’m stocking up every time we bale!
horse owning
here in Vancouver, Wa. i’m paying $255.00 for a ton. the bales are usually around 100 lbs. that is for hay brougfht from Eastern Wa or Oregon. It is orchard grass. local hay is not very good but is much cheaper. i don’t feed that.
My friend bought a bale for $19.00 the other day. last year it was 11.00 ffor the same kind
horse owning
One of my family members was quoted $8.00 per 60# square bale but that was right around Fair time. So it could have been jacked up for that. But we’ve had some severe monsoons (gully washers, as they are referred to here) that we don’t usually get. Lots of hay is being baled just to get it off the fields.
Sad, but glad mine is already in the barn!!
Oops forgot I’m in CO.
horse owning
In Washington State it’s almost $10.00 a bale. My family produces hay and it’s sad to say but it’s the price of fuel that is driving the cost of hay up, along with the lack of water.
It’s been really dry everywhere, and hay just isn’t growing all that well.
horse owning
I live in VT and we make our own hay and we ended up short so we cannot sell as much as we would like. But we sell it right now for $3.50 for 1st cut 40-50lbs bale. The price will go up and we are cheaper then some others. We had a wet year last year and this year is really dry so hay is definitely running short. My boss last year was paying over $5.00 a bale for 1st cut that was not that great for the price. I would recommend figuring out what you need now and getting it before it is all gone and you have to ship in.
horse owning
OMG hay here in Nashville TN area is horrible. We have had no rain hardly all summer and have barely gotten a 2nd cutting! Local (plain old grass) hay is going for 8.25 a bale!!! You can find it cheaper but it is just plain junk! brambles, sticks weeds… ntohing good. Prarie Grass from Kansas is selling for 12.500 and straught alfalfa is 18.25!!!!! It is horrible. There are some othe rplaces where you can find decent hay for a little less…… but it’s really not worth feeding even a goat! We are still under a severa drought down here as I’m sure you have heard being a neighbor to TN and all. Rolled hay is going upwards of 85.00 per roll!!!!! And that is if you pick it up, delivery on them is almost 100.00 per roll
horse owning
We’re still shopping out our options. It’s going to be pricier than usual though.
horse owning
In MD, I just paid $6/bale for the same hay, from the same guy who charged me $3.50 last year.
horse owning
I paid 4.25/bale for alfalfa here. I pay on average about 130/ton. We were in a shortage, not sure if we still are, but will know in about 2 mths lol!!
horse owning
I pay about $1.75 – $2.75 per square bale in the spring/summer. In the fall/winter I pay about $2.25 – $3.75 per square bale. Round bales cost me $20 – $30 in the spring/summer and in fall/winter they cost me $25 – $35. I live in MI. Just someting to share- I heard people in Texas pay $10 – $20 per SQUARE bale. Is that true? If so I couldn’t own a horse!
horse owning
I just paid 9.00$ a bale. We are 8.00 to 11.00$ per bale. In Las Vegas NV.
horse owning
I’m over here in western Kentucky. The drought is really bad, never saw anything like it! I’ve had 0.4 inches of rain in two months, temperature around 100 every day. Square bales going for around $5.00; round bales going for around $35.00. This is all going to change however. The pasture is all gone, and cattlemen have been feeding hay for several weeks now. We’ve only had one cutting this year, so about mid October the crunch will come. There is scare talk of round bales going for about $100.00. That is just silly, because it would be best to sell off older cows, and 400-600# steers. This is just cattle hay, I think the horse owners are in a little better shape with their Alfalfa and such. Good Luck!!
horse owning
Here in Florida major shortage. My brother has several hundred acres and is selling it to all for $5.00 Square and $50.00 round. We just bought 300 square bales.
horse owning
I’m in KY but on the border line of TN..I pay $3.50 for mine and its the top quality hay..first cut..blah, blah, blah…its good hay…
horse owning
I’m paying $3 in northern MD for grass hay and $50 for a round bale. Starting to stock up now
We didn’t get second cutting here, not going to be pretty towards the middle of winter especially if we don’t get 3rd
horse owning
I dont know how much my mom is paying but I know there is a shortage coming. We live in Ohio. She is buying extra right now in order to avoid paying the higher price but, that doesnt last obviously.