How Do You Find Your Hay?

[Crimsonhorse01]

Hay prices around here are ridicules. I know for some of you its cheap, but in NW wy I could get a ton of nice alfalfa grass for $60 small squares. Now since I am in the Booming Gillette area its about 120 a ton sm sq (cheapest) to $70 a Lrg Bale. Last year I paid 85? A large bale.
I usually head across border to SD for a trailer load at $70 a ton. I think its worth the 2 hour drive to and from.

[Alwaysbehind]

We did our own this year. Best thing ever.

But prior it was a combination of word of mouth and ads and simply noticing farmers.

When I first brought the horses home it was easy. A long time friend of my husband sold hay so we simply purchased from him. The next year he decided to not do hay.

Some came from a craigslist ad. The rest came from the farmer who baled the field on our street. We simply walked up to his workers while they were out there bailing and asked if they would have any for sale, agreed on a price, etc.

How much you buy at once totally depends on how much you can store.

[Indyhorse]

I went through this recently since we moved to a new area. Like the others, I knocked on the doors of my nearest horse owning neighbors, and got probably a dozen phone numbers from the lot of them. Then I stated making calls to find someone who tests their hay for content from a certified lab, and that came down to only one, who hadn't done it, but was willing to. He sent me the analysis results, I looked at his hay and was happy with it, and since his fields are just a little way from my house he brought it straight to me off the fields with no delivery charge, so bonus! We stacked 700 bales because I wasn't sure how much my 4 horses would go through and I wanted to make sure I had enough to get through winter - however I have a lot of loft storage in my barn. I have a standing order for next year with the same hay guy - and that's what I've always done in the past. When you find your supplier you stick with them, and in return they can always be counted on to help out in emergencies :)

[Walkamile]

Hey Rosebud, welcome to the HF.

I buy mine from my cousin (organic dairy farmer) and have always had great hay.

A girlfriend buys hers from Canada. They deliver and stack for her at a reasonable price.

Just a thought, but maybe if there are any horse clubs near you , you could ask them where they purchase their hay, and sometimes a tack shop is a great resourse for this type of info.

Good luck to you!

[snoggle]

Originally Posted by Crimsonhorse01    

Hay prices around here are ridicules. I know for some of you its cheap, but in NW wy I could get a ton of nice alfalfa grass for $60 small squares. Now since I am in the Booming Gillette area its about 120 a ton sm sq (cheapest) to $70 a Lrg Bale. Last year I paid 85? A large bale.
I usually head across border to SD for a trailer load at $70 a ton. I think its worth the 2 hour drive to and from.

Those prices would kill me! I don't think we could afford to have horses at those prices. We pay $25/round bale (we pick it up) and, depending on the time of year, $2 - $3 for a square bale, usually 50 cents more per bale if it is delivered.

Those are the prices for "horse quality" hay. We buy lower quality hay for $15/round bale to use as bedding, because you can't really buy straw around here. We get it from our regular hay supplier, it's not moldly or anything, just not as good a cutting. Our horses leave the lower quality hay alone because they prefer the good stuff, but at least this way if they eat a little bit of bedding, it isn't a big deal. We can get sawdust to use as bedding (I prefer that to the hay) for free, but we have to pay someone to haul it for us, so it isn't worth it for now. We need to get a bigger truck!

[sandy2u1]

I agree with those that said the best way is word of mouth. That way you don't have to go looking at all those lousy bales first. I'd ask the vet, farrier or the local tack store owner. They will know who has the best hay at the best prices. We use a different supplier for our rounds and our squares. The guy who brings our rounds bales has great round bales but really loose squares, so we gotta use 2.

[spence]

It's almost funny how we get ours. We live on a place that's actually owned by my family, however none of us farm it (wife and I do, just got to wait on the old fella to retire...). And he's supplying us our hay this winter, and as long as there is enough of it, probably will as long as we live down here. He hauls it in for his calves from his house (less than 10 mile drive), and we pay him $35/round. It's not TOP quality, but it's not bad stuff. Our three guys go through a bale every 7 to 9 days.

We've got a couple dozen squares up in the hay barn. Most of it we picked up free, it was actually cut for horses but the guy wasn't happy with it for some reason. Friend just said to pick up as much as you can/want. The rest is leftovers that we bought from the school/ranch/kid's camp that we worked at for our trip back from up north. That crap ran us 4.25/bale. Probably 60 lbs on average. I'm not feeding them any time soon, they'll stick around to feed when we go anywhere overnight.

[gypsygirl]

Where I board we grow our own hay. Which is awesome. I usually help out & its a ton of work bc we grow so much, but its really good quality & the BO lets us use as much hay as we want. He also sells straight alfalfa to outside people because we would never even come close to using it all. If there is a bad bale we just burn it out front & its not a big deal.

When the BO sells it its for about $1.50-$2 per bale

[Rowzy]

I first bought my hay from the feed store but that got to be really expensive. At one point orchard grass was 20 dollars a bale for 100 lbs bales.
Now I go to craigslist and find people. I try to stick with the same person but it can be hard to find them again (I tend to loose the contant info). The most I've ordered at a time is 5 tons, but I only have 2 horses.
I only use square bales, and I try to find them under 100lbs because its just me that has to haul them around sometimes. Round bales aren't as common as horse hay around here, I think it has to do with the fact that it rains so much that they hay doesnt stay good long enough or something.

[Rowzy]

Originally Posted by snoggle    

We pay $25/round bale (we pick it up) and, depending on the time of year, $2 - $3 for a square bale, usually 50 cents more per bale if it is delivered.

Just saw this... Hay around here can run for 250+ ton, 300 delivered. I was paying 350 a ton at one point when gas prices were the highest. What I got last summer was cheap for 160 a ton, but it was also lower quality hay and he delivered for free. It was local, western washington hay which is lower quality hay and can be hard to find in horse quality. Eastern washington hay is the more expensive stuff but its the best quality we can get around here.