OH NO hay crisis!

[GwenFarms]

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Feed isn't so bad here, I know chicken feed is about $11-$14, which is pretty good feed wise, and an 80kg of sweetfeed for the horses is about $16.00/bag, more or less, in the summer we feed a few haycubes with our feed as well, just incase the grass is subpar.

Thats high for us. A bag of sweet feed here is around $6-$8, unless your buying top of the line premium. I feed Reliance pellets @ $8.75 a bag. Its a better line of feed. Chicken pellets are $8-$12. Starter is pretty high right now @ about $12-$14. We've been told it is all going up though because of the flooding in Iowa.

I'm paying $40 for hay, Duke's mixture. Those bales are 1000-1200 lbs. Decent quality for first cutting. You can find Coastal Bermuda for around the same price if you look, but the first cutting quality is really bad in most of the coastal fields. It was too cold @ night for it to grow up until nearly June and then we had a long heat wave w/ no rain. So the fields are full of weeds. Second cutting will be coming up soon and you can see that the fields are looking better, but the price will go up with it.

 

[WrenAli]

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Soak it overnight in a tub with water. That will take care of the stems and dust. They will eat it like candy after that.

Down here stuff in the field is selling for $6 a bale in the field (65lb bales). Plus we have not been able to start cutting yet. I don't think we'll get the guy to cut out field until mid july. Yikes...

I don't feed my horses hay pellets. They don't offer the fiber that the horses need. They are easier to handle, but it's not worth it to me (to expensive compared to hay)

 

[patandchickens]

Please don't think I'm criticizing, Chick-a-dee, but I would like to point out that if you spent a little more energy listening to the very good suggestions people are giving you and a little less energy trying to assure us that you really know lots and lots and lots already, you would get a lot more benefit from the whole exercise of asking these questions.

Large square bales are absolutely no harder to feed from (apropos your mother) than small squares or the large round bales that you had initially said would be ok as an alternative if necessary. You don't take the whole bale out to the horses

-- you just take off however many flakes you need (I usually feed about 1-2 flakes 2-3 times a day for three horses, but it depends a lot on how the hay is baled), put it in a wheelbarrow or sling, and wheel/carry it out. Same as with any other hay.

If you should ever HAVE to transport really big heavy bales (a small number at a time) remember that you can always rent a U-Haul type truck. Yes, people do do this.

It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise if you can't actually purchase your hay right now, since buying it green (even if it isn't delivered til Fall) means you will have absolutely no way of telling whether it's dusty or moldy (peoples' recommendations or swearing-on-a-stack-of-bibles mean nothing in this regard). And if the vendor wants you to commit to a particular # bales you will also not be sure of buying the right amount either as you would just have to trust to his guesstimate of their final dry weight. Coming up short on hay in March *would be* a distinct problem, none of this 'oh-more-or-less-is-fine", because prices will be a good bit higher, hay of the quality you want (and in the type of bales you want) will be much harder to obtain, and winter conditions (snow, mud, flood) sometimes make it difficult or impossible to get hay delivered, or at least delivered where on the farm you want it to go.

Good luck to your parents in getting their mortgage sorted out,


Pat, who as a total trivia-piece btw is tired of being told she lives "4 hrs" away from Stirling -- it would be about 2 hrs 30-45 min or so, based on how long it takes me every year to drive to Marlbank (which is a bit further) to buy bareroot trees, and it is pretty much the same climate etc as it is here in Uxbridge (which *is* more seasonally advanced than down Bowmanville-Oshawa way, by the lake, which keeps things locally cooler and later).

 

[Chick_a_dee]

I was estimating, by how long it takes us to get from Claremont to Stirling... We live north of Stirling, but still within the Stirling township, about 6km south of Marmora...it's odd, we take on a Marmora postal address, and yet our real address is Stirling.

We're not going to go with that particular supplier, because the real issue with the compact big bale, is that we're not certain on how the floor in the hay loft would take it. It can take a lot of bales, spread out, but I'm not sure how it would take the lot of weight, in one spot.. plus, getting it into the hayloft would be a trick in itself, as there is a paddock about 20 feet from the doors, and a large ramp that goes up there, and even then you'd have to maneuver around the ladders. We will be scouting the papers, and calling people to get prices, and names, and saving them all, and getting assurences that they WILL have hay still for sale in september, and the reason I'm looking at the number for 4 horses, is because I'm over-estimating, we're only looking at having 2-3 horses this year, that extra hay round, gives me some flexibility.

Round bales would work, if they were really small... but the problem with those, is space to store them, they'd work otherwise... when we boarded in Bowmanville the woman had roundbales, and she just tore sheets off them, which works for us... but she had an unused indoor arena to store them in... we have a on the smaller side, raised barn.. and nowhere else, and we're not allowed, in our township to erect any other structures.

So, for the time being, it's going to be small squares, perhaps next year if we get the tractor we want, or get some extra land ajacent, we can do something else.

Mortgage is looking up, an email was sent off to the idiot working with the mortgage, and at the sight of the word "lawyer," he quickly sent our file off to a co-worker, who turns out to be MUCH more efficient, and actually KNOWS what he's doing. The good thing? ..the bridge loan is fine

 

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
Soak it overnight in a tub with water. That will take care of the stems and dust. They will eat it like candy after that.

Down here stuff in the field is selling for $6 a bale in the field (65lb bales). Plus we have not been able to start cutting yet. I don't think we'll get the guy to cut out field until mid july. Yikes...

I don't feed my horses hay pellets. They don't offer the fiber that the horses need. They are easier to handle, but it's not worth it to me (to expensive compared to hay)

Are they just like...pellets? ours are massive, and when you expand them it's just like a flake or two, our horse had to be on them because he couldn't eat hay, it was dusty at the barn we were at, and it kept making his heaves act up. We later decided to get this super hay, thats left to like ferment in yeast, and its packaged in these plastic bags...it's a wetter hay, and did amazing things for his heaves, but we kept him on haycubes during the summer.

 

[WrenAli]

Alfalfa soaked overnight will soften a lot like soaked pellets. If you have a horse with heaves you should always spray down their hay before you feed it.

It will help a lot. The problem with cubes and pellets is that they are chopped so fine they really don't do a whole lot fiber wise. Yeah, they have a lot of fiber in them, but it's not really utilized when it is so small. The only thing hay cubes offer is the protein.

Super hay would be haylage and is great for horses. I just don't have enough horses it be able to buy it as it can mold really easily, which is not good for your horses. It's not the mold I can see that it forms that I worry about either. It can for black molds that are really bad.


Good luck finding hay!

 

[Chick_a_dee]

haylage... I don't remember what it was called, but it smelt like redwine, and I couldn't stand to be in the car with it piled in the back lol. Pal has severe heaves, he's living out west now where the air quality is better, and it's not as humid..but he was a smart horsey, he used to wet his own hay for himself, he'd suck up water in his mouth, and then spit it all over his hay, and he'd also dip his hay lol.

 

[sueg6255]

I was just at an auction and first cut reg. bales of hay went for 3.75 US. a bale. We just did our first cut and got 120 bales. First time having our own hay and hope we are doing things right.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

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Lucky you have your own

We're a couple years from having our own, we're hoping to buy a large size piece of unserviced land hopefully next year, or the year after....as there are many farmers that will custom bale a private field.

 

[pokey]

when i had horses i leaned that if the bales are wound tight that they will actually roll if you put some elbow grease into it. they will
roll out of the bed of a pickup truck, but we put two 2 ramps on the talegate of the truck(like the ones you load a mower with)to make it easier. two of us could do it. good luck!