Why would straw be more expensive than hay?

[BarefootMom]

holy geez you are talking for square bales right? (about 50lbs) usually about 2x3's

if only. We baled over 500 this year and were lucky to get $2.50-$3 a bale for straw. The round bales of straw are only going for about $25 and they are usually 5x5's or 4x5's

Depends on the quality of hay too. If it is just dry fescue that has been combined it might be cheaper. Alfalfa would be higher along with lespidiza or something along those lines. We baled some lespidiza/straw combo bales and got about $3.50 for them.

I wouldn't buy it at those prices!


Now round bales of this years good fescue hay is another story...$40-$60 a bale but average sizes at 5x5's or 5x6's

We just baled up some pasture that hadn't been touched with anything in over 5 years, most of it was blackberry briars and weeds...sold it to a guy for $25 a bale. (and yes he looked at the pasture before we baled it and knew what the bales were going to be)

 

[zzGypsy]

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we're an hour south west of you in MO and we're seeing $5-7 for 2-string 50-60 lb bales of grass hay, and $50-60 for 5x5 bales of cow-quality fescue with weeds. IF you can get it.
in CA we were paying $20 a bale for the 3-string 100-110 lb bales, and they don't do the big rounds for we sold 3/4 of our sheep and 1/2 our goats because we just couldn't manage the cost.

my texas friends have sold 90% of their cattle, and they're paying $120 a 5x5 round bale for fescue... that's why they had to sell, they're used to paying $25/bale, not $120.

 

[gritsar]

The lady at the feed store told me they will not have any more hay this year because they can't get it at a decent price. I've seen lots and lots of hay on the back of tractor trailers, all of it headed for Texas.

It was suggested, again by the feed store lady, that I use pine shavings in the nestboxes instead. She obviously has never owned chickens. After three years of using hay, my girls would refuse to use the boxes if they had pine shavings in them. I know, I've tried and ended up with broken eggs all over the floor. They are very much creatures of habit.

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

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My birds lay wherever and in whatever! lol! Yours are picky!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Square bales here are at least 75-100 lbs. Don't know how many strings they have as I don't use hay.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

A standard square bale can vary from under 50 pounds to over 100 pounds. Its a matter of who is baleing it an how tight they set the baler to pack it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It depends on what is being baled too. I could manage those orchard grass bales all day but one neighbor baled soybeans. Those would wear me out. They were usually wetter than I would have baled then too. Red Clover/Lespedeza were a bit heavier than pure Orchard Grass too, but that was second cutting. Those were still a lot easier than those soybeans.

 

[zzGypsy]

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part of the problem in comparing prices is the size of the "standard square bale" is regional. in CO when I was a kid, and in MO where I live now, the "standard" square is a 2-string bale and is considerably smaller than the "standard" bale in AZ and CA (where I just moved from. there it's a 3-string bale and it's twice the volume and size.

good green timothy hay, properly dried and densely packed in CA in a 3-string bale weighs around 105 lbs, +-10lbs. last time I checked (in June) it was running $24/bale, or around $0.23 a pound.
the same quality of hay here in MO is sold in 2-string bales weighing 40-65 lbs, as of last week, $6.50 a bale... so about $0.13 a pound.

and to make it more complicated, in some areas the "standard square bale" is a 4x4x7' bale weighing about 900-1100 lbs. in July, alfalfa in the big squares was going for $75, so around 7.5 cents a pound.

just saying the "standard square" is regional and you need to know which one you're talkiing about before you can compare prices. and that, of course, doesn't take into account how densely packed, how wet or dry, or type and quality of hay... and if you really want to know what you're getting for the price, you need to have it tested for protein, etc.

my friends in texas are used to paying by the protein content not just the weight of the bale, so a high-protien 800 lb big round might cost more than a low-protein 1000 lb bale. they were looking at buying hay here in MO and haluling it down, and were surprised that noone locally tests their hay before selling it.

 

[SourRoses]

If you're not looking forward to the drive to get hay for your nest boxes..... Why don't you just go to your local pet store? In a pinch, we got a couple bags of rabbit hay at Petsmart. Greatly overpriced for a tiny bag of course, but I bet they will still have that in your local store for the rabbits... since they don't seem to care about the freshness

Our hens didn't mind...

 

[gritsar]

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Haven't owned rabbits in many, many years but wouldn't that be alfalfa hay? I don't want them to eat it, I want them to line their nestboxes with it.