[Tim/South]

It must be because you guys have a longer growing season, therefore more hay, therefore more supply and ultimately lower prices.

The longer growing season also translates into a shorter feeding season. The ability to produce more hay combined with a fairly short feeding season does not seem fair.

 

[Canderson012]

I don't know much about dairys and cattle operations but we've only had a few hard freezes. If the pasture isn't being super overgrazed I don't see how people in GA are burning through a whole lot of bales. Seeing plenty of white hay tarps still full around the state. Shipping it North and West is our best bet I guess.

 

[SVFHAY]

Butt Hat = Tattoo on the small of the back above the butt cheeks found commonly on the adolescent to cougar-aged female human species.

Ahh, thanks. I thought the term was tramp stamp. Hard for an old guy to keep with slang.

 

[JD3430]

If you shipped 20 tons of rolled hay (say 40 1,000lb rolls) 1,000 miles, it would cost about $2,500 ($2.50/loaded mile). That would add approximately $63 per bale in shipping.
If I sell for $75/round bale, someone 1,000 miles away would have to sell for $12/bale to be at a comparable price.

I cant see how shipping hay much more than a few hundred miles would enable the seller to remain competitive.
I might be off on my math-just a crude calculation....

 

[JD3430]

Ahh, thanks. I thought the term was tramp stamp. Hard for an old guy to keep with slang.

No you're good.....tramp stamp works, too.

 

[dubltrubl]

Dr. Haby,
Your calculations are very close to what we have discovered regarding costs. We're actually nearly identical to your second scenerio. What's really frustratiing is there is no way we can reliably profit on round bales in our area due to the local pricing as several have stated earlier. This is why we're moving away from making as many rounds, and going to more squares. The present market in this area will usually only let us get about $100/t on rounds, but squares will let us double that at least. Just makes little to no sense, because it's the same hay, from the same field, given the same care and feeding. As a result, we're more than doubling our storage capacity now, and will only plan on rounding enough to fill requests. I should have listened to my old cousins advice from years ago, ("build enough barn!"). Instead I lent too much credence to local advice and jumped into the round bale market too. I enjoy making round bales, but not enough to keep losing money at it!
JD3430,
In our area a typical price would be about $40/bale, but then again, if your making as good of hay as you state, that's NOT a fair price. Roughly you should be charging about double that for it to be fair. Fair in my opinion is a price where the seller can make a smidgen of profit, and the buyer gets a good value for his/her dollar.
Regards,
Steve

 

[JD3430]

Thats why I think $80/900lb bale is more than fair. A 900lb round bale contains 18 50 lb square bales when measured by weight.
If I were to charge only $4.50/bale, that works out to $80/ bale. ($4.50 x 18= $81).
I am conceeding that customer cannot handle round bales as easily, hence the lower price compared to buying $5 + small squares.
$80 seems more than fair if the quality is equal to square baled hay. However, I would be willing to charge less for less convenience to customer, but since there's less handling on my end, I can lower my price to make that price work.

That would work out to $180/ton.

I think both sides (square vs. round) could present their cases well. I live in a unique area where I can sell all the round bales I want at $110/ton to at least prevent me from getting stuck with un-sellable hay. My goal is to unearth and edjumicate the small square customer into realizing that buying $80 900 lb round bales can save him money IF he can handle the bales once they're dropped off. Seeing that I'm a one-man-show, I can save money by not paying to throw bales of for expensive accumulators and the laborious loading, unloading into barns.

 

[endrow]

I don't know much about dairys and cattle operations but we've only had a few hard freezes. If the pasture isn't being super overgrazed I don't see how people in GA are burning through a whole lot of bales. Seeing plenty of white hay tarps still full around the state. Shipping it North and West is our best bet I guess.

In Lancaster County Pa. the land of hay auctions there is far more hay showing up at auctions then buyers. Prices are dropping slowly as supply and demand take hold

 

[JD3430]

I've had 3 people call me in the last 2 days looking for hay. I'm sold out. I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't be thinking about buying other people's hay at auction and reselling it, but I don't want to sell something I don't know anything about. Would rather grow my own, but I'm also losing potential new customers.

 

[whitmerlegacyfarm]

My concernn would be that you could get a bad rep if you buy hay and try and resell. But you do have the truck and trailer to your advantage as far as hauling right? I wish i would get 4.50/ sm bale that allow me to be able to afford the farm i want lol. Wish we lived closer we could partner up and help each other out.

 

[JD3430]

My concernn would be that you could get a bad rep if you buy hay and try and resell. But you do have the truck and trailer to your advantage as far as hauling right? I wish i would get 4.50/ sm bale that allow me to be able to afford the farm i want lol. Wish we lived closer we could partner up and help each other out.

You are exactly right. I would know what to look for, but I don't want to be driving around looking for a couple rolls of good hay. A bad roll would ruin my rep.
We will get together sometime and if you grow good stuff I can sell it down here for much more than 4.50/ bale.....
You go get that farm and start growing, then we'll make 1,000 tons of hay each year. You bring your squares down here and store me in my barn. I'll sell them, we both make money. I get "the big tuna" and you can quit your job and come down here and help me get it cut. Then we'll be "hay tycoons" lol

 

[deadmoose]

Butt Hat = Tattoo on the small of the back above the butt cheeks found commonly on the adolescent to cougar-aged female human species.

HERE that is what we call a Tramp Stamp.

 

[deadmoose]

I see the above came a little untimely.

 

[Nitram]

No worries been there done that. Lol

 

[mlappin]

Today got $305/ton for 4x5 rounds. Dad's load brought the same. Sold a double load even at the auction, same price.

So roughly with weight of bales today got $132/bale.

 

[JD3430]

Today got $305/ton for 4x5 rounds. Dad's load brought the same. Sold a double load even at the auction, same price.

So roughly with weight of bales today got $132/bale.

That's sick!
I'd have a wonderful life selling hay at that price!
$200/ton would be great. Can't imagine $300+ !!!!!

 

[NDVA HAYMAN]

Marty, What auction do you and your Dad sell hay at?

 

[JD3430]

What really shocks me is that's an AUCTION price. Usually around HERE auctions don't bring the best prices.

 

[mlappin]

What really shocks me is that's an AUCTION price. Usually around HERE auctions don't bring the best prices.

Around here auctions set the price. Everybody knows about them and just about everybody that has any kind of livestock gets the Farmers Exchange, the Exchange reports on all the auctions every week. You can try to sell privately for more than the auctions are bringing, but you'll need plenty of room to hold a few years worth of hay.

 

[mlappin]

One last thing, when I get a string of luck I really get a string of luck.

Had another guy come out to the farm after the Saturday auction for a few bales for his beef cows as everything at the sale was too salty.

With the strange weather we had last March, in the mid to upper 70's for a week, the wild oats in a few fields really took off and were probably mature before the rest of the hay was knee high. I baled those areas separately and was going to feed it to my cows.

He seen those bales and wanted them, was willing to pay as much as what I had been selling the "good" first cutting bales for.

Turns out he has a few hilltops on his place that are nothing but blow sand, he figures if he feeds the bales with wild oats in them on the hilltops maybe those will actually grow there as he hasn't been able to get anything else to take.

To each their own, he's gonna take 4 bales a week. I'm not sure how many of those I actually have as I planned on feeding them to my cows, but he said he'll take the rest after he get's his tax refund.