BTW, I keep hearing about this high dollar horse hay market. I haven't found them yet. Surrounded by horse owners......everything from worthless yard ornaments to high performance rodeo stock, and none of them seem likely to pay more than $6 a bale in normal times.....for anything.

Goat herders more likely to pay for the good stuff, but only in small lots. A few goats don't eat that much hay.

Horse people are a bit more picky on the hay they buy. They dont like to buy anything that's been wet or has a hint of mold. Sometimes that quality of hay gets hard to find, especially if you're in more cattle areas as cows have bulletproof stomachs compared to horses.

That part is true. What I'm referring to is the difference between a good brome, orchard or timothy cut early and put up dry (15% or so), vs. a low quality grass like KY 31 fescue, cut well after maturity. In some cases, at least a month late. That stuff has about the same nutritional zip as cardboard. Better use would be garden mulch or chicken litter.

On one, an animal will thrive and even put on weight.......the other, nearly starve to death. One ought to sell for $8 a bale. The other $3........a lot of buyers will assume they are the same and go for the $3 bale.

Exactly!

BTW, I did sell about 100 bales to some goat herders who drove about 80 miles one way to get it. They have their own hay ground, but not the hay equipment, so hired a neighbor to bale it for them. Baled it weeks late and did a crappy job of it when he did. It was moldy. They were not happy with him.

You got that right. It's almost impossible finding help.

Around our area it is not a help issue, even though there are few to help. The large dairies want and buy large squares and rounds and dump them straight into very large TMR mixers , rip them up and then add as needed for each ration. They do that with large straw bales as well. Even though dry hay is a small part of a ration, 2-3 lbs. per day to 4,000 head is a lot of big squares per day let alone a year.
Horse owners here are looking for clean grass hay for the most part. Mold or lots of clover etc. are big issues for horse owners. W have smaller farms that cut and bale based on weather more than quality and sell into that market and for better prices then most hay of that quality will sell for. West of here drying conditions are better and less mold so many buy hay from those sources and then they split the loads and costs. The largest dairy farms usually contract with western and or Canadian hay as there are not many farms near us that can provide 1-2000 large square bales a year with the quality they are wanting. Most hay going into milking cow rations is about 160-180 RFV. A lot of that comes from areas where the weather is dry enough that they bale at night when there is a bit of dew on the hay to save leaves.

Bryce

Grew up hayin and doing all farm chores. Hayin is one job I don't miss