What are they going for around you ? More interested in city/urban prices than bulk farm cost. Thanks, in advance.

Looking for the small sq bale prices.

Even in small numbers, small squares of straw are $2.00 to $3.00 each and hay $4.00 to $8.00 each per bale here, close to Columbus and Dayton, Ohio. There's usually a 50 cent drop in price per bale for larger numbers.

Keith

Hay has shot right through the roof here in the NW. $17 for a bale of hay. $350 to $400 for a ton of hay. Stunning to me how much it has gone up in the past two years!!!!

Small square bales right now.Mulch hay,( Hay to spread over grass seed),,,$1.50 bale.Feed Hay,,$2.50-$3.50 bale.

Feed store prices around reno are about $27 or $28 per bale and $500 a ton. I just bought 1000 ton of grass at $445 per ton delivered. We'll see what 2000 ton of alfalfa costs in the next couple of weeks.

Below is the latest report of the weekly hay auction located about 20 miles from me. We have had good hay crops todate. If it stays dry then 3rd and 4th will be shorter. Many Craig'slist hay ads are for 4-6 dollars per small bale depending upon quality.

Bryce


Hay Market (sold by the ton) 7/13/22
High Quality 2nd. and 3rd. Crop 110-150
High Quality 1st. Crop 110-150
Low Quality Hay 110 and down
Straw 50-110/poor quality lower
Hay Sales every Wednesday at Noon, Hay must be at the market by 11:00 a.m.

Hay will be probed in the summer and fall months for moisture.

Small sq bales, large sq bales, or round bales???

Around here wheat isn't grown so all straw is brought in and is more expensive than small sq bales of horse hay. Last yr my horse hay (grass and alfalfa) was $4.50 each. Don't know what it will be this year.

Haven’t bought hay in a while, but the farmer I worked for last year was selling it for $280 a ton, straight alfalfa. I just bought 25 pounds of chopped straw at the feed store for chicken bedding, $11

Square bales $4/5-bale, straw $5/6-bale

Hay goes for 7 bucks a bale here, if the economy keeps going like it is the guy we buy from said he would have to start charging 10- 15 dollars a bale.

Small square bales of good, mixed grass hay......50 pounds........now $10 per bale. Equine and dairy goat markets.

So 2 and a 1/4 bales to one of ours = 12.50 a bale in our area. Our small bales are 115 to 125 lb average. We are ar least double the price out west.

YOWZER!!! The prices sure do vary widely!

When transportation costs are low, there's a huge amount of money to be made buying hay where it's cheap and selling it where it's expensive.

Keith

Hay is a local crop and really depends on supply. Plenty of hay the price is typically sold for the cost of producing if not less. Short supply and there is no real top that won't be paid. Our local suppliers are helped significantly by our many horse owners. Many of the smaller stables have very few horses and thus not large equipment or storage for large squares or rounds. If it were not for horses there would hardly be any small squares made here anymore. We also live in an area where 2/3rds or more of the total hay crop forage is made into haylage or baylage.

Bryce

Not so local anymore. This year will be more local due to gas prices but a lot of hay here was going out west because of draught.

Traveling to WY in 2021, we saw truck after truck with hay traveling west. The outfitter we hunted with was selling a huge portion of his herd because he could not afford the hay costs.

Too funny, I am out west and we have tractor trailer load after tractor trailer load heading to the ports with our hay to be shipped overseas.

Yes lots of western hay is shipped to Japan and China even the middle east. Then producers ship in lower quality hay from the Midwest and parts back east.

When I stated local I was referencing local price structure based on supply and demand. I receive the Progressive Dairy and the Progressive Forage Magazines monthly and there are hay stats from about 10 regions posted monthly. Huge differences in price for similar quality. Yes the dgrought in the west and Great Basin has spiked prices there. Twenty years ago a huge amount of super high quality western hay came to WI to be put in our dairy rations. With the advent of even more corn silage, BMR silage and legume-grass forage mixes and more double cropping with triticale and winter rye the amount of western hay in rations is way, way down. Probably more wheat straw brought in now then hay. The price for hay has no futures or basis market such as the grain crops it is totally based on each users idea of what to pay for the quality they want. With very high transportation costs and foreign demand dairy farmers in WI are not going to pay the prices the foreign buyers are willing to pay. Too many options. If hay in the western states is now say $250 per ton then a farmer here in WI probablly won't get more than 140-to 160 per ton for their hay as the cost to deliver is so high. The other thing that most of our larger operations do is store up large amounts of feed when available and reasonable. with bunkers, piles etc. it is not uncommon to have up to a year of feed on hand when it is priced right. As you can see with these prices and costs have almost doubled then spending an extra half million when reasonable is not a bad investment. It just takes really strong equity and good liquidity to have that much feed on hand. When you are feeding 3,000 cows 115 lbs. of as is feed a day and 60% is forage the piles of feed needed for a year even are very large.

Bryce