Hey Hay!
It’s that time of year again; time to secure our hay supply. Last year we used about 550 round bales of hay (over 600,000 lbs). This year we expect it to be a little less (less horses on property) but it’ll still be a lot.
Perhaps you’ve noticed, but it’s been really dry this summer (hence the lack of mosquitoes and the introduction of millions of grasshoppers). This has really affected the production of hay. Some of my suppliers are saying they’re down 20%, some 50% so prices have adjusted accordingly. Luckily diesel is a LOT cheaper than it was this time last year, which helps offset some of the production and transport costs. It hasn’t just affected the price, it’s affected the availability. Because we’ve only been around for 4 years, we’re not at the top top of anyone’s ‘list’ when it comes to who they supply to, so a couple of my supplies have said they’ll have no hay for us this year. So we’re having to go further a field, which is why I found myself near Barrhead today.
Very round-about way of getting there, via some questionable roads.
Barrhead County has some very… lax standards with regards to it’s rural roads. One I was on for about 20km was well maintained, but made up of about 4″ of gravel, so kinda slippy. And it went up and down, round and round. There were also ‘roads’ that were basically just tracks in fields. Really weird seeing a proper road sign in what appears to be the middle of a field.
Met a really nice guy up there called David, and his wife Donna. They’re going to supply me with 150-200 bales this year at a nice price. They’re hay looks great too.
We probed a couple of bales with a moisture meter to the moisture levels. Moisture levels are very important in hay, as too much moisture will allow the bale to mold, start to heat and literally eat itself into a big lump of mold. Just as bad, and more likely, is that the hay will just get kinda moldy and dusty. This is fine for cows who can tolerate it, but horses can’t. It’s easy to avoid damp hay; you simply have to let it dry out in the field before you bale it. If it gets rained on, it has to be allowed to dry for a few days before you bale it. The problem is that you’re at the mercy of the weather. It needs to stay dry for long enough for your hay to dry and get baled, and when you’ve got a larger operation and are baling thousands of bales, you need quite a long period of dry weather. Not too much of an issue this year I guess, but still, one summer storm, and you’re back at square one.
We metered these bales and they all came out between 8 and 11% moisture, which is great. Anything less than 15% is generally acceptable.
We’re also going to supplement our hay with Alfalfa cubes this year.
I’ll post more about them some other time, but they’re great.
So now just got to finalize my trucking for this hay and it’ll be ours. Then just need a few more and we’ll be good.