Drought Observations

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farmerjan said:
Big rolls of hay here are priced with the loading included. I do not know of hardly anyone that sells hay and expects the buyer to bring a tractor and load their own. Sometimes if we buy some "leftover" last years hay at a field that the owner wants to get moved, we will have to deal with loading, but again, most of the farmers will bring their tractor and spear to load any hay sold. Same with big squares, they are nearly all loaded out of the barn because they cannot be stored outside without a good tarp/roof to cover; with all the rain we get compared to western states that get very little moisture... so a tractor with forks is available to load out.
Most small sq bales are either right out of the field, or if out of the barn, the buyer always hauls their own. We do have a couple of customers that we haul to and they pay more for the hay delivered and put in their barn. Had them for 20 years or more. They help unload and always have money right there... on the odd time they are not there, they will call and say how much and send a check right away. The nice thing about regular customers that you can trust.
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Because these bales are not at our ranch. I suppose that for maybe 10 more dollars, we can haul them to our house and then load them. But many people feel if they are buying a lot of bales, saving anything is worth it. We dont have enough tractors to leave one over there. Its either we take a tractor there, or they take a tractor over there. Now, if the bales they are getting are at our house, then yeah, we load.. see how that works?
Had a guy call saying he wanted everything we had left. In just a couple days, we sold over 400 bales. Now we dont have to worry about buyers..
 
ok. Y’all‘ve done it again! After reading this thread I’m convinced that I’d prefer to never feed hay😂.

Hope y’all got some of the recent rains. Still some time to grow a bit of fall/winter grazing in some places.
 
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Hope you get some growth out of that rain. At the end of our last drought we got some late rain in mid autumn and I was surprised at how much grass growth we got. It didn't have a lot of substance to it but it was grass and very handy plus it enabled me to plant some forage cereal. In most years we would not have seen any appreciable growth at that time of year but it seemed that the summer grasses recognised it for a last ditch attempt to grow a bit of leaf and set seed.

Ken
 
I can understand the regional differences in buying in selling hay but all this complaining about having to load with your own tractor is crazy. It's 1 extra trip...if that. Pretty well standard practice around here for anyone buying more than a few bales.

Cowgirl8 @ $65 a roll you helped allot of folks around here out. My neighbor paid $80 for trash and the seller was charging an extra $15 a roll to load it. Lots of hay sold for $100 plus

We figured the hay left over in the barn from last year saved us around $12,000 in hay cost this year. Hay barns pay for themselves faster than you'd think.

We thought we'd slipped through the drought but the last month has taken a toll on everything. Pools are lower than I've ever seen them. We should start feeding tomorrow but will hold off until November 1st. We've got a couple hundred acres we could graze but need to save it for the yearlings.
 
One and 1/10th here. No run off of course and not even muddy by this afternoon, but you could already tell some difference this evening. . The old cruddy KR BLuestem grass had greenish tips. If we get some more later in the week, maybe the trend is changing??????
 
Lucky said:
I can understand the regional differences in buying in selling hay but all this complaining about having to load with your own tractor is crazy. It's 1 extra trip...if that. Pretty well standard practice around here for anyone buying more than a few bales.

Cowgirl8 @ $65 a roll you helped allot of folks around here out. My neighbor paid $80 for trash and the seller was charging an extra $15 a roll to load it. Lots of hay sold for $100 plus

We figured the hay left over in the barn from last year saved us around $12,000 in hay cost this year. Hay barns pay for themselves faster than you'd think.

We thought we'd slipped through the drought but the last month has taken a toll on everything. Pools are lower than I've ever seen them. We should start feeding tomorrow but will hold off until November 1st. We've got a couple hundred acres we could graze but need to save it for the yearlings.
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Yup. Hay barns are a good investment if you are really in the business, and kudos to people who both look after their own interest and their neighbor’s interest. I hope the people that benefitted from cowboy8 will remember the generosity and perhaps pay a little more when prices come back down next year. Seems like it would be the right thing to do.
 
@cowgirl8... I was not criticizing or suggesting you do different . Just simply stating the general procedures and practices here. 75% of the hay we make is rented/leased/given to us to keep the fields cut kind of hay ground. Many of these people like the ag use tax breaks... Some of it is nice grass, some is just plain whatever grows kind of grass.
I was simply giving an explanation/example of how most all do it in this area.
 
TexasRancher said:
I'm with you...I'm on a roll into my first hay-less year. Due to the drought with the high cost of hay I've calculated a 50% cost savings. Hay is overrated and drama like you mentioned.
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If we get more rain and a late first frost, central Texas stockpiled forage will be looking pretty good. Supposed to rain again Thursday and Friday. Fingers crossed.
 
Brute 23 said:
This is why I don't mess with hay... drama drama drama

They always load my wcs for me 😄
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TexasRancher said:
I'm with you...I'm on a roll into my first hay-less year. Due to the drought with the high cost of hay I've calculated a 50% cost savings. Hay is overrated and drama like you mentioned.
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Cows definitely don't need hay to survive. Standing grass is always a good option but in my experience stock piled grass doesn't work very good either. Feeding them a good commodity mix is probably the best option but at these prices I'm not sure it will dollar out. Bottom line is everyone has a different situation and needs to find what works best for their operation.
 

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