I hear you Jenna - in our area we are running into a real situation. The drought of last year made us feed anything that resembled forage to make it through to spring. Sold down the herd. Spring arrived in June (had over a foot of new snow in the beginning of May), so not only did we run out of feed but had to scrape together enough to feed for an additional month to grass, at a dear cost. Once the snow finally cleared, we woke up to find that most of the alfalfa was winterkilled. Not a huge deal for us (directly), but the dairy farmers that were depending on first crop were looking at barren fields. Weather caused the new planting of hay to get put in when we are normally finishing up corn, and many people plowed under their killed hay fields to plant corn for forage. We had an abundance of moisture all spring and through June, which caused those of us that put up dry hay to get way behind with 1st crop. Then the rain stopped the first of July, followed by a heat wave with high winds that took care of our moisture surplus. It hasn't rained yet. So the pastures and hay ground have done nothing. And the corn is not pollinating well and in some cases, dying. The late planting of hay left us with about 50% of the oat hay we were hoping for, and late, short corn means there might be a lot of corn silage but the stalks and stover we used to stretch last years hay may not be available. We rotational graze, but the pastures aren't growing back, so we will be feeding in a week or two. We just put the cows on ground that was grazed off 2 months ago (start of second rotation). There is not much there.
So, hay prices are ugly. "Hay" being cut now is off CRP and US Wildlife ground, it will keep them full but nutritional value will be squat. Unfortunately, we might even be competing with the dairy guys for this stuff. Their bankroll is a bit larger than ours.
If corn prices stay low, we may find it is more cost effective to feed corn through the cows than hay. Or just not have the cows. Which is my last choice, as I have worked way too hard for too long to dump the genetics I have.
Just had to get all this off my chest. Sorry for the long-windedness. :tiphat: