People that buy hay from feed stores

[vvf]

I have been wondering about this for some time now.

All you folks that say that you buy your hay at the “feed storeâ€

What exactly is that?

Is it a typical feed store that sells your regular commercial feed, etc?

But where do they keep their hay? In a covered building on the property?

Do they sell more than 1 kind of hay? If so, do you just walk through their hay building and look at the quality of each type of hay?

How much hay do they keep on hand? Are they reliable, meaning that they always have hay inventory on hand?

Do they have the hay shipped in and from how far?

I realize that good hay is not grown in all parts of the country,

But when I first heard of someone buying hay from a feed store….well, that just sounded so strange to me.

And when I hear the prices you guys pay for your hay. :new_shocked:

I guess being from the Midwest, I am just so used to buying our hay from a local farmer.

Or if he doesn’t have enough extra some years, then we just look in our local paper in the classifieds and buy from someone else.

Another thing that I have always wondered about…..

When you guys buy 1 or 2 bales at a time, How big are these bales?

I assume you only buy 1 or 2 because of storage issues. So how often do you need to go to the feed store?

And do you live close enough to your feed store that buying 1 or 2 at a time is cost efficient (meaning the price of gas for driving to go get more)

Anyway, I am just curious about this.

thanks

 

[appypintolady]

Yes, lots of us do have to buy from feedstores. The ones I buy from keep the hay stored under a hay barn. They do have different types usually alfalfa,timothy and orchard grass available. And usually it is very good quality. I live in Calif and hay is rather expensive here, $15 to $16 a bale. I called one of my feedstores today and they are all out and said they have to go all the way up to Oregon to get it!!

 

[Hosscrazy]

Thanks for the reminder - I need to place an order today! Yes, I order my hay from my local feedstores. We have several in my area and depending on what kind of hay or feed I need, I rotate my orders between the feedstores. I buy LMF Lo Carb Complete, Mountain Sunrise Timothy Pellets, grass hay and pine shavings from my feedstores. They also carry a large supply of grooming products, tack, clothing, etc.

The hay is stored in a large covered barn - I believe most of the hay comes from either Northern California or Colorado. The hay selection here is huge: alfalfa, oat, bermuda, timothy, and an endless variety of blends. I usually buy 2-3 bales at a time, along with my pelleted feed and shavings. Delivery is free to local residents and yes, they are very reliable. :bgrin

Liz R.

 

[Lisa-Ruff N Tuff Minis]

LOL I thought the opposite when I moved to ID i was like what do you mean you cant buy hay at the feed stores. What kind of feed stores are they that dont have hay.

When I was in So Cal I bought 10-15 bales at a time they were 110 lb or so bales and yes for the $ I paid which was a lot I got some of the best hay I have ever seen from several choices of grass hays to alfalfa

 

[Joyce]

I buy from local farmers also but my Feed Store does have hay and sells it also. He buys from local farmers also and keeps quite a supply on hand.

 

[vvf]

Yes, lots of us do have to buy from feedstores. The ones I buy from keep the hay stored under a hay barn. They do have different types usually alfalfa,timothy and orchard grass available. And usually it is very good quality. I live in Calif and hay is rather expensive here, $15 to $16 a bale. I called one of my feedstores today and they are all out and said they have to go all the way up to Oregon to get it!!

 


Ouch! $15 or $16 a bale! I don't know how you guys do it. We pay between $2 and $3.00 a bale here. Thats either brome or alfalfa.


This whole price of hay thing in different parts of the country just boggles me.


There is no way we could afford to keep the horses and other animals we have if we had to pay those prices.

 

 

[Marty]

I thought the opposite when I moved to ID i was like what do you mean you cant buy hay at the feed stores. What kind of feed stores are they that dont have hay.

 

 


ME TOO! That was the only way I bought hay in Florida for a zillion years!

 


I used a number of feed stores. They all carried hay and got it from a wide variety of "wherever they could get it and whoever had it"

 


They all had storage for it, either in the store, or an outbuilding or barn and some in a parked semi on the property.

 


I used mostly timothy/alfalfa that was from Canada. At the time, it was about $9.00 or so a bail. Hey, we were desperate people there so money didn't matter, we just had to have hay. Coastal bermuda usually went for about $4.50 a bail.

 


The local hay growers were few and far inbetween. Sometimes we would be able to go to a farm and just buy whatever there was available.

 


Supply & demand, we'd take what we could get and hope for the best.

 


Here in Tennessee it's much different.

 


Hay is everywhere.

 


The quality is not.

 

[minimule]

Here we have the choice of buying hay at the feed store or a farmer. Typically, if you buy your alfalfa at the beginning of the season you can get really nice, green, leafy alfalfa for $3.50 to $6.00 per bale. Then the grass.......our typical grass in this area is K31. If you're a breeder...... :no:

The feedstores usually have an alfalfa and some type of grass. They buy the grass from farmers in CO. The problem there is the quality isn't always there. In the summer, when grass is plentiful, you pay anywhere from $6.50 to $9.50. In the winter when it is more scarce....$9.50 to $15. Even the alfalfa isn't that great that you buy at the store. You never know if it is going to be good and clean or nasty and moldy.

Storage can be an issue but since I'm feeding a quantity of animals, I built storage to hold 200-250 bales.

Sure wish we only had to pay $2-$3 per bale.

 

[vvf]

Ok another question (actually 2 questions)

I understand Miniature horse people that will only buy 1 or 2 bales at a time.

But what about people that have full size horses? and several of them.....How many bales do those people buy at their feed store at a time?

Also, would it be cost efficient for a bunch of people to go together and buy a semi-load of hay from say the midwest and have it trucked to you?

You would think even with the price of fuel for trucking it would still have to be less, verses paying $ 16 a bale. (or maybe some people do that already?)

Just wondering

 

[KrazyHorses]

We pay about $6 for a bale of coastal hay (approx 50 lbs). We pick up about 6-8 bales at a time. The local feed stores have coastal, T&A, alfalfa and usually store them in tractor-trailer type containers around back along with shavings.

We are in the Tampa area. The further north you drive in Florida, you can buy hay out of the field (bale/roll) from farmers and it is cheaper.

There's a place in Plant City called the Hay Exchange. They get every different kind of hay you can imagine shipped in and stored in huge warehouses. I think that is where some of the local feed stores load their containers up from.

 

[shminifancier]

A few years ago I contacted a hay grower oh about 12 miles from me and I had him bring the Entire Hay Wagon to me~! Yes I paid a few dollars more for the trucking of the hay... Most of the hay I get in recent years is I drive my own truck and haul 25 to 40 bales at a time back and store them...Sometimes I can even arrange the farmer to Store it for me sometimes even without any charge and I go get 10 20 bales at a time with my pick up..Most of these places are real close to me 3 miles some as far as 15 miles.. But for the most part I haul the hay myself.. But a hay wagon of 150 bales on it was a great deal that year and the guy backed right up to my storage shed and even helped me unload..(Nice of him)....

But when I lived in AZ. I bought hay at a feed store...Then after I moved to the boarding stable where I worked part time and lived on the premises...Then the boarding stable would get loads and loads of hay Semi Loads~! One year 8 Semi Loads were dropped off~!!! The trucking company then even had there own "Squeeze" and would take the stacks off the semi trialer... Those of you in the South West know what a fort lift with Squeeze is...A fork lift instead of Lifting under a pile would really Squeeze the Bottom pile and Lift the entire 3-1/2 ton Stack down to the ground~!

 

[Becky]

LOL! It's very common, in fact the norm, for feed stores here to sell hay. I buy all of my baled hay at the feed store due to lack of a large storage area. So yes, I generally just buy 4 - 10 bales at a time. I do have round bales delivered in the winter.

I could buy hay out of the field here for a lot less money, but I just don't have a place to store it and nobody to do the work, either!

:

Feed stores here generally carry two kinds of grass hay (prairie and bermuda) as well as alfalfa. It's about double what you would pay out of the field. But it sure is nice to have it loaded in your truck for you!

 

[Lauralee]

When hay is abundantly available in good years in our area, feed stores only carry hay for the occasional "Oops, I need a bale of hay"....not generally at a price that is competitive with the local hay grower. Right now, there is NO HAY in a multi-state area, at a reasonable price for acceptable quality. Therefore, the only remaining option is to buy from the feed store.

The hay they've been carrying has been very good, almost rabbit-quality hay. So I'm happy with it.

My usual hay provider had to conserve all of his cuttings just to feed his own cattle this year.

All feed stores I have ever known in this region carry hay....but its usually pretty expensive as it is not intended to be your sole source hay provider.

 

[Frankie]

We get all ours from farmers. And at times that can be a pain, I wish the feed stores carried it.

Farmers are in the fields a lot, out and about getting their job done and it can be sooooo hard to catch them. I have two different guys I can buy from and there is times it takes over a week to run one of them down.

We pay 2.50 a bale.

 

[jleonard]

We no longer buy from the feed stores (the ones around here have horrible quality hay) but when we lived in CA we always did. It was shiped in form Arizona and cost about $14 dollars a bale. The bales were about twice the size of the ones we have now.

We used to have someone deliver it, but we switched feed stores and we had to drive about 45 minutes to pick it up, which, for southern CA, it really wasn't that far, just a lot of traffic.

Both feed stores were very reliable and always had hay avaliable. They were much more reliable than the local farmers here, as you never know what the weather is going to do around here. The hay was always really high quality too. They stored the hay in a covered area in the back of the store and we just told them what kind we wanted and we would drive around to the back and they would load it for us. We usually got as many bales as we could stuff in the back of our pickup at a time, although I cant remember the exact number, probably 10-15 or so. It would last several weeks, although we only had one mini and two big guys back then.

:

 

[EminentArabians]

I don't buy my hay from feed stores anymore...straw I will (only place i can usually find it). Hay at the feed store always seemed to be a couple dollars more than if i bought it elsewhere (and it wasn't that great looking).

I used to live in California and we paid big prices for hay. Hay in california is usually good looking, your going to pay more, but, the bales generally are over 100lbs. You get your money's worth. In good months i can get a good quality mix here for $3.50-$4.00/bale, approx. 35lb bales. To get to 100lbs I would have to buy three..or more to equal the same weight, at which point you ARE paying the same ammount as the people in California, especially if you are paying prices for hay in the winter that seem to always be $5.00 or MORE per bale. Difference being that bales in California are more expensive because there is more in them, elsewhere they weigh less and you are charged less. I haven't come accross even any 50lb bales out here where i live.

Just bought 50 bales of hay that is extremely green, smells like candy (I almost would eat it!), 35lb bales for $5.00/each.

 

[Jean_B]

Also, would it be cost efficient for a bunch of people to go together and buy a semi-load of hay from say the midwest and have it trucked to you?

You would think even with the price of fuel for trucking it would still have to be less, verses paying $ 16 a bale. (or maybe some people do that already?)

Just wondering

I seriously considered doing just that. With the drought here in AR - hay is in tight supply and the guy I had been buying from was out. So I was checking on prices to have a semi load brought in from .... yes .... South Dakota. But I did find someone from up near the Arkansas/Missouri border that could supply me with 10 tons. Nice to deal with and they delivered and stacked it for me.

Hey, maybe you need to hook up that truck & trailer and start delivering hay....and taking some horses home with you on the return trip!!

By the way -- I sat here last night watching Sugar Loaf Mountain burn. Was soooo pretty in the dark. Thankfully the wind was blowing it away from me, didn't even smell smoke.

 

[Crossbuck Farms]

I get hay from farmers anywhere from a 1.00 to 2.25.

 

[chandab]

I don't think I've ever bought hay by the bale from a feed store. I've always bought by the ton from a farmer or dealer.

When I was in CO and boarding, I bought 1 ton of high quality, mountain meadow timothy for $140/ton (90-100# bales), I think I got 25 bales for the 1 ton price (may have gotten a little more than a ton), so that was $5.60/bale and I had to go pick it up. I only bought one load to get me by.

I then found a hay farmer that I bought from for the next 2 years and he'd deliver. I stored the hay at a friend's house, they had 5 acres and no animals; I would haul a pick-up load to the boarding facility whenever I needed it. That hay was $115/ton delivered (I bought 10 ton to get me through one year), he delivered it on a bale wagon and helped me stack.

Now, I"m back in MT. When I first moved home, I kept my horses at a friend's in the winter, and he'd just put out a round bale for them whenever they needed one and I believe he charged me $30/bale (1200# or so), he'd just bill me once a month for pasture rent and hay.

I married a rancher 3-1/2 years ago and we put up our own hay, so I just feed that (round bales). When his uncle is in the mood to put-up square bales, we pay him $1/bale and he bales our hay for us (usually 100-150 bales per year).

 

[bluerogue]

Where I am in Northern California there really are no farmers to buy hay from. You really have to go to a feed store. I buy hay from 3 different stores, although one I guess could be called a rancher/farmer. That guy has a feed store on his ranch, and sells mostly hay, but he also has some grain stuff (best beet pulp around here too!). Tons and tons of hay. I get alfalfa there for $12 a bale (100-120 lb bales). The other two are about the same in price, but sometimes not as good quality. We buy 4-5 bales at a time, and usually it lasts about 2 weeks. I've never bought anything expect alfalfa, orchard grass, and an alfalfa/orchard grass mix. I finally gave up and only get alfalfa now as the horses will pick out the alfalfa and leave all the grass. So I find it's more cost effective for us to just buy the alfalfa, and not have the waste that occurs with the grass. Picky little boogers. It costs about the same for either type of bale (same size bale too), but we go through the straight alfalfa much slower (most of our horses live with my sister, and if she sees hay on the ground not being eaten, she thinks they don't want it because it's on the ground, and gives them more. They have her well trained).

Edited for spelling! You'd think I'd have learned by now.