How high will you pay for a bale of hay

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

hay isnt growing to well. I over heard a farmer yesturday . That the hay is going to be sky rocket this year. I was wondering what is your limit on buying a bale of hay that is 50 pounds.

 

[SatinsRule]

If you need it, you'll pay what you have to.

I just bought a bale of really good bermuda hay, and it was $8.50. The bale before it was a local/native grass hay which I paid $10 for. I also threw down $15 for a bale of alfalfa hay recently, which I ultimately threw out because my rabbits would not eat it.

Luckily, I have a few farms around me who bale it for themselves and could buy a bale from them for about the same money.

The price for a bale is likely to be driven by where you live, the demand for the product, and how it had to get there.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Hay is $240 a ton here, give or take $5-$10. Per bale of alfalfa (approx. 100lbs.) it is going for $18. I have to buy hay because we have horses and goats.

 

[trinityoaks]

Right now, I'm paying about $16-18 per 50lb of alfalfa. If it goes above $20, I will look at other options (I'm already looking into what it would take to grow enough for my buns).

 

[Nyctra]

Around here we commonly have to pay the $20 in gas there and back and nearly $20 for the 100pound bale itself (even costs that if half of it's not even HAY). Not to mention we can only fit one bale in the car at a time. Sometimes I have to pay for it. Then I'm often not allowed to even give any to my rabbits for some reason or another - so all hay goes to dad's pet horses that we really can't afford. :/

 

[akane]

$10 for the compressed bales at the feedstore is the highest we have paid for baled hay. We get organic clover for $8 at 50-75lb bales but sometimes he runs out or we can't get a load in time so we have to buy the compressed bale. This time there were no compressed bales only the $80 for 50lbs of oxbow so we went with hay cubes. Alfalfa cubes never surpass more than $15 for 50lb bag and have less waste. We actually dug up quarters to get that bag until my husband gets paid and we can go get another dozen bales of our usual hay.

 

[Peach]

$10 is the most I've ever paid here

 

[skysthelimit]

$4 for orchard grass hay, usually $6 for alfalfa mix, which has been no where to be found since November. I got something that was like it from the same place I get the orchard, still $4, but it is full of thorns, and I get stuck every time I go to feed it. Really painful, and I'd rather have the orchard in that case. Not sure the weight, standard square bale. I'm lucky I even know what a bale is, much less the weight of it.

 

[Miss M]

I've been paying about $15 for a 75-pound bale of coastal Bermuda grass hay.

Most of my rabbits don't eat a lot of hay, so I would probably just reduce the amount I give them if I needed to.

Once we have goats, this won't be an option. However, near where we're moving to, I've seen signs for bales at $4.50 each. Now... how big the bale is, I don't know yet.

 

[ladysown]

as is I already feed hay every other day in the winter and once a week in the summer. I don't expect that to change. I do expect though that I'll add straw to the mix. I only feed hay for the additional fibre anyways, and straw will do that for me just fine.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

I do expect though that I'll add straw to the mix.

Now and then i do give them some straw. They eat right up.

Thanks everyone for your imput.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

People keep mentioning "square bales"... mine are rectangles. :?

 

[ladysown]

means the same thing. Small squares are rectangular shaped. and then you have the big squares. and then the BLOCK of bales (usually 21 small squares bundled together).

 

[michabo3000]

NO one buys round bales?

 

[skysthelimit]

NO one buys round bales?

I would love to, but I have no way to get it home, especially the long distance I would have to drive to get it, no where to store that the dogs wouldn't pee on it, nor would I be able to move it. The square (rectangular) bales are so much easier to deal with, and I think too, in the time most of us would use it up, the probability of molding is high. It takes me at least 6 weeks to use up one bale, faster this time because I'm using it as nest lining. Took me three months last time.

 

[Tegan]

No room for round bales. I'd probably go as high as $20 for a bale of hay. But not sure I'd go much beyond that. Although if hay alone is $20 a bale I wonder what pellets would be up to? Might be cheaper then to by hay bales!

 

[Nyctra]

I've never seen a "round bale" here. I went to Arkansas a few years back and I had NO IDEA what those goofy things were sitting out in them fields till someone told me. XD

 

[boundarybunnyco]

most I've ever paid was 10 dollars for a square bale, at a feed store. Probably 75 lbs. Now and then we run out of hay, and have to buy it from a farmer. By the single bale here in North Idaho, it will run you 5-8 for alfalfa/ grass mix. But we have a small field, and we hired the neighbor guy to cut, rake, and bale it. It cost us 300 dollars, and we got 250 or so bales. what does that work out to? I guess about a dollar twenty a bale. Oh, and it's weed free, grass/alfalfa mix. We feed it to our horses, goats, and rabbits.

 

[3mina]

Hay prices here run between $3.50-$8 a square bale. Cubes cost me $11 for 50lbs

 

[miniquilts]

Hay prices here in Maine run 2.50 -4.50 for a 50 lb square bale of timothy and 20 -30 for a 4x4 round bale of timothy. Alfalfa tends to run a bit higher.