Disappointed in today's cattlemen!

[BJ]

Here in the midwest we are trying to save our cattle...trying to get them through extreme cold temps, snow and ice. Many are desperate for hay and there is little to be found in this area. We were fortunate to have an old farmer sell us a few big bales for $20. It was a year old but had been in the barn. He had some 2 yr old hay outside that he gave us. We have called ads and looked on the ag hay web site. Those guys are charging $50-$75 for a large bale of hay or $9 for small square! These guys should be ashamed of themselves! These younger, modern day cattlemen can't hold a candle to the oldtimers who worked together during hard times and helped each other make it through. I'd like to turn these guys in to the Attorney General's Office....they are as low as the owners of the gas stations that are ripping us with their high fuel costs!

Here in Missouri....around the Warrensburg area...we see hay bales still sitting in the fields...but can't find anyone to sell us some. What has happed to the gentlemen farmers of my dad's era???

[ericakc]

BJ, I know what you mean. There is supply and demand and then there is kicking you when you are down.

If you are interested, my parents are in the Montgomery City / Hermann area and are selling 2006 sileage hay for $25/bale. Mom was telling me that some guy was buying it up and hauling it to Oklahoma to sell for $100+/bale. She said "You know how your father is; I'm kind of surprised he's allowing that."

[tinknal]

Why in the heck should someone sell to you at less than market just because you did not take the proper steps last summer to insure that you had enough feed?

[Milkwitch]

because when someone it offering 10$ more than you are paying they sell your agreed upon sale out from under you!!! I had a guy sell me out for 60 bucks!

[Sher]

Sorry..but I have to agree with Tinknal. We pay $50 per big round bale..alfalfa. My husband works his behind off getting hay..from summer til fall. We buy enough that our animals aren't in jeapardy when mother nature takes a bad turn on us.

My husband made a great point. With corn at four dollars...you better be glad just to have someone raising hay these days. We're gonna have to pay more or watch the hay fields get turned under and planted with corn.

No sympathy here.

[DocM]

Winter comes every year. Why don't people prepare for it? Put up your hay in the summer, when it's plentiful and cheaper. Can't store it? Keep fewer animals. Can't afford it? Keep fewer animals. I sure don't fault the farmer for making a buck on his hay to people who don't think ahead. And it sure doesn't make the small cattle owner money to have his stock die because he can't feed them.

[Pat]

I have to agree with DocM and Sher. When I was a boy working on grade b dairy farms, if the owner didn't have enough in alfalfa for the winter, he'd work a deal with one of his neighbors that had too much. He'd bale the hay, and pay him so much per bale. (I hated haying on someone else's property as the bales would be as heavy as the baler could make them).

What this reads is you don't want to buy "too" much hay or even enough for a mild winter and store it. You want that farmer to bale hay and hold it for you and hope that you buy it.

I bought hay this summer to last the winter. At least the guy I was buying from got a honest return on his work in a timely manner, and I got the honest price for the hay.

Pat

[tinknal]

Good point Patt. BJ, in a year when hay is glutting the market do you pay extra for it to help the farmer recoup his loss?

[wr]

I'm not really sure why the hay grower should go broke to subsidize the cattleman. If you had a poor growing season, the hay grower still has to make payments on land and equipment but based on less product. I'm very sure that when hay is plentiful and he's selling his hay in a competative market for far less, you won't sweeten the pot a bit by adding a few dollars to the asking price of each bale. I've been where you're at and had little hay available and it did take some creative efforts to keep from selling cattle and a great deal of expense. I've had to use supplement injected straw, hay cubes and pellets and fight -40 temps.

[unioncreek]

I've run out of hay already this year, just because I didn't plan far enough ahead and did turn down a few fields to bale. My problem, now I'm paying $135/ton for alfalfa and I'm lucky to actually find any. I didn't actually plan on keeping all my animals through the winter , but the price was low in the fall and I kept them. I'm just lucky I have access to some.

Bobg

[Terry W]

How about feeding other forages? Driving around recently-- there are many corn fields and soybean fields around here, with standing fodder-- the corn and beans are harvested-- and there is FOOD standing up, just waiting for some animal to eat it. I have a neighbor that has been turning his sheep and cattle out into his fields, and they are nice and sleek-- the corn stalks are getting eaten, fertilizer is dropping, costs are minimized. It is called SUSTAINABLE when one incorporates as much of the food value as possible. Though the corn stalks may not work well for dairy-- certainly a beef animal would not be hurt.

Now, I am buying my hay, a few bales at a time, from a farmer in another county nearby-- that county has a very different soil type, and the hay was not seriously affected by the wet summer we had. His price is what I consider fair--considering the demand and the quality--and he is looking for someone with a round bale of similar quality for me to nuy one from ( hat would get my crew through till spring) I thought of buying at auction-- but I cannot transport a whole truckload--one round bale would fit nicely on the back of my Pick em up truck

[BJ]

Thanks to all who responded..and it is clear that my concerns were misunderstood. Ask those farmers out in Western Kansas why they didn't plan ahead for that snow and ice. It's not a matter that we didn't plan ahead for winter....we did our calculations for winter feeding and started buying hay with the first spring cutting. We drove the side roads and stopped to talk to anyone who had bales sitting in the fields. We loaded and hauled and we did scrounge up what we thought would feed through April. No one expected to start feeding hay in August...so we are now supplementing with range cubes and small bales of alfalfa. We have just a small farm and only a few cows and we too are trying to survive the drought and cold winter. Even with careful planning one can't always outguess Mother Nature. I don't fault honest, hardworking farm folks for tyring to earn a profit...that is what we are all must do to pay the bills. It just seems that some these days not have any compasion for the little guy who has fewer resources. Old black bales sitting in the treeline since 2004 and 2005...I don't honestly think they are worth $75 and more importly I doubt if they have much nutritional value for any cow or horse. "What goes around....comes around".

[wr]

It seems you're more upset with the hay producers than the cattlemen and I still maintain that they have to make their payments on less crop so their prices will logically go up to meet their input expenses. I can assure you that they are the first people that gasp what goes around comes around. When hay is plentiful, they struggle to find buyers because cattlemen are not the most faithful people in the country. I also know that many hay producers get burned badly in tough times, they will extend credit and such and it's funny how many cattlemen can't pay the hay bill because calf prices tank during a drought. It would be really nice if some of them were addressed so hay producers weren't so edgy about waiting for the cheque. Their creditors won't wait forever either and some of them are barely hanging on too. I do understand drought situations because I've lived through them and I can assure you that it's hard on everybody. I don't want to comment on the black hay because I'm not sure how to. Some would be thankful to get even that and others not but I guess it's probably better for someone to buy it rather than many standing and watching him burn it.

[francismilker]

I might as well put my two cents into this one. Being from Southeastern Oklahoma, where we've been suffering drought for the past two summers, it has been extremely tough.
A couple of reasons in particular: #1- Texas has had a pretty severe drought that started the year before ours. Thus, we've been selling Texas farmers all we could spare to help them through. When we had a small surplus last Spring that was left over from Winter feeding, we shipped it all south. So now, we didn't have any surplus to start with into a colder than normal winter.

#2- Anyone who has any means whatsoever to haul anything that even resembles a bale of hay is bringing it south to Oklahoma and selling it for top dollar. (or should I say "top molestation") My veteran farmer neighbor, who is always more than prepared for winter, has been forced to sale out this year. He has stated to me that we will all suffer greatly in the future if we expect to come out in the black paying $145 plus for hay. It's just not economically feasible to pay $105 for a round bale of molded soybean hay when you're not expected to get twice that in return for the sale of a calf.

As one final departing thought on this thread, I'd like to ask if anyone has compared these high hay prices to gasoline?
When we were used to $1 a gallon gasoline, we choked when we seen it go to 2 and $3. Now that it has gone back down to around $2, we seem relieved that it is not $3.
If we compare all of this to the price of hay, will we be relieved next summer with plenty of rainfall when we can find a round bale of prairie grass weeds that used to sale for $20 at the inflated price of $50? Just some food for thought.

[celadon]

I quess i see another side of this. I put in hay for the last 5 years. Around here we get 1.25 for 1st cutting square bale about 60 lbs. I had to pay extra for gas last year. You always need someone to stack the hay on the wagons and put it into the barn. No one will work for less the 12 a hour. And you have to make sure that you have insurance to cover whoever is helping you. If something breaks down (as it always seems to do) you still have to pay the laborer to sit while you are trying to fix what ever went wrong. I gave up making hay and figured out it was cheaper to buy my hay for 12 horses. Payment on tractor and hay equipment, laborer, gas taxes on land. My time was not paid for. I do not blame the hay makers for trying to get a decent penny for their hay. If hay gets to expensive and I can not afford it then I will sell some horses.

Another thought. Hay makers are always taking a chance on losing there crop with just one weather change. A friend of mine had 100 arces down. Wasn't supposed to storm for 4 days. Stormed for 4 days straight. Lost alot of money there. Stil his next cutting he got the same money for that he had gotten the year before. I am just glad farmers are still making hay.

[RedHogs]

Sorry..but I have to agree with Tinknal. We pay $50 per big round bale..alfalfa. My husband works his behind off getting hay..from summer til fall. We buy enough that our animals aren't in jeapardy when mother nature takes a bad turn on us.

My husband made a great point. With corn at four dollars...you better be glad just to have someone raising hay these days. We're gonna have to pay more or watch the hay fields get turned under and planted with corn.

No sympathy here.

This is a real issue for me, if i can't get top dollar on hay, i'll grow corn....If that makes me a new age greedy farmer so be it. I grow hay to feed me - not to feed your animals.

A good deal in the fall may be in an indication of tough times ahead. People don't sell cheap unless there is a reason for it. Maybe they did not believe that there was going to be reasonably priced hay for the winter.

As a boy in NE CO we always ran our cattle on cornstalks when possible. They can forage for extra food when they feel the need. It is also easier to feed when there are no sage brush as the snow blows off.

As for the comment on the snow storms in CO and KS. The farmers had enough hay to feed. They just needed a hand up to get it to their animals. They worked side by side with the Guard. They received a very small amount of aid. Moneywise probably what one square block of Katrina people received. This was a wise investment to the people of the US. Their cattle will help feed the country and also provide many more dollars in taxes collected.

[JulieLou42]

Hay nearby -- less than 2 miles -- is higher this year than last by about 1/3; I'm told because some of the hay ranchers let their fields lie fallow this year. [If I wanted to travel further, costing me more in fuel and time, then I could get it for less or get what they'd rather have...balancing act!]

What's available this year is the 120#-3string Timothy bales at $130t, that my cattle aren't particularly fond of. But I
AM thankful for that, very much so!

Last night, they jumped the fence and went looking for grass, even tho' it's too early for that here yet. But they are beginning to shed already, as is my Pyr, so spring must be coming soon.

But Ginger answers my call now, and she knows that her grain's comin' when she comes to me after getting out. [Calf, of course follows her.] The hotwire's been shorting for the past month or so, which we made greater effort to and were successful in fixing.