Need to truck in hay.

[rox]

I'm in Kentucky. And it's DRY here too. (8" behind for the year, and .33" so far in JUne. Officially anyway. We had a rain that brought a little more than that here a couple weeks back.) We had a record warm March. 3 weeks of 80 degree weather when 40's would have been normal. Then low 20's for 2 weeks in late April. Most hay, ESPECIALLY alfalfa was stunted. Then it got dry. That helped get in the first cutting, but it was about half a NORMAL 1st cutting. And now it's extremely dry. Fields look like late august. There's hay here, but most of it ain't goin' anywhere. I baled what I could and had it sold before it was off the ground. Next cutting will be sold, but I can't tell you when (or IF) it will happen. Stay in contact. I'll start looking around for any that is for sale. Quality hay is going to be expensive. And low quality hay will be abundant. People are baling everything standing right now.

Preferred mix? (alfalfa? Orchard grass? ect????)

Several adds in our local paper last week. I'll check them too. (comes out mondays)

Good luck.
Pray for rain.
Bill

It was so interesting for me to read your psot about the weather because we had very very very similar weather here i southern France. We lsot about 50% of our almond crop which we start picking tomorrow and our friend who grows aprictos lsot 80% of his crop. the unseasonably warm tempertures produces great big almonds early but then wth the cold they fell off the trees, ker-plunk. Oh well the almond crop is jsut r summer spending money and the nes that stayed onthe trees are humoungous and since we sell by weight we'll come out a bit short but not nearly as bad as our apricot farming friends.

It has been raining good steady rains for about 3 weeks now, the olive trees look fantastic. So green so healthy. To soon to tell how many olives there are since they are itty bitty, will be able to tell more i a couple weeks. I knwo this years olive crop will be down though. This is our low year. One year you get a lot then the next year you get a little, tha is jsut the way olives grow.

 

[Chuck52]

Missouri might be a source for your hay. Most of the hay around me is just fescue, and probably not what you want for horses, but we had a pretty good first cutting and I would expect that applied to the better quality grasses, too. The dairy farm across the road from me, which is university owned, has a field of what I guess is alfalfa which they cut about a week ago, and it's already greening up well enough I expect them to cut again in July. I don't know about the bootheel area for hay, but that would be relatively close to you and has had good rain this spring.

Chuck

 

[Soundguy]

Call the seller and ask for references.. IE.. ask for farm names around him that buy his hay. then pick one or two of them and call.

If he is reputable.. he won't have any problems giving you this info... and he'll know you are on the up and up as well.

FL has already been thru the drought you are seeing... we have been scavenging for hay since the beginning of the year..

Soundguy

 

[riptides]

If your considering round bales give me a shout. I have a mixture of timothy and orchard grass available.

And at the rate the rain has come this year, it may be my only cut.

-Mike Z.

 

[schmism]

Im just outside of STL MO (rural IL) and ALL the guys have round bales stacked at the edge of all there feilds now.... They cut almost a month ago now and some of it is back at waist height.

i saw some guys cutting the alphalpha for the second time this weekend....

 

[JRobyn]

Ga Dept of Ag has also set up a hay trading web site from what I read in the Consumer and Market Bulletin. Might check there.

georgia.gov - Internet Sites Provide Farmers With Sources for Obtaining Hay

- Jay