Straw price

[JerryD]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

 

[flying belgian]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Have you ever bought and maintained the equip needed to bale straw? The feed store is buying wholesale and selling retail. I sell my straw wholesale for $8 I'm in S. Mn. So if the feed store is buying for 8 and selling for 10 I would say you got a pretty good deal. If they sell all there products for that little markup they won't be in business to much longer.

 

[bmaverick]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Not certain where you are, but a hay square bale goes for $6 and a straw bale for $9 out my way.

 

[DoubleO7]

Not certain where you are, but a hay square bale goes for $6 and a straw bale for $9 out my way.

Same here coastal hay 10.50 straw 15.00 IF you can find it.
Thats why people here use a circle of woven fence or hardware cloth around whatever and fill it with junk hay, grass, leaves, pine straw, etc.

 

[DoubleR]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Self serve at Double R farm is 6 bucks a bale. Just put the money in the provided box. Normally about a dozen bales in the little shed at the end of the drive. Honesty is appreciated and call ahead for larger quantities.

 

[Timmycornpicker]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Straw is selling for $6 a bale off the farm here in New Jersey. $9-10 is what a feed store would want for it. I sell lower quality goat and cow hay for $5 now. I only make hay off of a few fields that are required to be hay due to conservation restrictions or are under too much deer pressure for anything else. I gave up on the $8 a bale horse hay market due to the customers being slow (or non) paying, constantly complaining, pains in my backside.

 

[Kelly in tx]

Hay is $13.75 and Alfalfa is $19.95 and a 4 foot by 5 foot round bale of hay is $165 in south or south central Texas. Did I mention we had a drought this past summer? I live on York Creek Road. The creek hasn't flowed at all since July. kelly

 

[showcrop]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Straw has always sold for more than quality hay here. I assume that it is because it has to be mostly trucked from further away, and because of the suburban myth that if you mulch with straw you won't get weeds.

 

[Tony in SD]

A few years ago I was asked to custom bale 100 bales of straw about 30 round trip miles from my farm. I told him that I would for $3.00 /bale just to bale it. He was providing the straw. He told me I was nuts. I told him that I would have a minimum of 3 hours time (probably more with prep time to grease, clean, fix, etc), fuel, twine and possibly repair parts for a gross return of $300. I asked if he would go through all that trouble for $300. He said he wouldn’t and I didn’t.
That said if you add up your real cost of producing a bale of a particular specie, you will find your price is not out of line. Especially for one bale at a retail store.
As a kid, wheat was the main cash crop here. Not so anymore. So just finding straw to bale it the hardest task. In addition, almost all balers are over 20 years old and most of them are over 50 years old. They were not designed to take in a 40 plus foot windrow that the modern combines leave behind. So that is another challenge too now days.

 

[37chief]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

Check Craigs list for free straw. Sometimes people buy straw for parties, and don't want it any more. Stan

 

[MJMJ]

$10/ bale is right in line for around here. And thats lower than several years ago. TBH, you aren’t so much “giving” your friend hay. He’s cutting your field for you in exchange for the grass. Theres a lot more time and money in the work of putting up hay than there is the grass itself.

 

[rustred]

that is kinda nuts. i would have just given you a bale off the farm its not like a bale of straw is going to make a difference for a farmer. but to a city person its golden. i give a few bales of straw away each year to neighbors for their pets. even a girl drives out from the city in june to get a bale of alfalfa for her rabbit. but a business is a different story.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

I paid $5 a bale last fall.

 

[old-9]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

I have a drain pipe that will freeze if not protected. My wife uses cypress mulch in her flower beds, so I just buy some extra and protect the pipe with them, use them up in the spring. joe

 

[Bruce from Can.]

I have over 200 bales of 4x4 wheat straw in the barn, and I can’t get 40 bucks a bale for them. So they can stay there. And next year, I’ll just spin the straw back out onto the field. I figured 4 cents a pound for a 500lb bale, $10.00 to bale it, and $10,00 to pick it up and store it away, then get it out and load the bale on to a truck or wagon. If I can’t get the $40.00 , I am not doing it anymore! Better used as fertilizer

 

[matthies]

Just ask your friend that you give the hay to.

 

[EFV]

I have over 200 bales of 4x4 wheat straw in the barn, and I can’t get 40 bucks a bale for them. So they can stay there. And next year, I’ll just spin the straw back out onto the field. I figured 4 cents a pound for a 500lb bale, $10.00 to bale it, and $10,00 to pick it up and store it away, then get it out and load the bale on to a truck or wagon. If I can’t get the $40.00 , I am not doing it anymore! Better used as fertilizer

No dairies use straw as part of their TMR ? That's what changed the straw market here( Upstate NY) to better prices.
Dairy farms actually grow wheat now, was unheard of twenty years ago. Big balers pop up behind combines like
seagulls behind moldboard plowing. lol

 

[Bruce from Can.]

No dairies use straw as part of their TMR ? That's what changed the straw market here( Upstate NY) to better prices.
Dairy farms actually grow wheat now, was unheard of twenty years ago. Big balers pop up behind combines like
seagulls behind moldboard plowing. lol

Lots of dairy guys are adding some straw into TMR, only problem is, just about half the dairy farmers in my area have packed it in over the past 10 years. Most cash crop farmers put wheat into their crop rotation, but there are less and less livestock farms every year. The very best market now for straw is making big square bales and delivering them to a mushroom plant. They only take big square bales, by the tractor trailer load. So even though many crop farmers do sell straw to mushroom plants, the dwindling numbers of livestock farmers and the dramatic increase in fertilizer prices are seeing more and more crop farmers just spreading the straw behind the combine. Also if you’re not trying to cut to harvest the straw, with a 40’ head the combine can travel faster because it’s not putting as much material through, and less chance of plugging.

 

[dhermesc]

I needed a bale of straw to cover the water meter as temps will get in the minus readings for the next 3 to 4 days. The only place to get a bale was the feed and seed store. I had to pay $10 for ONE bale of straw. I could have bought prairie hay for $14 a bale. Why so high for straw or prairie hay? I have about 4 acres of brome that I just give a friend. He cuts and bales it.

The number of people putting up small square bales gets fewer every year. Getting straw that will make a square bale is also getting hard. Old conventional combines you popped the belt off the spreader and you had an instant windrow behind the combine. Rotary combines "grind" the straw stalks up and the disabling the spreaders is a much more complicated matter - so you have to rake the straw into windrows. The ground up straw is much harder to make a bale out of it - especially with the older New Holland balers - their "banana bale" tendency when in light hay gets much worse in straw and you can kick out a bale tied on both sides that breaks (strings slide off) as it pushes out the chamber. In general its a big PIA - so less straw now than in the past.

My son has been selling hay at a sale barn west of Manhattan KS. The last load he brought he split into piles of 20. A 100 bales was prairie hay that had been rained on and was in general in pretty poor shape - he was hoping for $2.00 a bale - just to get it gone - figured someone would buy it for bedding. One guy bought all 5 stacks of the poor stuff - $10 a bale. The two stacks of "good" prairie brought $14 a bale. Four years ago I delivering and stacking in a barn for $4-$5 a bale.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

The number of people putting up small square bales gets fewer every year. Getting straw that will make a square bale is also getting hard. Old conventional combines you popped the belt off the spreader and you had an instant windrow behind the combine. Rotary combines "grind" the straw stalks up and the disabling the spreaders is a much more complicated matter - so you have to rake the straw into windrows. The ground up straw is much harder to make a bale out of it - especially with the older New Holland balers - their "banana bale" tendency when in light hay gets much worse in straw and you can kick out a bale tied on both sides that breaks (strings slide off) as it pushes out the chamber. In general its a big PIA - so less straw now than in the past.

My son has been selling hay at a sale barn west of Manhattan KS. The last load he brought he split into piles of 20. A 100 bales was prairie hay that had been rained on and was in general in pretty poor shape - he was hoping for $2.00 a bale - just to get it gone - figured someone would buy it for bedding. One guy bought all 5 stacks of the poor stuff - $10 a bale. The two stacks of "good" prairie brought $14 a bale. Four years ago I delivering and stacking in a barn for $4-$5 a bale.

Be more money in unrolling and re baling hay than feeding it to cows, lol. I got fed up with trying to get $40.00 for hay, and ploughed up most of my ground and put in tile drains so I can grow beans, corn and wheat. No trouble selling grain crops, just sometimes the price stinks.