Mike, I'm not Heidi but I live in Oregon (to her Idaho) and we
buy straight from the producer, too. We live rural and our next door
neighbor hays about 200+ acres of grass hay each year so we just go to him
for our 35-50 tons a year. But if we didn't go to him, I'd ask at my
feed store, look in my paper (yes, that actual newspaper often has people
selling hay in the field or in the barn) or just look for a field being
harvested in your area and seek out the owner.
I'm not sure where
the 707 area code is but in the NW/West area here, we have a weekly ag
paper called the Capital Press. It covers ID, MT (some), WA, OR, CA,
NV (some). There are hay brokers and producers by the dozens that
advertise in there.
I can't imagine either, buying it by the
bale. When I call and ask (usually I'm looking for a couple of tons
of alfalfa) about prices, quality, etc, I'm often quoted by the bale and
interestingly, they rarely tell me up front how much the bales
weigh. So I always have my calculator handy. Our hay is about
75 lb a bale and I try to find alfalfa that is less than 140lb. (Got
80lb bales last time...amazing). Much of the alfalfa here is for
cows, particularly dairy cows, and comes in 800+ bales!
Hope the info
helps.
Jannelle
Jannelle Wilde & Adam Falk Menagerie
Farm 584 Romie Howard Rd Yoncalla OR 97499 541-849-2460 (phone &
fax) 866-241-1531 Toll-free ASK ABOUT OUR DAVENPORT FOALS! www.cmc.net/~mfarm
-----Original
Message----- From: Mike Sherrell [SMTP:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent:
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 7:54 AM To: Ridecamp (E-mail) Subject: RE:
[RC] hay prices in CA
Heidi,
Could you explain how
you find producers and hay brokers?
