Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I did forget to add that I live in southcentral IL near St Louis MO...we're only 40 miles from there.  

Last year we got our hay from several sources, by the small bales for the most part, and am trying to go with a By The Ton pricing as I understand it is a bit cheaper that way than buying small bales...which is more labor for the smaller farmers/producers.  

Any big squares or round bales we get will be stored outside under a tarp on pallets to keep them off the ground.  

Last year's hay varied by quality depending on who we bought from, the price, and when we bought them.  We'd rather not go thru that hassle again this year with a wedding and a couple trips...trying to fit hay buying in there will make our year pretty tight to get work done on the farm.  Of course that's a never ending project as most of you already know ;-)  

Last year we had great hay (pricey and the farmer quickly sold all...we can only afford so much pricey hay even though the quality was excellent).  Then we got some good orchard grass hay and went back to buy more...didn't have but he had a pasture grass hay so we bought it thinking it would be good.  Yeah right...plenty of foreign objects in it from wire, to large twigs (small branches??), to thorns!  We figured he was going around the county baling anything he could and thus the fields weren't checked for anything foreign.  Fortunately no dead animals and the horses ate around the other stuff...collected as soon as we noted it too.  

I understand there is a hay dealer in western Missouri...don't know the name right off but there seem to be quite a few hay farms out that way.  If anyone is familar with this area by all means pass on the info...publicly or privately.  Not sure what is available elsewhere in my neck of the woods.

Thanks again and keep the info coming.  Sounds like good info for all of us irregardless of where we are.

Val  (email private at vnicoson at gmail dot com)

On Jan 21, 2008 1:26 PM, < SandyDSA@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I would think that this would depend on where you live and how many horses you have. If you have a dozen or so, buying from a dealer makes sense but check them out to be sure they have a good rep for quality. No sense getting a "deal" on rocky or dirty hay.

What type of hay do you want? Frankly, it is easier for us to buy a half a trailer load once a year and then buy some from friends who did the same but have more storage space. Can't keep it forever but if properly protected, you can store it for months.

More info would help. Just a question - why would a number of events prevent you from being able to pick up hay or have it delivered?

 

Sandy Adams
Deep Sands Arabians
www.deepsands.com

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