Hay price

[Horse]

Curious how much you think hay will trade for this yr. I am hoping to get .04/lb thats in north central alta, Lots of cows gone , lots of grass worked under but yields here are off almost 1/3 from last yr. With barley trading in the 10 cent range its not an option like a few yr ago.

[ASRG]

Depending what you want. On the Alberta Ag website it seems to be about 3.5 cents.
If its just for cows there is a lot of last years hay around.
A neighbor never feeds hay. Straw and canola screening pellets. His cow look pretty good in the spring.

[ALLFARMER]

Canola screening pellets? Bunge at Fort
Saskatchewan might have some.....something to
look into....

[ALLFARMER]

Was thru Westlock area today they just got
another 4" of rain over the weekend. Heavy
crops went down some barley fields the whole
quarter section is flat. The amount of hay rolled
up was hard to look at..... 3 x the crop we got
here. Can't really see how anyone would sell
cheap hay. 50k balers, 37k diskbine at westlock
500k quarters. Tractor, rake, fert

[ASRG]

Examples on Alberta Ag website:
-1600 lb alalpha/timothy bales. $50. Barrhead no rain.
-1400 lb alalpha/timothey. $42.50 Onoway, no rain.

How many bales/acre? At 3 tons/acre about four? So about $200 gross/acre?

Like you said fertilizer/baler/haybine/fuel/etc. all off that price.

Does it make sense to grow hay at that kind of return? Barley quotes at Lethbridge are $6.20/bu. Canola?

[ProFarmer]

For all the time it takes this year 4.5 cents a lbs or I will burn it.Lots of hayland taken out and more herds going to market this fall. My neighbor will stave his cows before he pays more than 3 cents a lbs for hay but he does a lot of camping and fishing in the summertime...

[grassfarmer]

How does burning it pencil out?

[ASRG]

The two prices I quoted work out to slightly over 3 cents a pound (both say good for horse hay).
At 4.5 cents/lb. : 1600 lb. =$72/bale
1400 lb. =$63/bale

The old formula of 35 lb/day X 200 days X 4.5 = $315/cow.
If pasture is $1/day X 165 days= $165
Throw in $25 for bedding and you get a total feed/bedding bill of $505/cow?

Add up your other costs (fuel,machinery, facilties/fences, salt/min, breeding,vet costs, death loss, depreciation, interest on capital, labour,selling costs, any other?) and you might get $150 profit/cow? So 100 cows will give you a $15,000 income?
Might be better getting a job at Walmart or McDonalds?

[burnt]

Here in the east hay is priced at 10 - 15 cents depending on quality. the export market sets the price here. Very short supply due to late frosts and no rain.

Dairy farmers might be able to use it but our beef cows are going to have to learn to utilize stuff that they normally turn their noses up at.

The shrinking beef cow herd continues to get even smaller. Although the cost of replacement heifers is staying affordable. I guess.

[smcgrath76]

This is interesting to me. I always
like the traditional 200D feeding period
as a motivating factor.
We have pretty well determined that a
bale of hay runs about $40 worth of
"fertilizer" when put through a cow on
site at current prices. Straw is right
around $20 as near as we can figure.
Our costs when we bale on shares are
much lower then $0.04 per pound so it
works well for us.
We figure to graze until the end of
January running right around $0.50 per
day (rented native range). We then go
onto swaths running from $0.37 to $0.45
per day depending on yield. We then go
onto Bale grazing for 30 days or so,
running nearly $0.80 per day. Last fall
our rake bunch experiment worked out at
just over $0.25 per day on replacements
(figure $0.45 per AUGD), so we are going
to try a lot more of that this year.
If you feed in confinement for 200 Days
I think you are low on feed costs and
there are also large cleanout costs.
There are lots of options out there...

[ASRG]

Sean: How do you do the "rake bunch thing"?
The end of grazing banked native pasture in my area usually ends in the Dec 1-15 range as the snow is just too deep. I have often thought of swath grazing but could never pencil it out....swath grazing vs. grain crop?

[ASRG]

Sean: You may be overly optomistic on the "nutrient value" of bought in hay? I think grassfarmer had it figured out at about $31/cow over the winter?

[smcgrath76]

The rake bunch thing, we just cut with
our haybine and pile with a dump rake.
We are looking at our old farmhand sweep
in the future as an option.
I am interested in what you feel is "too
deep" as far as snow cover. We have
found the type of snow makes more
difference than the depth, but up to 12-
18" on prairie is around the limit and
24-30" depending on snow type for swath
grazing.
GF may be closer on his nutrient numbers
than I am, although I know the price of
fertilizer fluctuates a lot. I don't
include any of this "free" benefit when
I run our cost analysis.

[grassfarmer]

Can't remember figuring out to $31/winter ASRG but I
might have forgotten. I thought the figures were
about 40-45c/day nutrient value coming out the back
end of a cow? That's just over $40 per cow on a 100
day winter which is what I try to feed for. $80 on
your 200 day winter. It's rather vague given how
much can volatize if the winter conditions aren't right
or they are in a corral.
We feed everything out in the fields when we have to
feed - movable bunks even for the weaned calves and
any time we can buy old/scrap hay/straw bales for
@$15 we do so. Let them eat/bed on it. Its a cheap
way to capture (and add) nutrients to get the bale
grazing effect and it doesn't kill spots out so bad.

[Horse]

I always figured on 210 day feeding some yrs came less some more The problem I have is I dont have 2or3 extra 1/4 to pasture so I figure on 165 and have feeds on hand if short then buy some in, I always wanted to get rid of the haying and buy all my feed but then I would have to more thjan doubled the cows and I just didnt feel like calving 300. I know some do but my comfort level was more like 100 to 150 but now I have none and life goes on esxdcept now m,ore haying and field work., Time to surender I guess after 50 yr to late to smarten up.