Wow- sold almost all of my hay within the last 2 days

I had some hay advertized on craigslist, almost 1000 bales of horse hay. Had 1 gal come out, showed her a bale and she said she'd take 100, but when we started sending them down to her trailer, she started squaking and ended up leaving empty handed.

Fast Forward about 1 1/2 months, and I start emailing with a few more responses. 2 different groups come out. Sold 200 bales w/ delivery to someone on the other side of town, and another 500 bales w/ delivery to a retired couple almost 90 miles away- They moved from Colorado and brought 6 horses with them. Said she tried some hay from a few other people, but her horses hated it and she was getting desparate for some better stuff. I gave her a couple bales of all the different hay it'd take to fill her order, and she called back yesterday saying her horses loved it and she'd take it.

Have another gent coming out tonight looking for 60 bales...


Hope I've got enough left now. Sales picked up so quick and I don't have an exact count on what I've got... but I SHOULD have 800...

Donovan from Wisconsin

I've got 12000 bales over here in NNY if you know of anyone looking. I haven't sold a stitch yet this year. Last year my phone was ringing off the hook. There must be more hay around the country this year or something.

That is the trouble with horse people and selling hay. They are different cats to deal with. Most don't know anything about feeding a horse. They just go off of what they see at shows and what some so called "trainers" tell them. So many want HIGH quality alfalfa hay that looks picture perfect. Then give the horse a flake at a time and wonder why their horse is sick all the time. Most pleasure horse people just need a good clean grass hay. Then feed the darn thing 1/3 to 1/2 bale per day. The horse is much healthier.

Just make sure and get CASH for horse people. Many of them are paper millionaires.

Glad you seen to be selling your hay. It should not be hard to move good quality hay this year or any year.

As for Brendon not beong able to sell any this year yet. Many horse people wait until they are feeding the last bale befoe they buy/look for more hay. Just advertize it and you should get it to sell.

What's hay going for across the lake?

My Dad always gave us strict orders: NO alfalfa hay for the horses - grass hay only!

BW- with all the rain we've had this year, there's been good pasture to this point. That will change over the next six weeks.

even with a wet summer pastures in nw al. going away fast. lots of hay this year but a lot of folks are also betting on needing a lot of hay this winter. ours are in the barn.

I was able to sell all my hay out of the field (saved me from picking it up). Since the buyers knew it was freshly baled they also knew it hadn't been rained on. Not much brome got baled this spring that didn't get at least a couple inches of rain on it. I'm just hoping I don't regret it this winter. Most of mine went for $5.50 a bale (wire tied 50-60 pounds). Saw some advertised the same way for $7 a bale and others $4 a bale. With all the hay out there this year I don't see it going up much this winter but you never know.

NE Kansas

Agree on the CASH part. I see more broke horse owners than I ever thought possible.

Just last weekend I had a "friend" call for a load of hay "good green stuff" and he wanted it delivered. I usually don't deliver small squares of hay because I don't think you can charge enough to make it worth the extra handling, BUT I had 2 wagons of 2nd cut orchard grass/alfalfa mix that needed unloaded anyways so I just unloaded them on the gooseneck and away we went with 243 bales in tow. We get there, have navigate up a goat path, weasel this truck and trailer in and commence to toss this load 15' up into his loft. All the while he and his missus are inspecting every bale and you could just tell that something was up. With about 40 bales left after an hour and a half of handling bales, he tells me that theres "too much alfalfa in these bales". Huh? He ended up paying for the load, but I had to haul 36 bales home with me and he will come and "hand pick the rest". My question is if you're that picky about your hay, why would you have your hay delivered?

Then they complain about the price too.

As I told one guy if he thought my hay was too expensive all he had to buy some land at $4000 an acre, buy at least $20,000 in equipment, use all his vacation time up at work and he too could have some "cheap" hay.

We've got about 8000 bales sold now. Could have sold another 3-4000 already if we had it.

If you let them hand pick all the bales they want then just charge them the full amount of what all the bales would have cost. Example: 100 bales at $7= $700. They want to "Pick" every bale and only take 90 bales the price?? $700.

You can't win dealing with these type of people. They are used to buying things that are mass produced where every one is a exactly the same. Hay is not that way. The field can vary greatly from one end to the other.

I sold hay to the horse market for over 20 years. You have to stand up for yourself or they will run over you.

Your "friend" is now telling every other horse person he knows how you LET him do that to you.

How would I have handled them rejecting the hay after it was almost all unloaded??? I would have loaded every single bale back up and took it back home. I would have doubled the price if they every called again. I would have let the load ROT before I would have let him pick through the hay complaining about the alfalfa/grass mix.

A bale with wet spot or an bad spot is something else but the mixture is a joke.

You got walked on. Now it will happen more if yu let it. IF you want to let them pick then charge them for the option.

Are you saying the owners are broke but not their horses?

This is why I sold my hay equipment. The combine don't complane about the corn and soybeans it's cutting.

hay for sale and horse people don't mix!!..

I have had the horsey set complain about the price
before. But, I'm not feeding their nags for them.
They want to play, then they can pay.....

Well, it's agreed upon $4/bale + delivery for the nearer one of 200. For the hay that's gotta go (a lot) further, I'm not really sure how to go about delivery... Gotta be more the $.50 just for gas.... I guess I gotta see about a trailer first, then figure the rest from there.

Donovan from Wisconsin

AIRBORNE! and I know you understand that!

Well, this was a special, one-time deal. I too have sold many a bale to these types and fully understand the give an inch they take a mile and tell their friends about it. I got my money for the load, but he shorted himself 40 bales from what he paid for. I stopped at a neighbors on the way home and sold what was left on the trailer to him. He was darn glad to get it. I doubt I will hear from this guy and IF he does want to come and get the rest of his load, fine, BUT he gets what is there. No way in h#$@ is he diggin through my mow for his preferred mix. Period.

I pretty much take what my guy brings. Sometimes it's grass heavy (preferred) and other times the alfalfa is heavy in it. We can adjust what and how we feed it. Point is he works with us because we don't cause him extra trouble.

Important thing for me it to get it, few guys in our area are baling small squares anymore. I pretty much take all his 2nd-4th cutting and about half the first. We would be very hard pressed to go get hay ourselves.

He had a customer (and former friend of ours) that was picky about what she took, that called him and wondered why he wasn't contacting her about hay anymore. He told her that we were taking just about all he raised (was keeping some for his wife's horses) and she had said she had her own fields now so he figured she didn't need it anymore (what she was doing was selling the alfalfa-heavy hay she raised, baled by a neighbor, and buying grass hay). She was upset because a) he was selling it to us and b) he wouldn't sell to her. There are enough buyers out there that he doesn't have to deal with her.

We've had issues with some of it being too wet this year but we just have to adapt. He had his guys bust the really wet ones open, but they just piled it up. We went up and spent several hours spreading it out and salting it. It was fine, in fact have fed it all already. We'd talked about getting some more but he wanted to wait and see what we might need in the spring. But he ended up getting a 4th cutting just last week and brought it over. Saved him from having to put it in the barn and bring it over later or take it to someone else (or worse, me having to go get it!). He or his guys bring it over and put it up, we don't have to touch it. We also bought a hay elevator from him (he has an equipment dealership too) so they don't have to toss it up. Good for us and he has some extra income during a slow time of his year.