Response to hay ads

[Muttley]

I just finished selling a bunch of hay and was overwhelmed by the response. Many of the calls were from central Alberta and western Sk.
To date I have had over 75 calls mostly from my ad here on the Agri-ville Buy & Sell.
I was asking a 100.00 a ton in the field and received a offer for 120.00 a tonne in the field which I took. The hay was mostly alfalfa. That is a pretty nice amount to receive for hay in July.
A good number of the folks who called said they were selling a bunch of cows to buy hay to feed the rest. What a shame one has to get rid of good cows and assests to save the rest.

[cowman]

Good for you. I would suggest you ask for a certified check. People might have good intentions but these are desperate times!
It is a good thing that people are selling cows now rather than trying to hang in there. I hope we don't have to hear horror stories of cattle starving to death this coming winter.
Still no rain in my area although Red Deer itself has gotten a couple of pretty fair showers and it is only a few miles away. The pastures are terrible and most of the hay rather pathetic. Some alphalfa crops were fairly decent. Some grain crops are in the soft dough stage(CPS wheat) and don't look all that bad but a lot of barley is burning up bad. Peas look pretty decent and even some canola crops. No crops being cut for feed yet other than the usual silage crop. Quite a few of the grass hay fields weren't worth cutting and cattle are in them. You don't have to go very far east and the crops are bad...definitely not even worth cutting for feed.
And yet the garden is awesome! Just shows you what we could grow with some water and a lot of heat.

[Muttley]

Many of the crops in this area north of Regina look good from the road but as you get in them they are not filling that great. I would say most of the hay is 60 to 70% of normal and most still better than last year.
I had one field of alfalfa that was double last year and another that was half of last year. The rains are real spotty here.
Grasshoppers are probably about the biggest concern here at the moment. Spray or not to spray is the question folks are asking themselves. Of course we also have the usuall diseases in some crops and many are not spraying because the crops are going backwards everyday.
If the powers to be don't help in some ways there will be some disasters out here.