Bales

[bucket]

With the shortage of hay....and the current price of pulses....would it be better to sell the crop standing for feed?


And what would be a reasonable price to ask?

[Sheepwheat]

With the shortage of hay....and the current price of pulses....would it be better to sell the crop standing for feed?


And what would be a reasonable price to ask?

What crop? Peas?

[bucket]

Peas or red lentils....

If the world can't pay for quality pulses maybe the cowboys are in the market ....

[grassfarmer]

The feed demand will be there for sure but peas aren't the easiest things to handle - would be difficult to hay and if you had to go down to the ground to harvest them you'd get too much soil in silage. Don't know anything about lentils other than I like them in soup.
On a similar theme with the price of wheat where it is what price per acre on an average size crop would you guys consider a good deal to sell it for silage versus harvesting the grain?
Feed sourcing is going to be a major headache for ranchers this year in a lot of areas. The hay I've seen advertised around here is 6-6.5c/lb in the field.
I wonder about the canola in this area that was re-seeded - some is an inch high, some cabbaging, some you can't see off the road yet - what chance is there that these will make a crop given mid July is almost here?

[SASKFARMER3]

Hay crop real thin to the west of us about 30 min. First time in along time ranchers are cutting the ditches. Its been years since that happened.

[newguy]

Hayland had no reserve moisture and never got moisture early enough before maturing too much.Crops are heavy and hay is short.penciling out some barley to cut or combine.

[poorboy]

Silage or green feed?

With the huge corn crop coming it looks like barley prices will plummet. Probably better to make cow feed out of a tall barley crop if you are close to cow country.

Freight is a killer shipping forage commodities as it is so bulky.

Thinking green or yellow feed would be more saleable as most cow guys are set up to feed bales. Silage will be better feed and store longer, but it a smaller resale market.

Peas make good silage, but are tricky. They tend to stay too wet and make sour silage. Can be done, but much harder to get the correct amount of wilt time ahead of the silage chopper.

[Sheepwheat]

I agree that peas for hay would be tricky, and debatable that it would pay more than a grain crop. Our hay here is tremendous this year, especially the alfalfa. I grew oats to bale too, but man it is a nice crop, so may harvest for grain and buy hay? We are not in a hay short zone, so it is usually cheap here. 2 or 3 cents a lb.

Hard to say in a hay short area what hay would be worth?

[GDR]

I agree that peas for hay would be tricky, and debatable that it would pay more than a grain crop. Our hay here is tremendous this year, especially the alfalfa. I grew oats to bale too, but man it is a nice crop, so may harvest for grain and buy hay? We are not in a hay short zone, so it is usually cheap here. 2 or 3 cents a lb.

Hard to say in a hay short area what hay would be worth?

WE were short here last year, had to buy 5 loads of hay, cost me 10 cents a pound with delivery, that makes for pretty pricey cow shit. Hay crops are likely worse here this year but pastures may be better if it keeps giving some showers. (Still short on rain could use a couple inches anytime, got half inch last night and by noon today it was dusty again)

Anyhow last year all my acres close to home were canola, offered $400 an acre to a couple neighbours for standing barley to silage with no takers. Maybe I'm wrong but that sounded good to me with no harvest costs and no continuing weather risks? Seeded a silage blend at home this year on purpose, looks good, definitely better than than the hay crops.

[zeefarmer]

I agree that peas for hay would be tricky, and debatable that it would pay more than a grain crop. Our hay here is tremendous this year, especially the alfalfa. I grew oats to bale too, but man it is a nice crop, so may harvest for grain and buy hay? We are not in a hay short zone, so it is usually cheap here. 2 or 3 cents a lb.

Hard to say in a hay short area what hay would be worth?

Rumour mill is as high as 13c/lb. So, $250-300/ton.
Hay is terrible this year. Lots are talking 10% of normal. And most guys ran out after a longer than normal winter. It will take quite a few acres to make any kind of greenfeed, and straw will be in short supply too.

[TSIPP]

Looking like 2 acres to a bale and no I don't have that backwards.

[grassfarmer]

Rumour mill is as high as 13c/lb. So, $250-300/ton.

Never understand guys with beef cows chasing hay to these kind of prices - it's a sure money loser. Even when hay is that high you can usually still get good pellets for 10c/lb and straw for 2c/lb. Not hard to make a ration substantially cheaper but I guess guys just like the ease of feeding hay.

[newguy]

Hard to get straw with rotor combines and farmers like to spread chaff.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Never understand guys with beef cows chasing hay to these kind of prices - it's a sure money loser. Even when hay is that high you can usually still get good pellets for 10c/lb and straw for 2c/lb. Not hard to make a ration substantially cheaper but I guess guys just like the ease of feeding hay.

Tell me about it, makes no sense to me, especially when feed grain is cheaper per pound. Then after spending all that money on hay and trucking, refuse to spend any extra time or money to at least minimize the waste, just blow it all over the countryside with a bale processor, or drop it in a poor quality hay feeder for the cows to pick through. When hay is expensive, I don't even feed my own, I sell it and feed whatever else is cheaper.

[WiltonRanch]

In the drought years here culminating with the 2002 blowout; guys were quite innovative finding ways to feed cows. Our land is not conducive to growing big hay crops so most times our feed comes from greenfeed, grain, straw, and aftermath grazing. 1995 was the first year we ran low on feed. Had to buy barley when year previous we were practically giving piles of it away. Since then we started stockpiling straw and grain. When we did hit the real dry years we had enough feed and screwed crop to get us through. Still to this day have a reserve in case. We are in a decent area for moisture but things can still happen. We’ve been moisture stable long enough for guys to get complacent and depend more on hay cause it’s easy to feed but the most moisture dependent.