Feedlots short ?

[Sheepwheat]

I’ve been assured that bales are $300 because the price of fuel and tractors and things have gone up so the lesser yield has to cover all that.

Seems plausible. Everyone else gets to increase their commodity prices based on this logic after all.

🤨

I suppose it’s different for a guy with a thousand dollar baler, and a 20 000 dollar tractor? Lol

[woodland]

I can’t fathom having thousands of critters and only a week or two of barley on hand. I know a couple of feedlots that have smaller feed bins than I do. Just in time logistics come with an inherent risk that is showing up now. Kinda like BC with the floods and running out of feed.

2001-03 taught us ya better have stockpiled feed on hand, a big bank account you don’t mind parting with, or sell the cows. If I only had a couple weeks of feed on hand I’d be either scared or calling in Roberge pronto. To each their own though.

P.S. The phone is ringing again with folks looking for hay right away…………. Yikes!

[Old Cowzilla]

But but at the holistic meetings ( at $ 300 a day ) everyone was told you could buy hay at $50-60 a bale and get a guy to deliver at that price and put it in rows for you to bale graze . You don't need a tractor or baler and you get fertilizer in that ground valued more than that bale. You just let the other guy buy the tractor , baler, rake , rack, seed, seed drill fert, and store a years supply what could possibly go wrong

[Old Cowzilla]

Not to make fun of a bad situation but there was listing of feed in western Manitoba and it wasn't $ 300 bucks a bale if that helps anybody looking. Around here I found the best way to deal with neighbors if they were short and if I had extra was just to replace hay when they made hay that made easier than pricing the stuff but that only works on short distances.

[hedgehog]

I hadn't heard about that. And thank you for the suggestion.
But I have to ask. How is it that there was only one year where Scotland's hay was ruined by rain? From what I know about Scotland it rains almost everyday, and is cloudy and overcast and humid on the rare days when it isn't raining. Is there really such a thing as dry hay? I assumed it was all silage or baleage.
Must be more climate zones than what the tourists typically see?

The west highlands are very wet and hay is seldom made where the tourists go
baleage took over after 85, wrapping wasnt invented then, it was in big bags hand tied with twine.
i went to calgary stampede in 1998 and it rained constantly and it was a mudbath.!!!

[helmsdale]

I was under the impression that most dryland/drought prone cattle farmers do ( or did) routinely stockpile a year of more of feed. Straw and grain specifically, or hay if it rains enough.

Around here where rain almost always bails us out, we tend to be more hand to mouth, then get really offended when mother nature doesn't cooperate.

It's gone! Plenty of fellas shitting bricks after that last round of -30. Stocks have been continually declining the last 2 years here. Hay is non-existent... 6-7ac/bale on regrass doesnt get you very far. Lots of crops written off here last year that are going through cattle, and even with that ALOT are worried that one more cold spell will leave them without sufficient feed to make spring. And that's if the grass even decides to green up. It's looking dire! Snow pack is declining daily now. Lots of open ground. Dugouts are dry.

[shtferbrains]

Hedgehog how many cows to make a living in UK?

[hedgehog]

Hedgehog how many cows to make a living in UK?

you need about 150 beef cows to make a living , but how long is a piece of string?

[mcfarms]

The west highlands are very wet and hay is seldom made where the tourists go
baleage took over after 85, wrapping wasnt invented then, it was in big bags hand tied with twine.
i went to calgary stampede in 1998 and it rained constantly and it was a mudbath.!!!

God I miss those years.....

[GDR]

The west highlands are very wet and hay is seldom made where the tourists go
baleage took over after 85, wrapping wasnt invented then, it was in big bags hand tied with twine.
i went to calgary stampede in 1998 and it rained constantly and it was a mudbath.!!!

Same things happen almost every year at the Stampede. Forcast will be for super hot sunny weather so everyone goes out and cuts hay and then we end up with a monsoon of rain for 2 or 3 days. Calgary area actually pretty dry once July and August rolls around.