Hay

[dalek]

If you happen to win the lottery and get one of the loads we loaded yesterday, let me apologize in advance for the small square bales thrown in on top. Humidex was 42 and I wasn't about to crawl into the top of the box cars on my belly to stack them more neatly :-) SO they got thrown in from the door. Also, you might have to put a whole lot of elbow grease into opening the doors, I had to climb in the top of the car and use a big wrecking bar to help the CN guys get the door past the hay in one car.

[rodbradshaw]

Dalek
I don't believe anyone who recieves free hay in the lottery should complain about how it arrives or how it was stacked. They should just thank their lucky stars that they have got some feed that will help feed their livestock. Hopefully, some day they will help someone else out.

[dalek]

She's jammed in there anyway. We had our JD dealer out with a new telehandler, somebody brought in some tall narrow big square bales and he was ramming them in at the top of the doors pushing so hard he had the car rocking and three wheels on the telehandler off the ground.

[charliep]

Your story somehow reminds be of being 15 years old - first behind a stooker, then hauling into the yard and finally elevating it up to the top of a hay shed. No fun in 30 degrees when I was in the top of the hay shed.

Many thanks for help to AB./Sk. farm families.

Any thoughts about how much hay is availabe in Ontario? I am getting this question on a daily basis.

My feed back is that decent rains in many communities in Ontario is giving good second and third cut hay potential. Hay is plentifull enough that some will go unharvested. The financial incentive has to be there to justify harvesting though. I have also heard comments that the right incentives would result in some of the poorer corn fields being silaged and this would free up more hay.

Interesting comments on costs/logistics. The rate on
the flat deck cars (haven't heard on box cars) was about $4000/car. Tonnage was anywhere from 25 to 30 t - cost anywhere from $130 to $160/t. The Nova Scotia hay cost is closer to $250/t commercial rate. Total landed cost into Alberta hay is well over $250/t (getting to track siding, loading, fumigating, shipping, unloading, getting to farm) excluding the cost of hay.

The biggest issue is getting the bales loaded so they wouldn't shift on the 4000 mile trip. The round bales are causing the biggest problem

[dalek]

They told us $3900 for the box cars. They're now using page wire fence to line the stakes on the flat beds for round bales but they have to use log booms to load them over the top of the stakes.
To put it in perspective, we filled 11 cars here this week. We could probably fill 50-60 with just the baled hay pledged so far. We have also had at least 200 acres of standing hay offered. There is a lot of third cut growing now (we've had two inches of rain in the last two hours). We have a lot of "rurban" people offering standing hay, but these are people who bought the land for the wildlife and haven't let it be cut for years, even last year when their own neighbours were short because of drought, so we're leaving it as a last resort with all the weeds in it. There are 30 cars coming in on Monday about 25 miles north west of here and it sounds like we may get another 20 in our area.
For some further perspective, look on your map of Ontario. Just south west of Kingston is a little island called Wolfe Island. We're the closest shipping point to Wolfe Island. There are 40-50 farms on Wolfe Island, mostly dairy and beef (my guess, pretty close). They have offered at least 1000 round bales and probably closer to 1500, knowing that they would have to get the government to bring out the backup ferry which holds MAYBE 3-4 5 ton trucks at a time or they could load the ferry at the island with hay and offload on the mainland onto trucks.

[dalek]

Charliep, the trains that have gone so far are just scratching the surface of the hay that's here. Southwestern Ontario has been dry this year so they're probably going to need most of theirs for their own animals but Eastern, Central and Northern Ontario are all geared up and looking for more railcars. There are large farming areas looking for cars that can't get them. We were initially told we were getting 20 but the gov't had it cut in half so they could spread them around (and spread the photo opportunities around too if you ask me) We just finished filling our barns and silos yesterday with the last of our second cut, we have 80 acres of third cut up to my waist now and still growing.

[sewen]

The Alberta government is looking into making your hay into pellets, is this possible? Because it sure sounds like a good idea to me. Then it could be loaded onto grain cars. I'm sure there should be alot of those sitting around doing nothing.

[charliep]

Pelleting is being looked at. My information is there are only 3 plants (2 Ont./1 Que.). Dalek - do you have an idea where located relative to feed surplus? Ont. has been a net pellet importer. Some of the plants do have capacity but it is a matter of financial incentive. It may not pay to crank up production for a short period only to go into hybernation again. The pelleted hay market has been not kinder to Ont. plants than to Alta. ones in recent years and the survivors have developed niche markets that provide profit. Will they crank up one time production? How much will it cost? Who will pay? How much is needed?

[dalek]

Pellets might work on a small scale but it isn't going to do a whole lot from what I know. I think at least one of the plants is in southwestern Ontario a fair way from the surplus.
As for corn silage, I don't think that's going to happen. It's expensive enough shipping hay at 15-20% water, imagine shipping silage at 60-70% water. You could stick some in a box car but from the weights listed on the ones I saw I don't think you could fill them much more than half full, the only other cars I know of that might work for silage would be the kind they use for wood chips. And by the time it got to the west it would be starting to mold pretty fast.