Hay Auction

I went to a weekly hay auction both last weekend and today again. Last weekend was my first time there. I brought 5 round bales of lower quality hay to sell. This hay was not rained on, but was very mature and sunbleached as it had no color. The bales were twine tied and stored inside, the bales themselves looked great but quality was marginal. They brought $60/bale. Other than my 5 bales, there were about 20 other round bales of similiar quality, everything else at the sale was small squares. I was quite happy with the $$ they brought. I was telling this to my uncle, he had 6 bales of the exact same stuff as we made this piece on shares. He took his to the sale today expecting to bring similiar money. Today there was alot more round bales of all qualities. His hay was the first of the rounds to be sold. The auctioneer couldn't get a bid!!!! He was begging for $20 and couldn't get it. I raised my hand and bought em for $20/ea. thinking I would allow my uncle to buy them back. Turns out Uncle says, just keep 'em, that hay isn't much, I'm happy with $20/ bale. Well, I'm quite excited as I have been selling the exact same stuff to a horse man for $40. So I'll sell him these too.

My real point here is the huge difference in what the same hay brought at the same sale just a week later. That is quite a spread on price. I'm sure the fact that there was much more hay this week and that Uncles hay was the first to sell were huge factors. Also the weather was quite colder and windier today which also could be factors.

Another thing I noticed at the sale this week with the round bales was all the bale fork holes in some of the bales. I gotta think alot of hay is being bought just be resold over and over again. Makes me wonder just how many times some of this hay has been sold.

I think overall, hay prices might be settling just a bit. This is in Central MN, I'd be curious to hear some of your experiences with selling hay recently.

If you had them out here in Colorado, you could have got $135.00 a bale for them.

Talk about cheap hay I have some good green mixed grass square bales down here in western Ky can't get $3.25 for them. Every one is talking $2.25-$2.50. I guess I will just have to keep it because I bought the standing hay for $1.25 a bale, mowed it, conditioned it, baled it, hauled it, paided help to put it in the barn, and bought gas at an average $3.41 a gallon. A loss is just to hard to take!