The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Other => Topic started by: Womble on October 28, 2010, 10:53:24 am
-
I've just been quoted £3.75 each by our local farm supplies place. These were standard rectangular bales, and not even that well bound by the looks of it. I was somewhat taken aback, as I had been expecting nearer half that price!
Oh, and while I'm at it, does anybody in Central Scotland fancy quoting me for ten of them? ;D
-
Ours cost £3.50 each - they are made from large bales which are re-baled and never seem as tight as when they've been cut and baled. Think fewer and fewer folk are making the small ones now and that's why the price is going up :(
-
£45 for a large one and £4.50 per small one. hay £52 for large and £6.50 for a small one.
-
Straw is also expensive because more people are using it for cattle feed. We have tried to negotiate with our neighbour to bale more of his straw for local smallholders, but he can only let us have what we need, in exchange for eggs. We bale it ourselves, so you can imagine that we bale it as tight as we can ;). If our smallholders group (Biggar area) does negotiate with someone else then I will let you know.
-
Oh goodness Shetlandpaul - I'd better stop moaning about paying £4.50 for hay ;)
We can get the big round bales of straw for £25 (the farmer's one of my Dads' best friends ;)) but I have trouble storing them and seem to waste tonnes ??? When I build my 'pig shed' I'm making sure I've got room for the biggies ;) ;D
-
Barley straw her is currently £3.50 for smallbale
-
i only pay £2.50 a bale of hay but dont use straw and pay £5.00 per bale of shavings
sam :chook: :goat:
-
When I lived in Halifax I paid £2.75 for a small bale delivered ( in quantity) A big jump up to £6.00 collected up here. This year I made my own and it cost 70p 3/4 bale size. Dont get big bales up here SP, they have to come from Orkney or Aberdeen and have heard tales of rats nests inside.ugghh!!
-
over here in tenby, south wales im paying £3.00 for straw and £3.50 for hay.
i dont know if its cos i get on well with the the farmer who i buy it from or is he selling it at that price.
langdon :farmer:
-
Ours cost £3.50 each - they are made from large bales which are re-baled and never seem as tight as when they've been cut and baled.
Ah yes, that might explain it. At least the price I was quoted isn't way out then - I was worried he'd seen I wasn't wearing a Barbour jacket and had quoted me double ;D.
Straw is also expensive because more people are using it for cattle feed.
That also seems to make sense, and understandable given the price of hay! :o
Cheers folks!
Womble.
-
I've just been quoted £3.75 each by our local farm supplies place. These were standard rectangular bales, and not even that well bound by the looks of it. I was somewhat taken aback, as I had been expecting nearer half that price!
Oh, and while I'm at it, does anybody in Central Scotland fancy quoting me for ten of them? ;D
Sandy and I go to a farm just the other side of the Clackie Bridge, on way to Falkirk - last time £2.50 per rectangular bale. I'll be going for some beginning of the week.
-
We are lucky- one of our local farmer's sells us big bales of straw for £12, and big bales of hay for £25. Though last year he didn't have enough straw to see us through all winter. I will try and get some small bales from the place Annie uses as well.
Beth
-
We're in Stirlingshire. Our local 'farm supplier' is rediculously expensive. We find most farmers will sell direct. Currently getting straw for £2.50, hay for £3.50 and big bales of haylage for £35 (£10 up on last year!)...so just drive up to their door and ask. The best thing is to stock up early as prices rise towards the end of winter.
-
Just bought in 50 bales of straw and was delighted at £1 a bale and its good stuff.
-
gosh thats a good price, i have been watching the carrot lads covering the carrots for the winter with straw, i cant believe how much they use!!!!!!! we got hundreds of large bale straw at the back of our garden waiting to be spread its incredible
-
I've just bought small bales of straw at £2 and similar hay for £3. I was quite pleased with these prices as i have seen it advertised around here for more (Somerset)
-
;) 40p a small bale of strawsome barley and some wheat, as the farmer gets all our manure we get it at a good price.
just aswell really as we usually get through around 500 bales of straw ontop of the hay at £3.50 a bale this year.
-
I've just bought small bales of straw at £2 and similar hay for £3. I was quite pleased with these prices as i have seen it advertised around here for more (Somerset)
Blimey - where abouts was that from?!?!
-
Bales for sale at £2 each on Ad Trader site Shots area.
-
we usually pay £2 per bale up here (or down here - depending on where you are) ;D
although hubby just got 3 for £5 so we could get lots for outside the arc and by their feed trough! :pig:
-
we were paying 4:50 for straw :-\
-
I had 4 big round bales delivered for the grand sum of FREE from my neighbour ;D ;D last year I paid 14euros for seven and picked them up myself. Maybe next year he will pay me to take them 8)
-
We buy straw after combining, off the field and bale it for our own use. This year it has gone up A LOT. It cost us £25 an acre and then £9/bale to bale and cart it. We got @ 7 or 8 round bales/ acre so they cost us @ £12.50 each. However the cattle, donkeys and mule love it, so it's saving us a lot over the price of hay or haylage. We also feed them high energy protein + minerals buckets and carrots to balance the feed.
We will have a few straw bales over if anyone in the Goole/Selby area wants some. They'll be @ £18/bale
l
-
Well, now my secret's out, I guess I should share with the rest of you what I wanted it for!!
You see, we're just in the process of moving house, but our new sofa isn't due to be delivered for another month yet. So, we obviously need something to sit on in the meantime......
(http://anoutdoorlife.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/sofa-elefunt.jpg)
And it's actually a lot more comfortable than you might think! Locally sourced, sustainably grown, and recyclable into goose bedding at the end of its life. It even folds down ::) into a bed if required!
Not sure if it complies with EU fire regs of course, but for £15, what do you expect?!? ;D
-
I love the furniture, very environmentally friendly tho I don't fancy hoovering around it ;)
I have one farm selling me straw for £12 delivered - got 4 bales yesterday from him but I can't afford his hay at £35 given how much I'll need over the winter :o
The guy I buy hay from is charging me £27.50 but could get £30-35 on the open market, just I've been buying from him for a good few years so he sees me as worth keeping and he knows I don't have a job any more. But his straw is £15 ::)
I reckon it's best to have different sources anyway, in case of needing an urgent delivery when one isn't available.
-
I get haylage , big round bales at £18 each delivered. They are from last years crop . When he runs out of those the price will go up to £20 for this years crop , and that will likely be around the end of Feb beginning of March.
Straw is going for £4 a small conventional bale at the moment , but after this weather it will most likely go up . I have not heard the price of hay , either small bale or big round .
cheers
Russ
-
paid 28 pound round yesterday
-
£2.50 per small bale, good quality and tightly wrapped. Very pleased! ;D
-
i remember small bales of hay were £3.50 each 15 years ago. i once sold 3 ewes and took payment in good hay.
-
;D Free!! :chook:
-
Boy do I LOVE these forums. They're so much FUN. Back to the point..... This may cheer you all up? A mate of my OH is based in Kent and before Christmas she was paying £8 per small hay bale - if she could find it!!!! She makes her own but was getting low and her horses were going to need more. Not emailed her recently for current prices.
I'm lucky to keep my Neddy at a farm where the hay is £25 for a big round bale and straw is £12.50. Use shavings as Neddy would eat straw but will need some for my strawbs later.
Womble, if you were wearing a Barbour, I bet the price would be even more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely love the sofa.
-
Actually this thread has reminded me I need to ring and order some more bales.
As with others, this is usually a big bale re-bound into small ones. Can't remember the price but up here the choice is limited.
We tend to use straw for the chickens and hay for the piggies, which only complicates the storage problem.
-
We're 18 miles west of Glasgow :wave:
Last month we paid £3.50 per small, tightish bale - but have been warned the next lot may go up by 50p due to fuel costs >:(
What's everyone paying for carrots by the way? I can't get veg from the shops around here for love nor money for my piggies - even Morrissons reckon they have ABSOLUTELY NO WASTE - ??? I'm paying £2.50 for a string bag at the moment.
:pig: :chook: :dog: :bee:
-
all the supermarkets have waste or past the sell by date it goes to central disposal point they just cannot be arsed with individuals comming to them that is my view unless i am wrong
-
That could explain it Lillian - I did think their marvellous stock control up here sounded too good to be true ;D is there any way us lowly smallholders access these central disposal points?
-
don't think so
but you could wait for the skip lorry to move it and follow probably to a land fill site
the forkers would want money for the waste instead of them having to pay to dispose
unless somebody knows a supermarket manager?????
-
What a ***** waste :o no wonder there's such a food crisis in this world & everything costs so much >:(
I'm no politician or financial wiz-kid, but this don't make sense to me - at all ???
-
One of the TV chefs did a programme the other week on supermarket waste - prepared a meal for about 70 out of what they collected I think
-
Missed it - what a shame - could have gone back to local Morrissons the next morning - oh this really makes me >:( >:( >:(
I've worked in the voluntary sector for over 15 years, with some really vulnerable people - one woman I know was arrested for taking meat out of a M&S skip (sited on a public pavement) that was a day out of date & heading for landfill - arggh!!!
-
Part of the problem with supermarkets and skipping out of date products is that they're scared of being sued if someone takes something and makes themselves ill.
The way UK legislation works they (the supermarket) would probably be found liable for *not* preventing the person gaining access to it.
It's similar to if you cement broken glass along the top of your boundary wall and a burglar cuts themselves trying to gain access.
-
The world's gone mad ::) - stop I wanna get off !
-
getting back to the bles of hay and straw......straw per small bales is $8 aus. Hay per small bales is $12 aus. a roll is $45 aus, and Lucern hey is $15 aus
-
Aargh! Just realised we've paid £4.25 per bale this month :gloomy:
-
Advert in the Northern Times this week: 10 bales of top quality oat straw. £20 per bale.
I'm assuming these are the big round bales.
-
We've just managed to get a load of 30 big round bales, really nice barley straw, not chopped too short, at £25/bale. Bought at Carlisle mart last Monday. I think that may indicate that prices of straw are easing a bit - thank goodness!
-
Don't get me started on supermarkets...... >:( >:(
Does anyone know the approximate weight for and hay for straw when we talk about 'a big bale'?
Are we talking the big rectangular 'heston' bales of straw? And the large round bales of hay that fall apart once you take the netting surround off?
McR
-
Well we were paying £8.50 for small bales of hay over the winter I had to convert the horse at least onto haylage which was cheaper. As for straw we have been using wood shavings and shredded paper for the pigs as it is much cheaper and brought them into the stables for the winter for warmth. We had a really bad summer last year which rocketed prices in the south west so we have had to improvise. This year I am going to start and buy early and build a storage to accomodate.
-
Jeeez Rach, you should have said - we had surplus that we could have sold you, and certainly not for £8.50 per small bale!!! Ours is all going to small bale this year, I think we're selling it to one of our horsey friends this year but I could put some aside if you're interested?
-
I have been selling the small rectangle bales for £2.50 to £3.00 per bale and the same size of hay for £3.00. ;D
-
Were on the Perth/Fife borders in Scotland......Last weekend we managed to get some barley straw locally £2 a small bale and £20 per big bale. We collected ours but he was delivering for no extra charge if we wanted as were just 3 miles up the road......Happy at that price :)
Dave
-
Every year I buy my straw from our local farmer David for £5 a round bale off the field and delivered. My usual number is 18/20 depending if I have pigs as well as the ponies. He takes my muck heap every year. :)
-
Several years now I have travelled up the east side of Scotland and pondered on when it might become viable to hire a wagon & drag to bring straw back down over the border. If you are paying £5 per large round bale, and we think £15 per is rip-your-arm-off pricing...
Anyone know anything about costings for transporting large quantities of straw?
-
it is funny your perception of where to get straw most of the straw from cambridge and other arable areas head north it is even reported in the farmers weekly this week of straw going to power stations the straw and hay head all over the country it is a bit like construction company's you will see Glasgow ones heading to Edinburgh and Edinburgh ones heading to Glasgow along the M8
there are hay and straw merchants advertising in both the F W and the Scottish farmer :farmer:
-
Aye, Robert, it's southern straw that gets brought up here and last winter was selling for £35 / big round bale and over. (We generally mean Yorkshire when we say 'down south'. You could be right about straw coming up this far from East Anglia.)
Sure I can buy the straw that others bring up, across or down, whatever - but I have been wondering whether the price difference is now so huge that it would be worth organising my own transport and buying a load direct from source, up near Aberdeen for instance.
We bought a load at £25 / big round bale at Carlisle mart in March and were well pleased. Surely transport couldn't cost £20 / bale?
-
so what you are looking for is a return load down south there are company's that do just that and don't have vehicles just take a cut
it is harder to get a return up north than one down south goggle transport co around Aberdeen sandy hay is one they take machinery north and possibly empty south if they run full both ways the cost is cheaper :farmer:
-
Thanks Robert.
So anyone out there east coast Scotland able to suggest a company that might be bringing agricultural machinery up from Carlisle way?
-
I have to buy straw in for my pigs and i usually alternate between two neighbouring farms. I budget roughly £150 for a years worth of straw and this used to buy me 15 big roly poly bales or 12 big heston rectangle bales.
After last years harvest my neighbour told me he wanted £24 per roly poly bale (barley) and after much muttering(by me!) he accepted £20. I bought 7 and am fast getting to the end of them (i have 1 left). I dread to think what he'll want this year and am already starting to look around. I actually prefer the heston type as you can peel slices off them, find an awful lot of waste with roly poly's once the nettings off. It blows everywhere. We shall see what we can get.
Mandy :pig:
-
Yes we prefer hestons too. But mini-Hestons (about 8 to the tonne, I think), the 1/3T full-size hestons are really difficult to manage even with a 4wd tractor & loader.
When I have to use part of a round bale I make a pen out of lambing hurdles and open the bale inside the pen. Helps to contain the blowabout. (My hens just love scratching in straw and of course assume I opened the bale purely for their benefit... ::))
-
with the drought of 2011 alot of smallholders should think about getting hay and straw now than later, the price of this years hay and straw is going to rocket through the roof.
-
Belgianblue has a point, we have been getting hay delivered by a local farmer for the last 3 years. Last year we paid £15 a large round bale, over the winter it went up to £25, and we've been told today that he can no longer supply us, needs it all for himself.
-
Thats because if he's like most farmers round here he's jumped on the band wagon that has the price of beef cattle going up & up so his sheds will be full of beast fattening for Xmas!
Think i'm going to have the same kind of problem as you getting my straw this year!
Was talking to my neighbour and he reckons he's paying between £22 & £24 for big heston bales at the minute.
Feed also looks like it will shoot thro the roof this winter as wheat is looking iffy too.
Mandy :( :pig:
-
Just paid £29 for a 4ft round bale this last weekend. Hopefully it'll last the beasties a while.
-
I'm paying £4 for a standard bale. It's lovely clean, crisp straw so I am going to buy in a good supply now before it goes up (though, knowing my luck with thinking ahead, farmers won't be able to give it away this winter ::))
-
The people we bought from warned us to expect it to go up next year. Apparently it hasn't been a good year for hay.
-
stroud area : £4 hay bale now, £8 by end of october. i have 20 bales stored for sheepies
-
Ive just paid £4.25 a small bale for hay in Aberdeenshire but this was (i) delivered (I THINK it was £3.75 if collected, and they are coming quite a long way, and in a covered truck, which was vital given recent rubbish weather) and (ii) of the specific type/quality we needed (horse quality hay but late cut timothy stalky low nutrient stuff not richer earlier cut ryegrass mixes).
Ironically we have loads of our own hay and could make more if we had storage/energy to do it, but we only use it for the sheep cos (i) it's too rich for the laminitic pony (ii) before we moved here a few years back, ragwort was rife and tho we pull it every year and have basically eradicated, I am a bit paranoid and feel I can't be 101% sure there isnt one or two non flowering bits getting in.
-
Just swapped half a pig value £140 for 12 large heston bales of wheat straw. which is a blooming good deal. bales are little light so i think thats why i got 12.
One of our friends says wheat bales are £25 and barley upwrds of £30.
This is in North Yorkshire.
Mandy :pig:
-
over here in tenby, south wales im paying £3.00 for straw and £3.50 for hay.
i dont know if its cos i get on well with the the farmer who i buy it from or is he selling it at that price.
langdon :farmer:
Same here in North Wales 8)
oops, just noticed the reply I quoted is almost a year old :-[
-
mid devon, am paying £2.40 a bale..... less for a large quantity. Not short in supply around here.
-
I wish I could find someone who could deliver in Somerset, as I don't have a big enough car anymore
-
all the supermarkets have waste or past the sell by date it goes to central disposal point they just cannot be arsed with individuals comming to them that is my view unless i am wrong
More like to do with controlled waste regulations and not heating up stuff properly to feed to pigs thus increasing swine fever & salmonella sort of probs rules.
-
Just to update we are collecting 50 small bales of oat straw tomorrow at £2 per bale collected. Aim is to feed it mixed with hay to the lami prone pony so she gets more chew for longer, but also once everything freezes we wont be able to soak the hay any more so want to get the calories and sugars down in her ration as much as poss.
-
Just had six oblong hay bales for £4 each. That'll keep our Kunesgoing for a bit but I might measure up and see how many I can get in the Zafira for next time I'm over the east coast.
-
I wish I could find someone who could deliver in Somerset, as I don't have a big enough car anymore
hey hun, i dont know if they are still in the game but try fosseway fodder.
-
EllisR, how far are you from me? There's a bloke I get mine from who's reasonable. I could load my trailer up if you needed some (just cover my diesel?)
-
I have managed to get someone who comes from somerton and is reasonable on price and she has agreed to deliver monthly as I have limited storage.
Thanks very much for the offer it was very kind
-
I have managed to get someone who comes from somerton and is reasonable on price and she has agreed to deliver monthly as I have limited storage.
Thanks very much for the offer it was very kind
STRAW --Small square bales weight some where in the vicinity of 20 - 25 kg. ($10 per bale) and $12 - 15 for hay) round bales weigh 500 kg ($50 per bale)and big square bales can weight 500 kg ($50 per bale) or 1000 kg. dont use these cant handle them....
-
I can't be bothered reading through six pages of answers!! So I may be repeating someone else.....
The Great Roberto gave me contact details for a guy near Kincardine who delivered (at a price, cheaper to collect, which I will do after I've stolen Robert's trailer from his yard when he's not looking) straw and hay at a decent price. The cost for me was in the delivery.
Do you want any cockerels for the pot, Womble? I'm inundated with the useless, greedy feckers and unable to do the deed, as you know.
Four biggies and about eight smallies.
Watch that trailer, Roberto. ;)
-
come on dizzy, u can do it! ;)
-
NONONONONONONONO....... I can't! I need help! I need a drug which makes me braver. Wine and fags don't work, Lord knows I've tried. I have to face reality, I'm a huge, great big girl's blouse. Sniff.
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
-
;D
-
we have started getting big bales better value although not easy to manage £30 large hay £35 large haylage ..