[oor wullie]

Now I think I have all the straw I need to see me through the winter I can relax a bit but it looks to me like things might be a bit desperate for some people later in the winter.

There is very little about, particularly in the West.  Even in Aberdeenshire I see that Friday's auction at Thainstone saw someone paying £26 per bale (and that's not the first time it has been over £20).

I've heard rumours of some farmers starting to reduce numbers of cattle as it's not viable to keep them over winter at that price and guys who have contracts to supply carrot growers desperately baling any rubbish to try and make the numbers they committed to.

I have also been warned that because the cereal crops stood in the field so long a lot of them lodged which damaged the straw making it less effective as a bedding ie. Ill probably need more bales than expected to last the winter.

Such is life in agriculture I guess.
I hope no one here gets caught short.

[Rosemary]

Not good news. I'm going to have a word with my supplier on Friday and see how he's fixed. We don't have much roo to store but two years ago I bought the number of bales I thought I'd need and paid up front, then picked up a couple of bales every week as I needed them.

[bj_cardiff]

Its the same as usual here in West Wales, its always expensive because its brought over the border. Currently paying £28 for a D4000, nice quality although chopped a bit short

[Lesley Silvester]

Sounds like I'd better stock up. I can only store 20 bales of hay and 20 of straw at a time so I usually wait until I'm almost out of it.

[SallyintNorth]

Straw is very pricey in Devon and Cornwall this year.  £4 and £5 a small bale.  I was offered some at £3 but I didn’t follow that one up as I was having my time wasted by someone else .

I’ve paid £7 a bale for small bale haylage - it’s excellent stuff, mind, no waste at all, not a crumb! and it’s for Hillie our milk cow, so we don’t resent it.

I bought a load of straw, small bales, from our local agri merchant. I’d seen a bale in the store and it seemed fine.  £4 a bale, so as good as I was going to get, and I could have it delivered if I bought £300-worth.

When it arrived, every single bale was wrapped . There are lots of advantages - takes up less space, could store somewhere not completely rainproof, keeps it clean of cat and dog poo, etc - but I wouldn’t have bought it had I realised I was buying so much plastic.  The driver says it’s mostly wrapped these days.  I’d never even heard of wrapped straw.

[harmony]

Not only has there not been so much straw made or saved because of the weather but a lot is going into bio mass, which is good if you are selling but not so good if you are buying.

[Rupert the bear]

Not only has there not been so much straw made or saved because of the weather but a lot is going into bio mass, which is good if you are selling but not so good if you are buying.

This is so true especiallyt up here , the same applies to silage / haylage , My good mate supplkies our straw  and always keep enough by for us, but this year with the advent of Buchan bio gas plant going into full swing the price amd availability is dire.He'd be daft  not to cut and off to the plant 1 mile away and a good tonnage rate too . I hope I have enough straw , but have shavings in reserve, haylage I hope and prey I have enough ant its a short winter     as I look at the cctv the pigs are on steamed spuds just visible in the sleet, new bed for them tomorrow........

[oor wullie]

Not only has there not been so much straw made or saved because of the weather but a lot is going into bio mass, which is good if you are selling but not so good if you are buying.

Aye, although here it is biodigesters rather than biomass burners so they take the crops whilst they are still green.  Apparently one near here has 5000 acres of whole crop rye contracted and a fleet of forage harvesters that will Hoover up any crop including grass.  In an area without that much arable ground it is bound to be having an impact.

[arobwk]

Straw is very pricey in Devon and Cornwall this year.  £4 and £5 a small bale. 

Where is the best place to buy a few straw bales in Cornwall?  In my neck-of-the-woods (around St Dennis), it's all haylage/silage so no local farming neighbours making their own straw.  My most frequented farming store said £7.50 per small bale. 

[SallyintNorth]

Straw is very pricey in Devon and Cornwall this year.  £4 and £5 a small bale. 

Where is the best place to buy a few straw bales in Cornwall?  In my neck-of-the-woods (around St Dennis), it's all haylage/silage so no local farming neighbours making their own straw.  My most frequented farming store said £7.50 per small bale.

The stuff I bought, described above, was purchased from Cornwall Farmers in Launceston.

[bj_cardiff]

My most frequented farming store said £7.50 per small bale.

At that sort of price your much better off using shavings as bedding

[arobwk]

OK, I will check-out Cornwall Farmers also - thanks SallyintNorth.
Thanks also for your thought bj-cardiff, but I'm not looking for bedding - was thinking to maybe try an insulated compost bay with straw-stuffed pallets to see if it will help composting process over winter using fairly limited supply of stable manure from immediate neighbour. 
However, just noticed house-high stack of manure at a more distant neighbour's stable:  bet there's some good well-rotted stuff under there already - I shall drop in and see what's what.
 

[landroverroy]

With the current shortage and price of straw, I think you'd be better leaving your composting till temperatures rise in spring or using something else for insulation, like bubble wrap. If you're still thinking of buying straw you'll probably find it cheaper to actually buy the compost ready made!  

[bj_cardiff]

If your just looking for insulation for composting could you use spoilt/bad bales of hay?

[SallyintNorth]

was thinking to maybe try an insulated compost bay with straw-stuffed pallets to see if it will help composting process over winter using fairly limited supply of stable manure from immediate neighbour. 

What about using wool for insulation?  I’m sure you’d be able to find small flockkeepers locally who would let you have fleeces, but if not I’ve got a dumpy bag of Zwartbles fleece you can have . And we can probably unearth fleeces from previous years you could have too