# Advice needed. Customer wants to return Hay



## Nick32990 (Feb 11, 2012)

Hi guys looks from some advice, I am sure some of you have had experience with this previously. A customer bought 100 square bales and I delivered them to him, he helped unload and physically touched all 100 bales. A week later (last night) he calls me and tells me his horses wont eat the hay anymore and he wants a refund and me to come pick up all the hay. Before I left his barn he was letting his horses eat the hay and said "oh good they love it". I do not know what to do about this or what the right thing to go about doing is. I feel he should have told me right off the bat if he didn't like the way the hay was before it was unloaded and has been in his barn for a week now.


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## cwright (Oct 19, 2011)

Howdy Nick, Read the attached thread it may give you some answers.

Where are you located? It make a difference in responce to answers. If you put you location in your profile it would help. Just your state will work.

http://www.haytalk.com/forums/topic/19920-23-days-later-and-she-says-hay-heated-up/?hl=return

CW


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

The horses won't eat the hay anymore? That's odd. They ate it right away, but won't now? Not at all or are they just eating less? If just eating less maybe the hay that the guy was feeding before didn't have as high of food value as your hay? Horsey people here really like to buy the 2nd and 3rd cutting grass hay because it looks so purty. However the 1st cutting has much more food value and their horses will eat less of it. But this gets horsey people worrying because they like to see their horses eat. If it has turned moldy or something then maybe you should take it back. If it hasn't and is still as good as the day you delivered it then his horses will eat it when they get hungry. This is why I don't deliver much to my customers. If they want a refund then they have to bring it back. Just like any other business.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Nick32990 said:


> Hi guys looks from some advice, I am sure some of you have had experience with this previously. A customer bought 100 square bales and I delivered them to him, he helped unload and physically touched all 100 bales. A week later (last night) he calls me and tells me his horses wont eat the hay anymore and he wants a refund and me to come pick up all the hay. Before I left his barn he was letting his horses eat the hay and said "oh good they love it". I do not know what to do about this or what the right thing to go about doing is. I feel he should have told me right off the bat if he didn't like the way the hay was before it was unloaded and has been in his barn for a week now.


If this was hay that had been recently baled, it was probably going through its initial sweat. My thinking is that there is a different taste about hay during this period.

Ralph


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Have to look into it a bit and find out why they are not eating it.( I have had people say there horse is not eating the hay but when I go over and look the horse is eating it fine. There is just something the owner does not like about the hay)

Could be like others have said. It could be too that he is cheap and found some cheaper hay to buy but needs the room and the money to buy it by returning yours. All the joys of dealing with people.


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Depends on the customer and the situation. If you value them and they are a "high value" customer then you best take care of them. If they are a nuisance type customer then you may want to try to do something to appease them and then cut ties with them. To uphold your good name and protect your reputation I would work with the customer and try to make something happen that works for them. The customer is always right even when they aren't!

I have one customer that put me in the same situation and said her horses wouldn't eat it. Now I always take her a couple of bales of the product to feed before we deliver a full load to them. I ended up moving the problem hay across the road to another customer (at my expense) who was tickled to have the hay and whose horses gobbled up the hay just fine. Customer is happy. I'm somewhat happy and we are all on good terms. You live and learn how to deal with these situations as time goes on. Reputation is everything in this business and you want to protect it. Just one of the costs of doing business in our business!

All of this is of course IMHO and you may agree or disagree but these policies have worked well for us over the years.


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## Nick32990 (Feb 11, 2012)

Thanks guys, the hay is a little dryer due to a baler brake down I had it sat on the ground for a few extra hours, still has a decent green and smells good. Talked to the guy this morning he said there picking at it but not eating all that they gave them and hes throwing a lot out. Sounds to me maybe he should cut back on how much he's giving his horses.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Yes, tell him because this young tender growth is so nutritious, they eat less of it....could be true, who knows.....ask the horse? I would not take back that hay unless it was moldy......period. I ain't in to playing games, I make hay, quit playing games years ago when I hung up my spikes, some people (especially horsey peeps) will run you ragged with their whining....if its moldy give them their money back, or equal 2nd cut hay. If it don't taste right....I'm gonna need a statement from the horse....my .02


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## jdhayboy (Aug 20, 2010)

I will usually always take a hay back or try in some manner to help make the customer a little more satisfied with the deal. Knock off delivery charge or next go round knock a little off the price or whatever your comfortable doing. I encourage people to inform me of how their horses eat the hay. It helps me understand and gain knowledge as why or why not its being eaten. Plus if you have a few different varieties a grass, (we have a few different Bermuda grasses) over time you will learn whose horses prefer what varieties over another.
I look at it like this, i go to a restaurant and get bad food. If i don't tell the cook then he thinks the food was okay, even tho he may have questioned himself. Then i tell people about my bad experience detering them from going. By telling the cook you not only do you give them an opportunity to make it right, they can also learn from experience make better food. Now I'm telling people about my good experience with the restaurant even tho the food was okay and I'm willing to try again.
No matter big or small everybody is an ambassador for your businesses


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

It can be fun trying to solve this. We have some fields of very old pasture we hay with I think its called indian rice grass as the dominant species. Very fine stemmed grass. I have some horse people who will send it back if they find it in a load saying horses can't eat this garbage meanwhile other horse owners won't take anything thing but. Both are owners with old horses, ones says they can't eat it with old teeth, the other says they need it because of bad teeth.

I don't know what to think, I just try to remember not to let any bales get in the wrong loads!


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I guess alot of you guys bale various grass species, down here in the south it purty much Bermuda grass, that's all I grow, if the hay is cured correctly and hit with amendments consistently, I can't be worried about what a horse does or does not like according to his owner....I can see where the different grasses may have a different palpability, and that is true to an extent with Bermuda depending on what stage it's cut in, but if I'm not confident of the hay, then it will be rolled, if its rolled I'm lucky to get my amendment cost back....there is just no margins to speak of in hay.....I can't afford to bale it wrong....but I have and the price reflected that...

My problem this year is pricing....I should be at about 20k bales a year, with the rains like they've been, I ain't gonna get to that....
So my costs are considerably higher due to the fact that I have amended fields for two cuttings that were both rolled....that affects the bottom line at the end of the year....challenging to say the least...


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## man of steel (Feb 1, 2010)

I'm not into refunds very much. Almost never in fact. I warranty all my hay for full replacement


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

In our dealings we have only refunded money in one case in all of our sales over the years, and we were glad to be rid of this particular customer. She claimed my hay was of poor quality and moldy but on closer inspection we discovered there was hay from a number of different growers and most of the poor hay was baled with a twine color we don't even use! In this case we just decided to chalk it up to experience and move on. In all other cases we have given them credit toward next hay delivery or exchanged their hay for something else. Mind you we are only talking a total of 3 or 4 such situations in the past six years.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I have only replaced one bale of hay ever.And iit was some hay I sold for a friend who said it was put up decent.Well his idea of decent and nine are different.Getting hay out of the mud into a bale isn't "put up decent"

That's why I normally have cattle around for the screw up bales a guy will have from time to time.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

swmnhay said:


> I have only replaced one bale of hay ever.And iit was some hay I sold for a friend who said it was put up decent.Well his idea of decent and nine are different.Getting hay out of the mud into a bale isn't "put up decent"
> 
> That's why I normally have cattle around for the screw up bales a guy will have from time to time.


Walking garbage disposals are what I call mine.


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## triabordofarm (Apr 8, 2013)

I'd forget it. Buyer beware. I have learned four things---1-you will never satisfy a horse customer, 2- The price is always too high 3- never take a check from a horse person, 4- Every horse customer has their own opinion of what is a correct hay mix...no two are the same. Not knocking anyone, its just the facts I have experienced. Going to all pure alfalfa for the dairymen next year.


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Had a customer, years ago, that used to unload their hay themselves. I would deliver the full wagons and pick up the empties. I found one of the empties with a bale still in it, so I asked the customer what was wrong with the bale. Customer said "It's got a snake in it!" I told the customer "Okay, no problem." I took the bale home in the wagon, pulled the snake out, and baled the next load into the wagon on top of that bale! Customer got the bale back with the next load.


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