# Gouging or helping people out



## pettibone (Jul 18, 2015)

To go along with prices changing in 24 hours was looking in the farm & garden section of CL yesterday morning, now we had a very dry summer last year and from what I've been told there's a serious shortage of hay, so anyway ad in CL has hay from NY at a bargain price of 18 per bale and you have to buy 1000 bales at a time. So I'm thinking that must be a trailer load on some sort of wicked awesome hay trailer or pretty small bales for your 18000 bucks. Maybe I'm just used to cheap hay prices around here but kinda seems like gouging people to me. What do ya'll think?


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

Guess it depends on what they want for trucking, maybe that includes unloading? Still seems high though.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

I hate low hay prices . I also know when hay prices get to high it is not good for the seller either


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## pettibone (Jul 18, 2015)

I would hope for 18000 you would get it delivered. I'm thinking prices like that would weed out a lot of people really fast


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

You might change your mind about the "gouging" if crop prices continue to hold higher because it will be a slam dunk that all types of fertilizer will go out of sight.

Regards, Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Urea is up about $50 a ton.....


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Feed prices just increase at feed store, average of $1 to $1.50 a bag ($40 to $60 a ton). We are naturally passing that on to the customer.

Larry


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Fertilizer prices are already up. Our supplier told me he hasn't seen an increase like this since 2008. I also think we are going to see some wicked inflation to come. I've been on the fence about buying a new fertilizer spreader, but am concerned that if I wait until year's end, there will be a substantial price increase.

Around here, there has been a hay glut. We've held our prices and have sold out of horse quality hay. We have some cow/goat hay left, but that is moving too - repeat customers.

This "gouging" thang cuts both ways. Last year there was a severe hay shortage here and hay prices reflected. Many horse hay folks cried bloody murder regarding the prices. I have yet to hear a hay supplier/grower complain about being ripped-off by disloyal hay customers who shop for the lowest price, leaving the farmer high and dry.

IMHO - the bottom line for farmers is charge what the market will allow; certainly the customer will shop for the lowest price on the flip side without regard for the farmer.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Gotta look at it as a business.

My motto is "do unto other before they do unto you"


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Here there is talk of severe hay shortage to our north and to our west . We do not see it here i can go to hay sale 6 days a week and those auctions are packed with record number of loads . Price is holding up good but on a whole down about 20 % from 6 months ago .


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## ttazzman (Sep 29, 2019)

this cold wave in the lower middle of the country caught a lot of people that usually have winter pasture out of forage......we are small time horse hay producers mainly for ourselves and i put a add up on marketplace for our excess and had of 1k hits in a week ........ mentioned at the feed store we were on our last bales to sell and they said they would take any we had ........ i sold mine a bit below local market but normally 6-7$ small bales are going for 8-9$ in southern missouri ...even had people buying it as a straw substitute


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## Hay diddle diddle (Nov 17, 2017)

No one makes people buy it. Unless everyone else starts asking the same or more.... Supply and demand . That's all it comes down to.


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## disenchanted (Mar 1, 2020)

We also had a rather poor hay year, and tonight I came across a craigslist ad for several year old bales with "a considerable amount of burdock" for $4/bale.


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## pettibone (Jul 18, 2015)

Talking about CL, on the Maine CL this morning was a beautiful 6420 cab loader 4x4 all for 18,500. You know that was legit.


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## mstuck21 (Oct 4, 2019)

I'm all for higher/strong hay prices for GOOD hay. If you can ask a strong price for quality bales and get it then by all means take it. To many times the producer is on the short end of stick so take the extra when it is there. I'm a nobody in the hay world, but I know the difference between good and bad hay. All these weekend cowboys on CL who wrap two strings around a dog turd and call it $7 hay can fly a kite. Makes me lose my mind. Junk is junk, call it what it is.


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## cjsr8595 (Jul 7, 2014)

our urea prices are up almost $150/TN and climbing. I bought mine a couple of months ago and glad i did. We were being told after the new year it would go down but it has gone the opposite way. We just need cattle prices to climb a bit too.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Day before yesterday I went over to my friends house with my bale spike bed pickup to put out a rd bale for him because his diesel tractor fuel gelled/stopped running. He had some sq bales in his pickup & I inquired where he purchased. He stated local feed store & the sq bales of Coastal costs $12.50 each.

Yesterday I went to help a neighbor get his diesel tractor started that was starving for fuel due to gelled fuel so he could feed his cows.

I'm more than ready for 32+°F weather that supposed to arrive in a few hrs.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Tx Jim said:


> Day before yesterday I went over to my friends house with my bale spike bed pickup to put out a rd bale for him because his diesel tractor fuel gelled/stopped running. He had some sq bales in his pickup & I inquired where he purchased. He stated local feed store & the sq bales of Coastal costs $12.50 each.
> 
> Yesterday I went to help a neighbor get his diesel tractor started that was starving for fuel due to gelled fuel so he could feed his cows.
> 
> I'm more than ready for 32+°F weather that supposed to arrive in a few hrs.


Well if those bales weighed 59#'s that would be about $425 per ton and that price would not be unheard of in these parts for good sound hay..

Now if those bales were 28# that would be $890 per ton , a bit pricey .


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

$18 seems a bit high, but I've been out of the long-distance hay sales for a while. When I used to ship from Western NY to Florida, the cost of a semi with a dry van trailer ran around $3k. By the time the hay got to Florida, it was around $10-$11 a bale (including shipping), but I was competing with retail prices at the farm stores down there which were usually around $12 a bale, so I had to undercut a little. This was in a "normal" hay year without having to deal with a cold snap like we have now.

I also wonder about the "1000 bale" quantity. I could fit around 630 bales on a 53 foot trailer and I knew other guys that had a little shorter bales than mine that would push close to 700 bales. 1000 bales is either an open trailer with straps, a tandem trailer hookup or multiple loads. I would be very skeptical of any small square bales being delivered that distance without being covered. All the snow/sleet/rain etc. on the trip would really drop the quality.


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## pettibone (Jul 18, 2015)

Tx Jim said:


> Day before yesterday I went over to my friends house with my bale spike bed pickup to put out a rd bale for him because his diesel tractor fuel gelled/stopped running. He had some sq bales in his pickup & I inquired where he purchased. He stated local feed store & the sq bales of Coastal costs $12.50 each.
> 
> Yesterday I went to help a neighbor get his diesel tractor started that was starving for fuel due to gelled fuel so he could feed his cows.
> 
> I'm more than ready for 32+°F weather that supposed to arrive in a few hrs.


Gee Jim guess I have to cross Texas off my list of places to go to get away from snow and cold. We have friends that live near Dallas and it was -2 at their house and 13 here. You might have to come to Maine to get warmed up.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Record breaking cold weather & snow fall at my shack for sure!


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Tx Jim said:


> Day before yesterday I went over to my friends house with my bale spike bed pickup to put out a rd bale for him because his diesel tractor fuel gelled/stopped running. He had some sq bales in his pickup & I inquired where he purchased. He stated local feed store & the sq bales of Coastal costs $12.50 each.
> 
> Yesterday I went to help a neighbor get his diesel tractor started that was starving for fuel due to gelled fuel so he could feed his cows.
> 
> I'm more than ready for 32+°F weather that supposed to arrive in a few hrs.


You guys have really had a time of it down there. Do you recall this type weather hitting in years past?

I - myself am ready for Spring. The older I get, the colder I get...


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## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

pettibone said:


> I would hope for 18000 you would get it delivered. I'm thinking prices like that would weed out a lot of people really fast


Yeah, and I imagine all it would be is weeds and filler. Crap hay.

Of course some people don't care or know better.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

VA Haymaker said:


> You guys have really had a time of it down there. Do you recall this type weather hitting in years past?
> 
> I - myself am ready for Spring. The older I get, the colder I get...


Back in the early 80's it stayed below freezing for a longer period of time. Stock ponds/lakes froze thick enough to require chain saw to cut opening. This time pond/lakes only froze a few inches.

Weather guessers are predicting 45°F today & it can't get to that temperature soon enough for me!


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## pettibone (Jul 18, 2015)

dvcochran said:


> Yeah, and I imagine all it would be is weeds and filler. Crap hay.
> 
> Of course some people don't care or know better.


I think that ad was just a fishing trip, maybe it was someone in NY or maybe not. Probably figured if they could get someone interested they could come up with something. One thing about CL, doesn't cost much to place an ad and you can be anywhere to put ad in Maine.

Got a delivery of off road fuel and it was up .60 from the fall but it is winter fuel that they cut with kero so doesn't gell in the cold so that makes it more expensive.


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

get ready for fuel to spike even more as this administration wants to create a false narrative for it's green energy rip-off. gas in my area is up .75 a gallon since the election


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Yep, I agree.

Regards, Mike


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## Cactus50 (Nov 26, 2020)

It's just been proven here in Texas that Solar and Wind are extremely unreliable. Not sure how much more proof a person needs.

Loving the weather right now, not a cloud in the sky, bright sun, and upper 50s. Will be running a disc next weekend and will probably have the a/c on. What a difference a week makes!


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

A lot of tractor scams' on CL of the "almost never used 5 year old tractor" for $10,000. Been those for years. New to me is east coast hay advertised on marketplace. Even when we had drought in Caly hay was coming from the inter mountain west not even the mid west.

So the old saw, "if it seems to good to be true" about 99% chance it is.


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## Bayhillag (Dec 24, 2019)

Supply n demand. If you want cheap hay, I’m not your supplier. I take pride in producing excellent forage. It costs money to produce it. We produce 3 quality levels of hay.. $11/$8/$6 which may change due to fert n seed costs... more ground is in corn n beans than ever. Most hay producers I deal with make weedy, poorly grown hay. They ask $4 n I get people who want to compare my pampered small squares. I just tell them I’ll never make you happy if all you’re focused on is price. You better go with them..


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

My son is starting to sell our hay on craigslist and Facebook. It IS FOB, or delivery is avalible.. What is a fair price to charge for delivery on like 4 to 3 to 6 ton loads loads. What do people on here usually use for secure payment anything besides cash.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

endrow said:


> My son is starting to sell our hay on craigslist and Facebook. It IS FOB, or delivery is avalible.. What is a fair price to charge for delivery on like 4 to 3 to 6 ton loads loads. What do people on here usually use for secure payment anything besides cash.


 All big squares or rounds.We are out of smalls.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

VA Haymaker said:


> Fertilizer prices are already up. Our supplier told me he hasn't seen an increase like this since 2008. I also think we are going to see some wicked inflation to come. I've been on the fence about buying a new fertilizer spreader, but am concerned that if I wait until year's end, there will be a substantial price increase.
> 
> Around here, there has been a hay glut. We've held our prices and have sold out of horse quality hay. We have some cow/goat hay left, but that is moving too - repeat customers.
> 
> ...


I've also never had em say keep the change either no matter how dirt cheap hay was.


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

I had a customer pay me a dollar more per bale this winter because he said I was selling my first cut too cheap. He's a regular, has been for several years and is a good customer. Always reliable. I told him first cut bales were $5/bale, and when he came to pick them up he said that was too cheap, and even at $6/bale he was still getting a good price. So he's paying me $6.

But I probably have the best customers in the world too. I won't charge them too little, but I'll never charge them too much either. They're reliable and make life really easy for me. Keeps me from having to deal with random people.


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