Where are hay prices headed? It appears to be supply and demand at it's finest, however, when greed and ingorance enter the equation, look out! A trucker/haybroker friend and I put in an 18 hour day and 780 miles yesterday in search of hay for our clients. Yes, there's lots of hay in Northern Montana (where they get rain) but little or none that hasn't already been spoken for. If you need hay, you could be too late! The highways were lined with hay trucks headed West and the country roads were loaded with hay seekers knocking on doors ready to buy on the spot. It's a frenzy I wouldn't have believed had I not experienced it first hand.
Fortunately we landed several hundred ton of high quality, put up right, alfala thru a business contact who had promisied to hold his supply (24 hours) until we could get there for a look. At another location, we found a couple hundred ton of the 'Turd Maker' kind that was put up dry (a little cheat grass) and at the advice of my trucker friend, not freightable.
Where's it all headed? I shipped pairs to Western Montana last week off an outfit that had to cut numbers due to drought and two of their neighbors showed up at the chute saying they too were overstocked and were seeking answers. This week they were splitting pairs at the Billings sale barn and many yearlings are coming off grass early. We'll most likely see some early weaning in the near future. How's this going to affect the calf prices down the road? Where are corn prices going? Can we believe the government numbers? Shall we buy hay or sell cows? Demand for quality protein and the taste of beef combined with variable weather patterns can be in interesting dynamic at best.
No comments:
Post a Comment