The Farm Tender Hay Report - The great Hay waiting game

The great Hay waiting game.

For the fortnight up to the 26th of January 2021.

Not many Farmers or Carriers are fully reliant on the domestic Hay market and thank goodness they aren't. To do well as a Seller of Hay, you need to have three key traits: you need to be lucky, opportunistic, and patient.

Lucky: In Hay, one Farmers gain is another Farmer's pain. In other words, when there is a drought on, you want to be in an area that is not in drought.

Opportunistic: When a drought is on, and demand is high, you want to have stock to sell. You could be in a lucky area with an ok season, and you are able to press some Hay. Or you have built up a stockpile over a couple of seasons when demand was shot. It could also mean that you are ready for the next drought with stored stock on hand in anticipation. That would be good planning.

Patient: As the last 12 months have shown us, you need to be patient. It's forced upon you in this market. Those that invested in sheds, filled those sheds and aren't reliant on the domestic Hay market for a regular income will be the winners come the next dry period. When that happens is the $64,000 question.

But we all know, in Farming things can change quickly.

On the flip side, Livestock Producers are having the time of their life, with prices at record or near, and cheap feed in the form of green grass. It's a great time to be in Livestock, and it's even better if you have something to sell.

As our guys mentioned below, there is very little change from the fortnight before.

What's happened to Hay prices over the last fortnight?

Vetch Hay can be bought for between $150/mt to $200/mt, depending on the quality. 

Cereal Hay starts at around $100/mt and work up from there depending on the quality.

We sold Straw for as low as $40/mt and as high as $80/mt. 

Lucerne Hay is selling in the $240/mt to $255/mt range.

We go around the grounds to see what our Farm Tender Sales people have to say:

Paul Grayling - Mallee, Vic based

Paul said - Paul has been on leave for the last fortnight.

Shane Ruyg - Queensland based

Shane said - Another quiet couple of weeks on the Hay front with only a couple of parcels of protein Hay being sold. It seems that the demand is still not there as there is lots of feed down south is the feedback I'm getting. Hoping that once the kids are back at school and people return from holidays, it may kick off again.

Mike Pickard - Darling Downs, Qld based

Mike said - Not much to report in the last fortnight. We were a part of several loads of Straw selling mainly to Farmers looking for cheap supplement feeding with several loads going from New South Wales into Queensland for specialist type orders, eg Mushroom Farms. Some Farmers are dropping the value of their Hay to see if they can get it to move.

Jackie Elliott - South West, Vic based

Jackie said - I have moved a few loads of Vetch with people taking the opportunity to buy due to short distance. Across the board, all enquiry on Hay is low.

Talk soon

Dwain Duxson - Farm Tender & DelayPay

For more information on selling or buying Hay contact the following:

Paul Grayling – 0447 069 082 or paulg@farmtender.com.au

Shane Ruyg – 0447 922 604 or shaner@farmtender.com.au

Mike Pickard – 0429 677 636 or mikep@farmtender.com.au

Jackie Elliott - 0400 808 550 or jackiee@farmtender.com.au

Murray Jones (WA only) - 0474 808 160 or murrayj@farmtender.com.au

Or 1300 Farming (1300 327 646)

Need to buy something? Try DelayPay

Payment terms for buyers and a spendable credit limit in 24 hours, go to www.delaypay.com.au. If you are keen to know more ring Kelsey 0409 117 730 or Dwain 0427 011 900

**List your Sheep, Cattle, Rams, Bulls or other Livestock on our new Digital Livestock Exchange (powered by Farm Tender). From 1% commission if you sell. Reach between 8000 - 10,000 potential customers per day. Contact our Livestock Marketing team in Hannah Anderson on 0429 479 072 or Bruce Watson 0427 514 248  for more information. Like our new Facebook page here.