By Photo: LBM1948 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Whether you run cattle in North Park or keep two horses outside Wellington, hay is likely your biggest winter expense. The best free guide to what it should cost is the market news reporting from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which publishes regular hay reports for Colorado and for Wyoming. Here is how to read them.
Where to find the reports
The reports are posted on the USDA AMS Market News site and can be searched by state and commodity. They summarize sales reported to USDA reporters by buyers and sellers over the previous week or two, along with notes on demand, weather and trade activity. They are free, and you can sign up to receive them by email.
Know the grades
For alfalfa, USDA uses quality guidelines based on lab tests of the hay’s feed value:
- Supreme and Premium: very leafy, high-quality hay, usually bought by dairies and for high-performance horses.
- Good: solid hay for beef cows and many horses.
- Fair and Utility: lower-quality hay, more stems, sometimes weather damage. Fine for some cattle rations, often not for horses.
Grass hay and grass-alfalfa mixes are reported separately. Prices can differ widely between grades in the same week.
Know the bale
Reports list prices by bale type: small squares, large squares and large rounds. Small squares cost more per ton because of the extra handling, and they are what most horse owners buy. Prices are usually quoted per ton, so convert: if small squares weigh about 60 pounds, a ton is roughly 33 bales.
Delivered or at the stack
Check whether a price is “FOB,” meaning at the farm or stack, or delivered. Trucking can add a large amount to the cost of hay hauled from another region, especially when drought in one area drives buyers farther afield.
What moves the price
- Drought: the U.S. Drought Monitor, updated weekly, is a good early warning. A dry summer in Colorado or Wyoming usually means higher prices by midwinter.
- Dairy demand: high-quality alfalfa prices follow the dairy market, including demand from Weld County’s large dairies.
- Season: prices often climb late in winter as supplies tighten.
Buying tips
Ask for a forage test, look inside a bale for mold and dust, and buy from someone who will stand behind the load. If you have dry storage, buying in summer or early fall is usually cheaper than waiting. For the full cost of keeping a horse, see our guide to horse costs in Northern Colorado.
Sources
- USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Market News hay reports.
- USDA AMS, hay quality guidelines.
- U.S. Drought Monitor (National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA and NOAA).
- Colorado State University Extension and University of Wyoming Extension forage publications.
