Internet Hay Exchange | Hacker News Reader

Internet Hay Exchange

hayexchange.com

303 pointsggoo96 comments

I own a farm, this summer we produced and sold about 1500 bales of hay. Had no idea hay exchange existed, the vast majority of our sales were via craigslist and Facebook marketplace, with most being small-scale (50 bales or fewer). The rest came from word of mouth and our local 4-H group.

Producing hay at this scale is extremely difficult. The start-up costs are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you're typically barely breaking even. This year is unusual in that supply was way down, so prices were a lot higher than normal. The only reason we can do it is that we have a relationship with someone who cuts & bales a number of small fields for a per-ton fee.

I could see a tool like this being useful for large-scale operations that are doing the big round bales yet don't have an established relationship with a buyer. For an operation like ours, where we are producing small ~60lb traditional square bales, I don't think we're going to find anyone local enough who wants to buy at the quantity and size we have. For instance, only two entries in the entire state of Oregon.

That said, I'll post on here next season, I'd be really interested to see if anyone reaches out.

I've been cutting my own hay (10 acres) for 17 years now. My equipment investment was as bare-bones cheap as possible ($5k for a 1960's tractor, $2500 for a 1960's baler, $1k for a couple of wagons, $2k for a wheel rake, probably $10k in maintenance over the years). The one thing I can say with confidence is that making hay is the single most stressful thing I do all year. Finding clear weather, and then watching the weather hour to hour after it is cut, and before baling day is agonizing.

I wish used equipment was that cheap now! We are constantly looking and old balers in our area are still going for $7k+. For something relatively recent and in good working order, much higher. Also, don’t forget building a dry place to stack and store all of it!

I guess that's good for me. My last cutting ever was last Saturday. We are moving and all the equipment will be sold in the spring (or sold with the property.) Located in N. Illinois.

Would be interested in learning more about the property you’re selling … the wife & I have been looking around Northern Illinois (she’s from Rockford) for a small farm. My email is in my bio.

Email sent.

This. This is why I keep coming back to Hacker News.

More advice, make sure the off gassing of green hay, doesn't blow up the barn!

(My grandma was blown up, a story she loved to retell when I was a child... "Did you know I was blown up? Threw me 50 feet from the barn!")

> Also, don’t forget building a dry place to stack and store all of it!

Would Romanian haystacks help? Or is it impossible to do it on a large scale without a large amount of manual labor? Can you just drape a tarp over each hay bale?

Tarps are expensive, and hay bales are comparatively inexpensive.

That said, I’ve seen farmers use old billboards as tarps in the past. Otherwise, it’s usually either a barn or a plastic sheeting.

If hay is stored outdoors in a typical temperate climate without a tarp, it's just a waste of everyone's time. Sure, cattle or goats can eat it, and it will make a turd, but the nutrients are gone within a few months.

Why has it become more expensive?

Here in California, the water supply is obviously a concern as well. The grower I regularly deal with was very concerned at the start of the year, and I doubt last week’s atmospheric river storm did much to calm him down. After all, this is harvest season right now, not replanting season.

All hay is irrigation intensive, but my understanding has long been that premium quality alfalfa hay is especially so. The fields around here used to be flood-irrigated, but as the cost of water has risen over the past 10-15 years, I have seen that practice curtailed drastically. You lose too much water to evaporation. That implies heavy investment in more precise irrigation systems.

I know nothing about farming but there's a global manufacturing shortage right now that is making new parts and new machines scarce, which puts a lot of pressure on the used parts market. I'm guessing there's not much special here and that it's just participating in the global trend.

I wonder if any of the price pressure is due to people seeking old older equipment to avoid the DRM crap from John Deere.

why are there so many cutters and ballers here.

i never met you guys anywhere on the internet before

If you're looking for a non-conventional way to sell your hay bales, think about seasonal decoration.

There are plenty of city slickers who will pay more than farmers for hay bales to put on their front porches in September and October. My wife spent a week searching a six-county area trying to find one for her annual hay bale + cornstalk + indian corn + pumpkin + scarecrow display.

I've occasionally seen mini hay bales for sale in supermarkets. They're about the size of a MacBook and go for around $10.

My guess is that what would be most cost-efficient for you is to find a garden center or regional big box hardware store that sells seasonal decorations, so that you can make one large delivery to where the people are.

If any of your neighboring farms have pumpkin patches, maybe they'd be interested in selling hay bales to the public. We went to three pumpkin patches this year, and while all had hay bales for their own use, none had any for sale to the public.

Just a thought from someone who's not a farmer, but has always had an interest in farms.

Those are usually straw bales from what I've seen.

As a non-farmer, I honestly don't know the difference between hay and straw.

Also not a farmer, but hay has seeds. I think straw is technically any dead plant stems.

You can cover your new grass seed with straw to protect it from birds. If you try that with hay you'll plant hay.

Son of a farmer, living in a farmer community. Alfalfa hay doesn't have seeds unless you harvested it waaay too late, and then it's probably worthless.

I've only ever heard of straw referring to wheat straw - the wheat stems (and grainless heads) left in the field after harvesting.

Hay, on the other hand, is the whole plant (well, not the roots) of alfalfa (a legume), or brome (a grass) or prairie hay (mix of native grasses).

This may be slightly different in other areas, but the above is how it is in Kansas.

Hay is for eating (it's stored grass), straw is for other uses.

> For instance, only two entries in the entire state of Oregon.

And both of those entries appear to in fact be in Nebraska.

This is freaking beautiful. The internet could have been like this.

I’m going to show my Mom, she is always wanting to find good hay.

Perhaps a bit more info though like pics would be good haha. Some indication of the quality.

> Perhaps a bit more info though like pics would be good haha. Some indication of the quality.

Maybe some value-added services like transportation, credit, and insurance too? Oh and a seller and buyer reputation system so you know you're not getting stiffed. A convenient IoT button to reorder hay without opening the computer. Ads, to pay for the servers. An app to know where your hay's at?

Nah you and I know all that bullshit ends up getting gamed with meager user benefit. Surely at some point even this gets up on freaking Amazon or Etsy or "eHay" but until then here's the sound of a creaky dude pouring one out for the old Craigslist-style BBS out there. Make it last and fuck the VCs.

Indeed. Sometimes the LACK of information or streamlined systems is the feature. It keeps things simple and flexible.

I need hay and you have the right kind in my region.

Okay let’s have a _conversation_ and figure it out.

> The internet could have been like this.

Is it not? I used chipdrop twice this year with reasonably good results, and that's pretty similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilAv8SzB_Aw

(If you haven't seen it, they have probably the best startup video since dollar shave.)

The internet could have been like this

The fact that this site exists means the internet is like this. It's this, and more.

It's not the internet's fault that people choose the same 5 websites to visit every day.

"it's not the internet's fault that people choose the same 5 websites to visit every day"

A person visiting the same five websites every day is not itself a problem. Each person could choose a different set of five websites.

However when so many people choose the same five websites every day, for whatever reason, then what we have seen is that those five websites begin to actively manipulate traffic, through whatever means necessary (including acquisition of other websites) to maintain their "popularity". Generally, the only way they can make money is advertising since they offer nothing of value. They are merely intermediaries with the intent to serve ads. "Portals" with heavy surveillance and data collection.

Amazon, after it has killing anyone's dreams of an internet with competitive e-commerce, has transitioned to web hosting. More manipualtion of traffic and data collection. Advertising is next, no doubt.

How the hell did you know this?! Get out of my mind!

> The internet could have been like this.

The internet _was_ like this. It took twenty years for us to fuck it up, it will probably take another twenty to fix it.

The internet is like this. I used Discogs to sell (most of) my old vinyl records. I bought 100 record-sized boxes, and used them all. Also bought a few CDs. Their database seems to have virtually every edition from every country of every record ever sold.

Sometimes people would ask for photos, and I'd supply them. Discogs has a ratings guide, so I could describe the quality accurately.

The people who bought them were overwhelmingly nice (with just a couple exceptions).

Does she run a large scale farm? These are all dealt in tons / hundreds / thousands of bales.

you dont need a large scale farm to use tons or hundreds of bales.

3 horses will eat ~350kg medium round bale in a week. 3 cows will eat slightly faster than that. 12 goats/sheep will eat a bale a week. They will eat more in cold weather (over 30% more in winter from my experience) or when producing milk.

1 medium round bale is about 15 square bales. 1 big round bale is about 2x medium bale. I'm not sure about big square bales, but id guess about the same as a big round.

You would expect around 15% wastage in a decent feeder. Youre also going to discard some hay due to it not being of consistent quality, etc. Its also quite common to discard the first "layer" of many round bales if they have been weathered/stored incorrectly - especially when using as horse feed.

That said - my understanding is that these sellers have that total quantity to sell. You will likely be able to buy small quantities. Some people go and pick up their hay weekly from producers as they dont have suitable storage.

EDIT: Weights vary - the weights given above are about average from my experience, but vary depending on moisture content, types of grass, how tightly the bale has been compacted, etc.

I assume you don’t have to buy the whole lot, if it is like other hay sellers we have known.

Looking at the site, most are dealing in large quantities, but this guy in Kentucky will deliver your mother a small square Teff bale for $5.

http://www.hayexchange.com/display_detail_hay.php?id=295584

Big assumption. I've got a couple rabbits, but I'm also not gonna waste some farmer's time trying to buy 20 pounds of hay.

It would be cool though.

HAAAAAAAY-There.com?

> The internet could have been like this.

It still can and like others have said it does exist in some places. I mean this site is an example, right? :)

“I wish 2006 Camrys were for sale and everyone would buy them”, says man who only ever buys the latest car.

As a city slicker who understands nothing of modern agriculture, can I get an explanation of what is going on here?

Fields are planted with things grazing animals like to eat then mowed, the plants are dried and baled and can be stored for a long time to feed animals when needed.

It’s not really a commodity product like grains so the producer and consumer are much more likely to deal directly with one another.

These are classified ads for cow food.

I love this about HN. I come from where everyone understands hay, and it's good for me to see that a) someone would not understand what a hay exchange is, and b) that someone will explain it simply and clearly to them. Everything about this is a good interaction.

> These are classified ads for cow food.

I was talking to a friend about this recently… he was stressing out about rain on his hay piles. He said cows will eat just about anything - even hay that’s been rained on. But other animals, such as horses, are more picky and need specialized feed.

Just FYI as I found that interesting

Horses have a fairly delicate stomachs, you only really want to feed them the first and second cuttings of hay because later cuttings are too rich with alfalfa and lack the fiber from weeds and grasses and give them the shits. Cows however can eat basically any green plant matter and the later hay cuttings are packed with nutrients.

Is this because middlemen take too big of a cut?

I work for an agricultural company that does a decent amount of hay sales as a middle man but I'm not too familiar with that part of the business.

I think it’s also that middlemen can’t do much to add any value. Transport is quite expensive due to low density so you usually purchase local and the finished product is ready literally in the field, there is no amount of packaging or processing to be done, just moving.

Why isn't it a commodity?

Price per volume is considerably lower than grain, material handling is much more complex (grain is essentially a fluid), it doesn't store as well as grain, it has far fewer uses and users, it isn't very standardized: bale size and type, what plants go into the bales, quality changes over time, seasonality, weather sensitivity... etc.

> Why isn't it a commodity

From a friend - in recent years draught conditions in California have reduced hay production

IANAFarmer: Grazing animals like horses and cows need to eat something over the winter. You can plant fields of grass and harvest them into hay bales for storage. If you aren't devoting any/enough of your land as hay fields, then you need to buy hay from someone else.

I read/watched some long time ago that for the majority of farmers wanting to provide hay for their animals, it makes no economic sens to grow their own.

This means that most of the hay being consumed is purchased somewhere else.

There’s a small (5 acres maybe) field by me where the farmer keeps horses. He moves the horses from one half of the field to the other and grows hay in the opposite side. I see him cut it down and bale it about twice a year. Looks like it’s pretty self sustaining. I’ve never stopped to talk to the owner about it.

Confused by this comment - any more detail?

My father had a small farm(20ish acres) with cattle, as did a lot of people in the area at the time. There wasn't really a cost for hay outside of time and equipment up front(which isn't a lot), they just let the grass grow, cut it, let it sit, hit it with tines, bale it, etc.

Are you saying it's not efficient, and a full efficiency farm would use said grassland for crops instead? I can see that, but then where do the cattle roam?

This is not the original source (was it a planet money episode? I really can't remember), but here's what I found:

> You also may want to compare the costs of purchasing hay with producing your own hay. In some markets, it may be cheaper to buy someone else’s hay and use your own forage for additional grazing. Finally, knowing your harvesting costs is critical for a custom operator who wants to be profitable over the long haul.

Source: https://www.progressivecattle.com/topics/facilities-equipmen...

Thanks(to both of you, but only replying once).

I completely forgot we had to cordon off areas for a time to let grow, and rotate.

It totally makes sense to me now - this is essentially about being able to raise more head per acre, since you'd have more grazing area at any time.

Maybe it’s more efficient if you use all the grass for grazing in summer then buy hay in winter, vs letting some grass grow to use for hay later?

Similarly naive follow-up: how much hay is needed per animal per month, assuming no other sources of food? (or does one always provide hay plus something else?)

Of course it varies by quite a lot. But 2% of body weight per day is in the area.

And what you feed is based on nutrition, cost, availability, and the specifics of your operation. It can be all one thing for a while, but there’s usually more of a strategy to it.

The answer to this also depends a lot on the ambient outdoors temperature. Horses can stay warm through the winter outside in almost any weather (down to single digits F easily). But in order to do so, they use their GI system like a furnace. So they basically are CONSTANTLY eating and pooping. So the colder it gets the more they eat.

People buy hay for their cattle to eat. See dropdown menu for products, this is one large dealer:

https://www.anderson-hay.com/

If you visit the area where that company is located you can see many full length flatbed semi truck trailers entirely covered in hay bales.

I see multiple entries where the price of the hay is listed as 0 but comments ask that callers inquire about the price - e.g. [1]. Is there some percentage of price that posters are charged by the exchange that they are trying to avoid, or is this because price changes in a complex way depending on quantity?

1 - http://www.hayexchange.com/display_detail_hay.php?id=294517

Haha I have some hay in TN. Guess I’ll throw it up here

I was expecting this to be a pun about making hay, but was delighted by what I found instead.

I thought this was going to be a Yo competitor

Okay, which one of you is squatting on heyexchange.com?

its for sale on heyexchangeexchange.com if you are interested

Oh, that's the Internet Hey Exchange!

Oops, easy mistake to make!

Slightly off topic: different areas use very different kinds of hay bales. The Oregon seems to use bale's while Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado seem to mostly use rolled bale's. I have no idea why this would be but it's what I noticed on a recent cross country bike ride (I had a lot of time to stare at hay bales)

It is because the USDA determined that cattle were not getting a square meal. <Ba da dum, tiss.>

I'll go annoy my kids now.

But hay is usually very local, yes? Because it's hard to transport it a long way. So normally a farmer puts a sign by the road saying 'hay for sale' and people in the local area buy/sell it to each other as needed. Under what circumstances would you need to get hay from a long way away?

Are there specialist Hays?

Here in Saskatchewan, it was unusually dry this year, so the amount of hay was way less than normal. I heard figures like 10% to 20% of normal in some areas. As a result, the price of hay went way up, and some people are getting hay from as far away as Ontario. Also, there was an increase in hay bale theft. The thieves typically come to steal the bales in the middle of the night.

This is the case in the northwestern areas of USA also. Washington, Idaho, Montana areas. Hay production has been down so the scarcity/prices have gone up. And that also means more theft.

The farmers/ranchers are allowed to shoot the wolves that eat their cows, but they can't shoot the hay thieves! So they just grumble and make Uncle Sam pay for it.

Yes, there are. Bale shape determines some characteristics of the hay, and While the majority of hay is cut for and consumed by cows, horse hay is another matter. As horses are far more expensive animals, higher quality hay can fetch a premium. And while generally hay is produced and consumed locally, I know of several folks that ship several thousand bales across multiple states.

> But hay is usually very local, yes? Because it's hard to transport it a long way.

Not necessarily. It's not at all unheard of to truck large loads of hay several states away.

How much is a truckload of hay worth? And does the hay "travel well"? I assume it does, but I'm not a hay-ologist so I don't know.

You can live just miles away from a farm and never drive past it. I don't get the cross state lines sales but this seems like a reasonable replacement for a one line ad in the weekly paper/notice at the bottle shop.

> Alfalfa hay is an excellent source of good quality protein and fiber. [0]

From a nutritional perspective, is consuming beef more efficient than directly consuming a dish cooked with these plants?

[0]: https://www.anderson-hay.com/alfalfa-hay

Though it does have a relatively high amount of protein for plant material, most of alfalfa hay (and all hay, for that matter) is still cellulose, which people cannot digest and cows can (thanks to their symbiotic gut bacteria).

Feeding grain to cattle is pretty inefficient, because people can eat grain directly, but hay not so much.

Please stop disrupting the narrative!

Why is alfalfa worth so much less?

It’s less per bale (a volume measure), more per ton, meaning it’s probably just less dense in bale form.

Iirc alfalfa is also a popular cover crop / used to restore soil fertility, so there might just be a lot more of it.

Reminds me of the game drugwars

Love the simple design! Made me think of craigslist

The link for New Mexico takes me to South Dakota, further evidence that New Mexico is not a state.

What does it mean that lots of the hay is listed as not being "tested"?

Testing for nutrient quantity. The quality of hay can vary hugely based on soil, weather, and other factors.

Maybe for pathogens or type of plant?[1]

[1] https://extension.psu.edu/tall-fescue-potential-problem-for-...

I wonder if know your customer laws apply to straw purchases

I understood - and appreciated - that reference.

The next time I decide I need a straw bale for whatever reason, I’m sending my wife to make the deal :)

How come the wanted section isn't filtered by state?

The UX on this

was so inspiring to me

that I haiku back.

---

Edit: I need space

between all the sentences

Or it doesn't work.

Thought this was going to be about Hayes modems

Hay there.

(I'll get my coat.)

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