Ugh, hay prices went up again… one hay dealer is charging $36.00 a bale right now (3 strand grass or alfalfa). It’s the worst time of year to buy hay (prices up, quality down). We can count on the quality improving come spring, but I suspect prices will never come down. We feed just over 3 bales a day at one yard alone – not to mention all the supplements and herbs. When Mark came here in 2015, we thought $18.00 a bale was too high!
Because we are a Rescue/Sanctuary, my “crystal ball” tells me there will be many more horses abandoned or needing homes.
We are in the high desert – no pastures, no choice but to buy hay year-round. And we’ve had some cold, wet weather lately. Feeding extra hay keeps the horses warm… we blanket the elderly and special needs equines (which is most of them!), but they have to have a constant supply of forage (hay).
And the colder days prompted me to get to the Thrift Store for some more warm clothing. I saw my reflection the other day in a window. My “transient look” made me decide to find some more attractive attire. I succeeded on the “warm” front, but now attractive may not be a suitable description – I bought a lot of fleecy tops that now are hay covered. Even the dog hair “block” doesn’t pull off the scraps of hay… maybe it makes my jumpers more valuable with a pound of hay clinging to each one (a pound of hay is worth 36 cents now). It certainly makes me more interesting to the horses!
And last week a tractor-trailer tried to make the right angle turn from Coyote Road onto Arrowhead Road. It got stuck in the intersection, in deep sand with the front and back of it up on the berm that forms because Arrowhead is essentially an arroyo that runs when it rains on the mountain. The tractor was at a 45 degree angle to the trailer. They finally got it out, but we all had to find creative ways around it! Thank goodness for four wheel drive.
This was a grand reminder that I must communicate with the driver bringing our new barn soon! We have a barn, identical to our Infirmary Barn arriving within days. We’ve waited for months for it to be built and it will be delivered and set up all in one day – but it cannot get stuck between roads!
My mind is always spinning. I go to bed thinking about hay solutions; wake up thinking about whether the horses stay rugged or if we need to pull them, then put “pajamas” back on for the night… We need more of the big round plastic feeders that they don’t toss hay out of (seeing the waste can be soul crushing at these prices!). We know they are sturdy because several of the horses STAND in them. Where we got the one we have doesn’t carry them anymore. I found some in Virginia… we’re in New Mexico.
So, mind spinning, I fed my most special needs horses at one yard and helped Mark get hay out to the shelters on the track system at the other stable yard tonight. I left a message for the driver who will bring our barn to CALL me – GPS will send him into a sand pit (or worse). I looked on Craigs List again for local hay, spoke with our supplier (who we LOVE) about what might become available and commiserated with a friend who also runs a Sanctuary about how the hay situation has become a nightmare.
There are vegan substitutes for eggs (also costing an “arm & a leg”, IF you can find some) – there is no substitute for hay. We just take a deep breath and pay what we have to. The horses are the priority. Always.
Stablewomen 