Cutting Back: Episode 5: Hay part II

This is a follow-up to my first Cutting Back post. I have some additional information to share with you all.

Buying hay locally

I have found a few more websites that connect you with hay sellers in your area:

Internet Hay Exchange has listings in all 50 states and allows you to post wanted ads if you can't find what you're looking for in the sellers' advertisements, plus a hay price calculator and other neat stuff.

The Hay Barn, though most of its listings are here in America, is an international website that works basically the same way as the Internet Hay Exchange, allowing sellers and buyers to post ads and search by state. Personally I think it's easier to navigate, even though it has fewer listings.

Lastly, the Texas Department of Agriculture has a Hay Hotline on their site, which lists hay for sale in not only Texas, but many other states. It is worth a try if you are really having trouble finding hay in your area. It allows you to search by type and quality of hay, and you can narrow it down to organic/not organic as well.

Farm Fodder is a site for Australian farmers, with several listings for hay.

Storing hay

If you are having trouble wondering how you're going to store an entire bale of hay [usually around 40"x24"x24", 40-50lbs] in your house or apartment, I have some more ideas for you.

This website and this one sells hay bags which, though costly, are easy to tote and contain a lot of mess. The first website also sells half hay bale bags, among other things.

You can also share a bale of hay with a friend. You can use a chainsaw to chop a bale of hay in half, or you can remove the bailing twine/wire and break it up into flakes--a bale usually consists of 8-10+ flakes, depending on how your hay was baled.

I didn't mention this in my first post, but garages are a great place to store hay, so long as there isn't a lot of direct sunlight or any leaks, you can put a pallet down [often free at places like feed stores or home improvement stores, even from local barns] and put up hay like you would in a barn. I plan to do this for the coming winter, since I just renewed my lease and my roommate suckered our landlady into giving us the garage she was renting out separately.

photo credit

If you have any tips to share, please post them here!

Cutting Back, episode 1: hay.

The first post! Oooh what fun.

This blog is intended to be informative, helpful and fun. I thought I'd start with the basics.

Having leased a house and then almost immediately lost

my job back in late November and eaten up almost all of my savings in the past couple of months, I was recently forced to cut way back on my expenses. I'm sure the story is similar for many pig owners across the country. Here's what I'm doing.

#1 expense: Hay.

Yes, yes. I admit it. I didn't even bother ordering it online. I bought it in those 48-96oz. plastic bags at the pet store. It cost me a fortune. To those of you who think you're getting a great deal paying $60 for 25lbs. of hay, I say, GO LOCAL!

Get your hay from a feed mill or a local farmer. It took me less than half an hour to find decent hay around here. $4 for 40lbs. of it. The guy I got it from even offered to deliver it since he works right near my house. So in three or four months when I run out all I have to do is haul it from his truckbed to my basement.

How to find local hay by the bale:

My first and best suggestion is Craigslist. Some sections of Craigslist are sketchy and should be avoided, but the farm+garden section is not one of them. do a search for 'hay' and you will most likely be overloaded with ads. You can narrow it down based on what quality of hay you want. If your pigs are picky, search for 'horse hay' or '2nd cutting hay'. depending on how good the season was, some places may have 3rd cutting, but it's not something I've found in the past few years.

My second suggestion is to try your local feed mill. They likely have hay by the bale, and while this is sometimes not the best stuff, the same terms apply. Ask for horse hay, or 2nd cutting, or be straightforward and tell them "I want the greenest bale of hay in your loft"

How to store a bale:

There are many solutions to the storage-space pickle that 40lbs of hay puts you in. The way I do it is I got a cardboard box from Sears, zip-tied that together, cut a hole in the [broadside] top and throw it in the basement.

Our basement is leak-free and has a dehumidifier. This is by far the easiest and cheapest way to do it.

You can also use several plastic storage bins, though this can be messy and is typically more space-consuming, some people find it easier because they can keep one of the the bins in their pigs' room/near their enclosure and just swap them out.

if you want something sturdier or more waterproof/raised up/prettier than these options, you can use a found object. I know someone who found an old chest with two doors that opened at the front. She removed the legs and repositioned them so that the doors opened upwards, not outwards. I also know that when my mother gets rid of her old clawfoot tub, that's going straight into my basement to store my hay in style.

You can store hay any way you want, really, so long as it's not in a moist environment and so long as its out of direct sunlight, all will be well.

Expense Overview.

I have seven guinea pigs, which go through a bale [40lbs] about every 3 months. That's 4 bales a year, at a cost of $5/bale [the extra dollar is for delivery], =$20 per year.

If I were to order through KMs Hayloft, I would need 160lbs per year, which would end up being approx. $240.52 per year.

And If I were to order through SweetMeadow, it would run me around $173 per year.