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Hay is hard to find and expensive

An Extension agent says it’s getting hard to find hay for sale.

Richard Halopka with the University of Wisconsin says, “Across the Midwest, scarce is the term that’s used a lot for availability plus some of those (hay) auctions have gone from two days a week down to one day a week.”

Halopka tells Brownfield high-quality dairy hay with a relative feed value above 150 is almost impossible to find, and buyers are lowering their standards and paying more. “When you get to that 100 relative feed value, the range in prices is extreme. It’s like 50 to 200 bucks.”

Halopka says it’s unusual for Wisconsin to have the highest prices for high-quality hay, but that’s because producers are low on forage and fields took a lot of winter damage. “The good news is in some states cattle are getting grass, so it’s not as critical, but here in Wisconsin, it’s still very critical.”

He says several farmers he’s talked to are comparing this to 2012 and 2013 when hay was scarce, and the crop outlook was poor.

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