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Post by iceandaslice on Aug 9, 2011 20:47:35 GMT
I feel so much better after reading all of the above i have paid this year £1 for small bales of straw, £30 lovley quality big bales of hay, £3 small hay & £2 for last years hay small bales oh & £12 big bales straw if i want !!! SO if these suppliers can do it for this why can't others. Once people start paying £6+ this opens lots of greedy doors. Yesterday was offered big bales of hay for £85 told him have i got mug written on my head he wont be asking that again! By the way i live in East Anglia fire away !!!
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Post by albionsaddleowner on Aug 10, 2011 7:03:17 GMT
i agree that farmers work long hours,, maybe not as hard work as it used to be but this is their choice. If there is not enough money in farming why dont they ever sell of any land. a small paddock would raise more money than they would gain in years of subsidies. There is no other area of self employment that gets government subsidies. My father is self employed and if he has no work coming in he has no money. He gets nothing from anywhere. and as for the comment about how hard it is to get a bale from seed to bale is nonsence. Its rarely grown from seed, the grass is already there, usually a field that has been rotated after sheep, a bit of ferty and then its left till ready to cut. AND pay by cheque if they are being greedy.
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Post by amumwithapony on Aug 10, 2011 7:35:52 GMT
But surely MF the price of storing this and moving it from A to B and delivery costs will have been factored into this? Yes it should be slightly cheaper to buy it direct from the field, and cheaper still if you collect and stack and store it yourself, but I can't understand how a bale of hay that may cost £4 in September, delivered, can cost £6/£7 in December? It may be a bale of hay from the same field so the cost of getting it from the field to their barn for storage is the same. OK it may have been stood in a barn longer so you could allow a little for storage costs (but the barn or storgae facility cost will be the same whether in june or in december surely?). But not 50% more, which is what some farmers put their hay up by.
I would be very interested to hear a farmers point of view on this point. I am happy to pay the price increase if someone can justify it to me (we will have to pay it anyway!), but I think farmers need to understand why we all get frustrated at prices going up and up and up.
We understand the external forces that dictate the cost of raw produce. However, when fuel prices come down the prices of everything else seem to stay the same. Then when the fuel prices go up, everything shoots up again (sometimes disporportiantly to the actual increase). When we have bad weather that affects the growing cycle, up prices go, then the following year we have bumper harvests and the prices stay the same.
Its those sorts of things that confuse and frustrate people like me and like Hunter. I have every sympathy with farmers, large and small because its a back breaking industry with poor reward.
However, my OH is a S/E builder. The rates we can charge are as much affected by supply and demand as anything else. The rates he could charge 4 years ago for an hours work are down this year by about 30%.
He pays the same fuel costs as everyone else, his insurance (vehicle and public liability) have increased as much as everyone else's,the cost of tools and materials have increased and the only thing that has gone down is his net profits. Down about 45% compared to 4 years ago.
He works 14 hour days, all weathers, often outside. No holiday or sick pay, no pension, no benefits. Similar in lots of ways to a farmer.
I'm not asking people to feel sorry for him, he has work so is more fortunate than many, BUT he is facing the same sorts of problems and issues as farmers and if he charged what he did 4 years ago he would be out of work as people simply would not pay him.
Horse food is different I suppose in that most people WILL pay it. But lots of people will decide they no longer want to own or keep their own horses if costs keep increasing.
This means demand will go down (eventually as the UK's equine population shrinks instead of grows) not only for hay and feed but also for things like grazing land and for the little tack shops and farm shops often run from farming land.
I don't know the answers. We're selling 5 of ours at rock bottom prices (in fact we would give them away if we could), as it has gotten to a point where we really need to consider how many we can afford to keep, not really for this winter, but next winter certainly. And we have 14 acres of our own land so no livery costs to pay for. I am sure we are not unique in our predicament.
Farming is an industry like any other. But as an industry you need to look at not just the profits you can make this year, but also the year after that and the year after that.
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Post by Louise Dixon on Aug 10, 2011 8:06:47 GMT
i agree that farmers work long hours,, maybe not as hard work as it used to be but this is their choice. If there is not enough money in farming why dont they ever sell of any land. a small paddock would raise more money than they would gain in years of subsidies. There is no other area of self employment that gets government subsidies. My father is self employed and if he has no work coming in he has no money. He gets nothing from anywhere. and as for the comment about how hard it is to get a bale from seed to bale is nonsence. Its rarely grown from seed, the grass is already there, usually a field that has been rotated after sheep, a bit of ferty and then its left till ready to cut. AND pay by cheque if they are being greedy. 1) When you are talking about it being not such hard work, I presume you are talking about the equipment we now have available e.g. being able to look sheep on a quad rather than on foot. This is true that in terms of the physical graft and muscle power used, the work is not as hard. The flip side of this is 50 years ago, our farm employed 6 men, now it employs my husband, part time at some times of year i.e. now is a quieter time for a hill farm, so he seeks self employed work away from the farm, these are always full days, so the farm work is done before and after. Also, when there were 6 men, there was always the required labour for busy times e.g. hay time, clipping, whereas now you are dependent on the availablity of others, and everyone wants them at the same time. 2) Most farmers don't own their land, so selling a paddock is not an option. I may try it and see if our landlord notices. 3) I know it is very hard for all self employed people when work is short, and I am certainly not making light of it, but at least if there is no work in your chosen field, say as a builder, and something comes up e.g. seasonal work in a supermarket or some handy man work, you would be available to take the work, whereas in farming the work is always there, just the pay isn't always. 4) The point about hay is produced is just not true. We refer to our land as three different types: 'hill', 'in by grazing' (this is basically fields which are not hill) and 'hay fields' - the reason the last two are not one group is because they are treated very differently. If we took the sheep off the in by grazing in say April, we would be able to produce a very small amount of very poor quality hay, but I am not sure where you think we would put the sheep. The quality of the seed mixtures in the hay fields are not suitable for year round grazing - we put lambs to prepare for slaughter on them after the hay has been cut, or tups (male sheep) to prepare for the mating season when they are going to be working very hard so need extra reserves, but if we were to put breeding ewes on that grass, they would be far too fat and have problems conceiving and giving birth. the hay fields are reseeded, sprayed, topped several times, may have grass seed tickled in to poorer patches, fertilised, and then the actual work of producing the hay. You are very welcome to make periodic visits to us throughout they year to observe. Some of this is specific to our situation, e.g. most of our sheep are Cheviots, (our tenancy agreement states they must be and they are suited to the hill ground,) other breeds of sheep would be able to graze the hay fields, but the sweeping generalisations were getting to me. Re the cost of hay increasing as the year goes on, it is partly justifiable - if it is being loaded, delivered etc. later in the year then you may have been expecting to do other work then so may have had to get staff in, and the shed space could have been used for something else e.g. fattening more lambs, but a decision has been made to hold hay back to sell instead (I am not sure about this as we don't have extra to sell, or enough for our ponies, they eat straw - I can't afford to buy hay in for them either), and I think there will always be a temptation to make profit on something you can because so often you can't guarantee a profit on other produce. What I would say is, negotiate. It's worth a try.
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Post by workingcob on Aug 10, 2011 8:56:09 GMT
i agree that farmers work long hours,, maybe not as hard work as it used to be but this is their choice. If there is not enough money in farming why dont they ever sell of any land. a small paddock would raise more money than they would gain in years of subsidies. There is no other area of self employment that gets government subsidies. My father is self employed and if he has no work coming in he has no money. He gets nothing from anywhere. and as for the comment about how hard it is to get a bale from seed to bale is nonsence. Its rarely grown from seed, the grass is already there, usually a field that has been rotated after sheep, a bit of ferty and then its left till ready to cut. AND pay by cheque if they are being greedy. Ah, an albion saddle owner - that well known cheap brand I assume you're either ignorant or being deliberately provocative - hence using a guest name. 1. Hard work - yes, we have machines that help prevent farmers wearing themselves out physically by their 50s, as used to happen, but it's still hard work. Don't believe me? Come and try and few weeks here through the winter - 400 cattle in to feed and bed up, and when it freezes all the water pipes, troughs to fill three times a day, finishing at midnight 2. Yes, land makes good money, especially when sold as pony paddocks. Grade 1 ag land makes up to £10,000 an acre, average £4-6,000/acre, hill land a fraction of that. But every acre you sell is gone then forever, rather than (theoretically) earning a margin every year. Take dairy farmers - they don't get subsidies the way an arable farmer does, need every acre they have to spread their fixed costs and have hundreds of thousands of pounds tied up in capital investment (parlour, buildings, machinery, animals). Using your example, a 'small paddock' of say 5 acres might sell for £10,000/acre if right buyers were bidding. That £50,000 (if not rolled over into another asset) would be subject to capital gains tax. If you think that's a way of running a farm business long term, you clearly know very little about farming 3. Most farmers hate subsidies - they would rather operate without constant interference from gov and trade in a fair market that isn't totally distorted and ripped off by supermarkets. It will NEVER happen - while you have any kind of environmental policies operating, which value biodiversity (rightly) you have to have some form of checks and balances on agriculture. People want cheap, abundant food but also want high animal welfare and environmental standards - I'm afraid it's nigh on impossible to reconcile those things 4. Growing grass for forage - expert, are you? Because if you were, you would know that grass comes from various sources - some is established permanent pasture (often not used for conserving forage), some is reseeded on long term systems and the rest is on short term leys, often in rotation with other crops. Grass is a crop like any other - it costs about £120/acre to reseed, and must then be managed (fertiliser, sprays, rolling etc) to ensure a decent crop for silage or other forages. I'm assuming you don't want a weed infested grass crop used for your haylage, of course. If you'd like a full costing of a grass crop used for haylage, I'm happy to provide it. Your 'bit of ferty' by the way, is around £350-400 per tonne (£70-80/acre at 200kg application rate, and that's without the labour and machinery/fuel costs to apply it) 5. Don't know what the 'pay by cheque' comment means. Ignorant blather, I assume
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Post by lucynlizzysmum on Aug 10, 2011 9:07:26 GMT
I think we should all take time to sit back and think. None of us can fully understand anothers profession without insider knowledge. None of us can fully understand a pricing structure again without insider knowledge. A product or service is only worth what someone will pay. I price out my jobs at a rate where I know I am making a profit. Some people will say to me - you are too expensive, and to them I say fine don't use my service. Others say I am worth my weight in gold LOL. A farmer knows how much it has cost him to make a bale and also would like a profit out of it. Fair enough - as Mowhaugh has suggested see if you can negotiate, if not go elsewhere. But guys lets just all give each other a little respect!
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Post by knockandy on Aug 10, 2011 10:07:24 GMT
Well, our hay crop for this year is ruined due to the rain. We were extremly lucky to have got it wrapped on Saturday, but it wont be good haylage even. So no horse hay to sell from here. Or even to use for ourselves. So we might buy some in, as will many other farmers in this area. So I would expect prices to rise due to demand. OH mentioned those dreaded words today...........About time for the cattle to come in for the Winter. Its usually October, we have no barley cut, so no straw. Its going to be another very long winter, 3rd in a row Oh and thanks to the recent very heavy rain, most of the barley crops in this area are flat, so straw quality wont be good either. Expect straw price to go up too. Sorry, thats life Im afraid.
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Post by bizzylizzie on Aug 10, 2011 14:49:50 GMT
i agree that farmers work long hours,, maybe not as hard work as it used to be but this is their choice. If there is not enough money in farming why dont they ever sell of any land. a small paddock would raise more money than they would gain in years of subsidies. There is no other area of self employment that gets government subsidies. My father is self employed and if he has no work coming in he has no money. He gets nothing from anywhere. and as for the comment about how hard it is to get a bale from seed to bale is nonsence. Its rarely grown from seed, the grass is already there, usually a field that has been rotated after sheep, a bit of ferty and then its left till ready to cut. AND pay by cheque if they are being greedy. Ah, an albion saddle owner - that well known cheap brand I assume you're either ignorant or being deliberately provocative - hence using a guest name. 1. Hard work - yes, we have machines that help prevent farmers wearing themselves out physically by their 50s, as used to happen, but it's still hard work. Don't believe me? Come and try and few weeks here through the winter - 400 cattle in to feed and bed up, and when it freezes all the water pipes, troughs to fill three times a day, finishing at midnight 2. Yes, land makes good money, especially when sold as pony paddocks. Grade 1 ag land makes up to £10,000 an acre, average £4-6,000/acre, hill land a fraction of that. But every acre you sell is gone then forever, rather than (theoretically) earning a margin every year. Take dairy farmers - they don't get subsidies the way an arable farmer does, need every acre they have to spread their fixed costs and have hundreds of thousands of pounds tied up in capital investment (parlour, buildings, machinery, animals). Using your example, a 'small paddock' of say 5 acres might sell for £10,000/acre if right buyers were bidding. That £50,000 (if not rolled over into another asset) would be subject to capital gains tax. If you think that's a way of running a farm business long term, you clearly know very little about farming 3. Most farmers hate subsidies - they would rather operate without constant interference from gov and trade in a fair market that isn't totally distorted and ripped off by supermarkets. It will NEVER happen - while you have any kind of environmental policies operating, which value biodiversity (rightly) you have to have some form of checks and balances on agriculture. People want cheap, abundant food but also want high animal welfare and environmental standards - I'm afraid it's nigh on impossible to reconcile those things 4. Growing grass for forage - expert, are you? Because if you were, you would know that grass comes from various sources - some is established permanent pasture (often not used for conserving forage), some is reseeded on long term systems and the rest is on short term leys, often in rotation with other crops. Grass is a crop like any other - it costs about £120/acre to reseed, and must then be managed (fertiliser, sprays, rolling etc) to ensure a decent crop for silage or other forages. I'm assuming you don't want a weed infested grass crop used for your haylage, of course. If you'd like a full costing of a grass crop used for haylage, I'm happy to provide it. Your 'bit of ferty' by the way, is around £350-400 per tonne (£70-80/acre at 200kg application rate, and that's without the labour and machinery/fuel costs to apply it) 5. Don't know what the 'pay by cheque' comment means. Ignorant blather, I assume Here here, Workingcob. As Agricultural Contactors i would also like to add to point 4 that Albionsaddleowner, may be prepared to pay a fair sum for their saddle, but would you invest £300,000 in machinery to make hay/haylage at a loss? And pay 9.8% APR year on year on a fair proportion of it as it is on finance. No, I don't think it would go down well in the Dragons Den either! Neither would selling off land for pony paddocks to offset losses on making hay for horse owners! I'm not sure what school of business management some of the posters on here went to, but it wasn't the same one as me. One golden rule of business management is not to sell off your family silver to fund trading expenses. Also sellling off land is subject to Capital Gains Tax, unless the money is re-invested in land, although not immediately, so not as profitable as it looks on paper, and you reduce the asset value of your business which then makes borrowing harder.
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Post by Henley on Aug 10, 2011 17:23:54 GMT
I often read comments on various threads but rarely comment - BUT Hunter has really made my blood boil!! In my area we had no rain to speak from March to July. My haylage supplier who has supplied me for ten + years about 2000 small bales each year cannot supply me with any, as he has not even got enough from his first cut to satisfy his dairy herd. The haylage he sold me was his son,s little business, so his son has nothing this year. Hunter I do not know if you show or travel round the country, but I suggest you take a little drive around the country and have a look at the lack of grass, the standing wheat about 6 inches high( No straw!!) and vast amounts of animals being fed hay in the fields already. The fixed costs for making any crop ( Hay,Wheat,Barley,Oats,Oilseed Rape, etc) have rocketed out of all proportion. Last year it cost me £26.00 a bale for a contractor to cut, turn, row up , bale, wrap and cart large square bale haylage. Then I have to pay for rent,fert, spray, harrow. Hunter get in the real world. There will be no second cuts at all in our area, so good luck to you for being in an area where you have an abundance of stocks.If I were you I would keep quiet and look after your friendly farmer who is only charging you £5.00 a bale. Rant over
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Post by brindlerainbow on Aug 22, 2011 11:33:22 GMT
Just bought my hay for the winter ( depending on how long the winter is!!!!!! ). I have always used the same 2 farmers who are in the same village. This year one couldnt guarentee how much I could have as it depended on the type of winter we have as he needs enough to feed his sheep and cattle. The other got his in a bit too soon so as to avoid the rain so has got it in the barn with the blowers on it but i've always found in the past that it ends up dusty.Instead I looked on Ebay!!! I found some at £3.50 a bale off the field which was only 20 minutes drive away so we took the trailer and got 30 bales. Then I found another lot at £3.75 a bale I ordered 40 bales and he delivered it for £20 and he was 45 mins away!!! I can honestly say that the £3.75 stuff is the best hay I have ever had, and I told him so!! He said that it had no rain on it at all and was cut and baled in the sunshine but rain was forecast for the night that they baled so he and his helpers worked right through the night to make sure they got it all in the barn before the rain came.I think the prices vary as to what area people are in. Im in Devon and its generally £3.50 - £4.50 a bale Seems to be more expensive up country
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Post by sparrow on Aug 22, 2011 22:43:12 GMT
yes i too work 24/7 ,and my family are hugely affected by the super markets , and i dont expect to be subsidised ,unlike some !! Who are you trying to kid ?
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Post by pentrefelin on Aug 23, 2011 8:32:17 GMT
i agree that farmers work long hours,, maybe not as hard work as it used to be but this is their choice. If there is not enough money in farming why dont they ever sell of any land. a small paddock would raise more money than they would gain in years of subsidies. There is no other area of self employment that gets government subsidies. My father is self employed and if he has no work coming in he has no money. He gets nothing from anywhere. and as for the comment about how hard it is to get a bale from seed to bale is nonsence. Its rarely grown from seed, the grass is already there, usually a field that has been rotated after sheep, a bit of ferty and then its left till ready to cut. AND pay by cheque if they are being greedy. Ah, an albion saddle owner - that well known cheap brand I assume you're either ignorant or being deliberately provocative - hence using a guest name. 1. Hard work - yes, we have machines that help prevent farmers wearing themselves out physically by their 50s, as used to happen, but it's still hard work. Don't believe me? Come and try and few weeks here through the winter - 400 cattle in to feed and bed up, and when it freezes all the water pipes, troughs to fill three times a day, finishing at midnight 2. Yes, land makes good money, especially when sold as pony paddocks. Grade 1 ag land makes up to £10,000 an acre, average £4-6,000/acre, hill land a fraction of that. But every acre you sell is gone then forever, rather than (theoretically) earning a margin every year. Take dairy farmers - they don't get subsidies the way an arable farmer does, need every acre they have to spread their fixed costs and have hundreds of thousands of pounds tied up in capital investment (parlour, buildings, machinery, animals). Using your example, a 'small paddock' of say 5 acres might sell for £10,000/acre if right buyers were bidding. That £50,000 (if not rolled over into another asset) would be subject to capital gains tax. If you think that's a way of running a farm business long term, you clearly know very little about farming 3. Most farmers hate subsidies - they would rather operate without constant interference from gov and trade in a fair market that isn't totally distorted and ripped off by supermarkets. It will NEVER happen - while you have any kind of environmental policies operating, which value biodiversity (rightly) you have to have some form of checks and balances on agriculture. People want cheap, abundant food but also want high animal welfare and environmental standards - I'm afraid it's nigh on impossible to reconcile those things 4. Growing grass for forage - expert, are you? Because if you were, you would know that grass comes from various sources - some is established permanent pasture (often not used for conserving forage), some is reseeded on long term systems and the rest is on short term leys, often in rotation with other crops. Grass is a crop like any other - it costs about £120/acre to reseed, and must then be managed (fertiliser, sprays, rolling etc) to ensure a decent crop for silage or other forages. I'm assuming you don't want a weed infested grass crop used for your haylage, of course. If you'd like a full costing of a grass crop used for haylage, I'm happy to provide it. Your 'bit of ferty' by the way, is around £350-400 per tonne (£70-80/acre at 200kg application rate, and that's without the labour and machinery/fuel costs to apply it) 5. Don't know what the 'pay by cheque' comment means. Ignorant blather, I assume Well said, we have just tripple wrapped our haylage at a cost of £3 for the wrap alone! have still got 2 fields to cut but this bloody weather is so unpredictable, we could have done the lot but the forcast for today was so bad we aired on the side of caution and just cut one field not wanting it to spoil if we could not get it made in time as we rely on various contractors.We are now trying to find 3 dry days in a row, living in Wales this is like trying to win the lottery at the moment. I can see the argument from both sides but some of you want to try and make the stuff then you would appreciate the cost and blood sweat and tears involved!!!
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Post by stormyskies on Aug 23, 2011 9:17:22 GMT
Justpoppedby my hard working farmer husband would give his right arm to have to be forced to buy a 60000 grand tractor to avoid tax. As it is we manage on old ford tractors he can repair himself and still pay huge amounts of tax.
And to the owner of an albin saddle, d**n, I wish you had come along earlier to advise farmers. If only we had thought of just selling off a small paddock or two in the middle of our land. Because there are so many buyers out there who want to pay decent prices for small pockets of land and not develop them. Sadly even if there was your hard thought advice would have been no good for us as a) the bank manager wouldn't want our assists reduced and b) we are on green belt land and aren't called Nissan or tesco so therefore can't sell land. And frankly,, the amount of tax we would have to pay if we could sell would make the deal not worth it
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Post by stormyskies on Aug 23, 2011 9:22:02 GMT
Sorry Albion saddle owner, presed send before quote finished.
I will also heed your advice with regards to grass growing to make good quality haylage. Just leave the field, rotate it with sheep when I get some, add a bit fertiliser and then cut it. Will put it to the husband as a new method of making haulage, you never know it may catch on. Any advice for what to do after it's cut to get it wrapped and into bales?
And although your father may well be self employed and suffer bouts where he has no work therefore no money, it could be worse, he could still be having to do the work and still getting no money.
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Post by stormyskies on Aug 23, 2011 13:06:16 GMT
Because it doesn't quite work like that. You still need to find the money to buy it. And still pay tax too.
And we don't want to sell up. We aren't moaning about our life and hard work/struggle, we are moaning about the people who are whinging about putting the prices up to cover our cost plus pay a wage. And if everyone sold up the farms cos it was a struggle, well, that wouldn't really help the economy much in England. Or all the people wanting hay straw or haylage. Less farmers making feed means even higher prices
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Post by mf on Aug 23, 2011 13:14:53 GMT
why pay huge amounts of tax and run old equipment?? why not buy something for the business and get it off your tax. Im not knocking farmers, i just pay whatever thay ask for my fodder but there does seem to be an awful lot of them out there who are fed up with struggling. For the ones who own their own farms they could sell up and do something else. could they not? do you understand the complexities of tax? its really not quite as simple as that. Tax is not avoidable sadly AND did you know if farmers sell their farms they get TAXED on all their farm buildings etc and only the house and curtailage is untaxed. So whilst your house may increase in value a farmers farm is not so likely to. Selling up may not provide the financial gain it appears to from the outside. Also many farmers don't own their farms, they rent them so selling is not an option.
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Post by sageandonion on Aug 23, 2011 13:27:25 GMT
I think this is naughty though. Tried new supplier, minimum 63 small bales at £4.50 per bale. I asked for sample, supplied very nice and reassurance that any not too nice would be replaced.
Very good, thought I had covered everything and ordered the first lot of 63. It arrived and bales tiny, two slices and weighing 4kg short. I shall not be ordering again because I think he should have told me up front that they were £4.50 but smaller than the coventional small bale. In addition, I am passing this information when asked round to my friends and others on the internet. They won't be ordering either.
So that is a classic tale of where being a little greedy gets you in the long term.
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Post by victoria (highhill) on Aug 23, 2011 14:42:56 GMT
i only came accross this site by accident as i am on hols and googled hay and straw just to see what others are charging. but for some of the people who are supposed to be busy farmers...it seems they spend most of the day popping back and to to the key board to post messages... on your holidays during the summer - what a lovely idea!! And maybe some farmers are on here during the day because its peeing with rain and they cant make hay!!
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Post by hopeteam on Aug 23, 2011 15:58:22 GMT
Couldnt be bothered to read all the posts as just the first comments made in the initial post annoyed me so! Farmers should be paid 10x more for the d**n long hours they work and the fact they NEVER have a day off! Think before you post!
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Post by honeypot on Aug 23, 2011 16:19:37 GMT
As with every trade there are different sorts of farmers as there are shops and other businesses. The one who bought a new tractor would have had to have made the £60,000 above his tax threshold to make it worth buying it. I think that many small farmers would love the idea of making say making £86,000 after costs to make that workable. As to using a computer whilist they are supposed to have their nose to the grindstone, around here they are out late into the night whilist I am sat with my feet up in front of the tele and my step father would start as soon as it was light if the weather was right but if its not spent hours painting gates, fixing equipment in the dry, he had some very colourful gates. Not every farmhouse looks like a picture from Country Living, there are a few well off farmers but often because they inheritated a large amount of high value land I would think the most are just like the rest of us working to pay their bills. Farming has a very high percentage of suicides, you are your own all day and when things get tough they are often isolated, so the use of the computer may actually help www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/population_trends/suicide_pt92.pdfMakes interesting reading.
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Post by stormyskies on Aug 23, 2011 18:09:01 GMT
Well put honeypot
And yes sage and onion I agree that's very bad practise. We don't sell much of our haylage as we provide it ad lib in with our livery, but when we did sell it we were always very particular about the quality, especially that it was ragwort free. As after all, like you hAve done, word of mouth gets round very quickly and a good reputation and loyal customers are worth a he'll of a lot. We have one guy that buys about 2 bales a month off us. He comes and picks it up and it's real good quality huge round bales. He is a loyal customer and struggles to make a living to keep his 3 horses. As a result he pays cost price for his bales. Lol no wonder we never have any money!
Our liveries are lucky as we provide it in with their DIY price, but I do growl to myself when I see them struggling up the yard under the weight of huge massive nets to feed their already tubby ponies. I bet their nets would be halved if they were having to source it themselves.
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Post by ladywell on Aug 23, 2011 18:53:51 GMT
Well said Honeypot - maybe those who think farmers winge should try a month in the depths of winter on a hill farm - with 2 foot + of snow, frozen water pipes and outlying stock to feed!!
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Post by workingcob on Aug 23, 2011 19:08:34 GMT
i know all the complexities of tax. i do the books for a farmer then they go off to a chartered accountant who advises us . The farmer who i help is an extremely shrewd business man and knows exactly how to farm well,, making himself a very good living and even he moans "oh there is nothing in farming any more". i wouldnt mind being a penny behind him!!!! i only came accross this site by accident as i am on hols and googled hay and straw just to see what others are charging. but for some of the people who are supposed to be busy farmers...it seems they spend most of the day popping back and to to the key board to post messages... Am sure he'd be delighted to know you spend your time slagging farmers off on forums and telling people about his accounts Just to be clear, making money is the whole point of being in business - charging a fair price for what you produce is good business, ripping people off for short term gain is not. Would asking a big price for a HOYS qualified pony be "greedy"? No, just the simple laws of supply and demand. Why is asking more for hay & straw during a shortage any different? Well be clear, some (not all) areas of the country are going to see severe shortages of hay, haylage & straw this winter - some of our fields are 20-60% down on straw yield this year, and we are already being offered big prices from livestock farmers for any spare straw (we don't have any). Our big bale haylage is £30 at the mo, but the longer we store it (tying up a shed we could use for fattening cattle) the more it will be if the market will stand it. It's just business, not being greedy
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Post by victoria (highhill) on Aug 23, 2011 22:05:03 GMT
what foul swear words??
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Post by victoria (highhill) on Aug 23, 2011 22:47:32 GMT
Carvoeiro was lovely thank you - just popped by! Although i think it is a little weird that you are reading though my previous postings!? If you keep on reading you will notice that i dont complain about a 'farmers lot' so to speak, I have just tried to explain why hay etc costs so much and explain to those who dont know the costs and work involved in a bale of hay or haylage. Yes I did say how nice for you to be able to be on holiday during the summer - not many farmers could do that and yes as you have noticed we went to Portugal in early May before silage and hay needed making. I am very happy my husband is a farmer, it is the job/lifestyle he chose and we are lucky enough to have a lovely farm but I dont see why farmers should subsidise horse owners. But I dont expect you'll even read this as in your pm you said HG wasnt for you if there were people like myself on here!!
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Post by cloppy on Aug 23, 2011 23:31:25 GMT
in my area last year haylage was £25 per bale if you get 10 bales per acre that makes each acre worth £250 per year minus the costs of spraying, fertilizers etc. that means that farmers could rent their land out for grazing at £5 per horse per week per acre and still make a profit with out having to lift a finger. so really the cost of hay is realtively cheap if you look at it this way. eg 3 acres of haylage = £750 3 acres grazing land 6 ponies on at £15 per week =£4680 suprising we get any hay made at all .
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