What’s it going to cost if you don’t cover your hay?
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Water & Irrigation News
- Oct 26, 2018
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Sponsored by Feedworks. You can get your Inland Performer Hay Tarps at the Prime Ag Centre (PAC) in Elmore. Check out the Tarps here
Hay left in the open is prone to spoilage at potential fire outbreak.
An average cost to cover a hay stack with Inland Hay Tarps is $500-600.
When using Inland Hay Tarps your ROI in year 1 alone is 3:1.
An Inland Hay Tarp typical lasts 3 years minimum so you ROI expands to 9:1.
Inland Hay Tarps are a great insurance policy.
Tarping your hay is the cheapest hay shed you’ll ever put up.
With hay being baled we have starting to see stacks around paddocks and on fence lines. Most producers are still quoting prices of any hay being priced more than $250 per ton ex farm. Traders in the north have said that demand has eased, and southern dairy farmers are waiting to see tonnages of home-grown silage they can produce before looking at purchased forages.
If stacks get rained on there will be spoiled bales that will be rejected from buyers when paying high prices for hay. These stacks are also at risk of combusting with the rains livening up the bugs that have grown on the hay from sitting in the windrow for longer than 10 days. Trials have been done proving that the longer hay lays in the windrow the greater the mould and yeast count. Remember 2006 with high sugared droughty hay that laid in the windrow for weeks caught fire once rained on.
This made me think about “What’s it going to cost if you don’t cover your hay?”. So, I thought, let’s do some sums on the losses on 1 b/double load of hay stacked in a single row 6 high in the paddock.
64 bales x 600kg = 38,400kg x $250.00 = $9,600.00
1/15’x 48’ Inland tarp = $560.00 ex Melbourne
10 bales exposed to the elements rained on and rejected.
10 x 600kg = 6000kg x $250.00 = $1,500.00 losses.
This is a huge loss but with $560 investment in year 1 you will get a 3:1 ROI. If it protected the whole stack from going up it’s a huge ROI.
Tarps typically last 3 years at least so a minimum total ROI is 9:1 when using Inland Tarps.
When thinking about tarps think Inland tarps from Feedworks. It’s the most economic hay shed you’ll ever put up!
Contact: Mark Lourey – Feedworks Pty Ltd – 0407 366 426
Contact: Matt Henke - PAC - 0429 993 548
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