24/05/2024
Copied from another site informative update.
Update on hay stocks and the dry conditions here in South Australia.
We just want to address a few things regarding the outlook for the year, the high demand on hay supplies, plus ideas to help people ‘extend’ the feed available.
This is another long-ish post, so grab a coffee and read on!
Firstly, rain….or lack of it.
We don’t think we have seen dry conditions like this for a very long time, especially over such a large area.
All throughout SA, from Ceduna to Burra to Keith/Bordertown, rainfall has been far below average and it is showing.
Paddocks are dry and dusty, roadside vegetation is brown and livestock are having to be fed hay instead of grazing on pastures. It worth noting that South Australia is not alone in experiencing dry conditions, Western Australia and Tasmania are also in the grips of a horrid dry spell.
Back here in SA, according to our local weather station, we’ve had just over 30mm of rain for the year, the majority of which fell in mid-January. Without any further rain in May, we are tracking for our driest start to the year on record, about 150 years.
As we explained to our kids, it’s a bit like being at the football, it’s nearly half-time and your team has only kicked 1 point. It’s not a great position to be in, but there’s still time remaining to turn it around.
We like many other farmers in our area have come to the conclusion that despite the dry conditions, our seeds will not grow in the silo – so we are better off planting this years crop and having the seed in the soil, waiting for that first rain to arrive.
As such, on our farm, we have nearly completed sowing this years crop, with only about 2 days remaining.
We have increased the area planted to hay this year, and from conversations with other farmers in our district, it seems a lot of people have done the same.
So there is a ray of hope, that later on this year, if the season turns out ok, hay stocks will be plentiful.
Now on to the current situation regarding hay supplies.
To understand why hay stocks are so low this year, we have to look back 2 years to 2022.
2022 was a horrible year for hay production, there’s no other way to put it - It just didn’t stop raining, hay quality was terrible and prices were not great.
The memories of the 2022 weighed heavily on farmers decisions of what to plant last year in 2023.
At the time farmers were planning what to plant in 2023, their haysheds were still full of low quality 2022 produce and the prices for other grain crops, lentils, wheat, canola etc were fantastic…why would you plant hay crops?
That's the biggest contributor to our current situation, there just wasn't that much hay planted last year....and if not much is planted, not much grows and not much is baled.
Whilst the area planted to hay in South Australia last year was not very large, the actual 2023 hay season turned out to be quite the contrast from 2022.
Last years hay was some of the best hay we have ever produced, great colour and fantastic feed test results…but again, the quantity of hay produced across South Australia was not huge – this lower production, coupled with the dry conditions all across the state is the reason for the current shortage of hay.
Everyone with livestock, pets and farm animals, is in the market for hay. Sheep, goats, alpacas, horses, cows, not to mention people with guinea pigs, a growing number of customers are out looking and competing for a decreasing supply of hay.
Round bales are practically non-existent, so people are having to opt for small squares bales as a replacement, or if they have the ability to handle them, the 600kg-ish large square bales.
The difficult fact is that South Australia still has about 5 months until new seasons hay will be available (October fingers crossed), there is some good news though.
Due to the high quality of last years hay, there is the potential to blend hay together with barley straw to ‘extend’ the feed supplies and also to help reduce the cost of feed.
There are quite a few of our customers who swear by this practice and always report good results from doing so, if you can find nice clean, soft barley straw and combine it with high quality 2023 hay, the end result will be a good all-round feed source.
All hay stocks are under a fair bit of pressure but barley straw stocks are plentiful for those wanting to blend their feed.
Every week we are keeping an eye on and chatting to connections we have interstate to see if more top-quality hay becomes available.
So hopefully just by the very act of posting this on Facebook, the weather changes, it begins to rain and we all wonder what the fuss was all about! That would be nice!
We’ll provide another update in a few weeks!
Thanks,
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