Hay stock tight, prices sky high: Dry winter, cold spring dampens outlook

The hay stack at C.R. Eisenzimer’s farm five miles south of Cascade is down to about the last 17 bales. A dry 2012 season taxed last year’s hay supplies. Eisenzimer didn’t get a third cutting on his hay crop due to an early fall freeze. And this year’s cold, wet spring is keeping pastures from greening up enough to turn cattle out on yet, extending the hay-feeding season for a lot of ranchers. “If you can find hay, it’s expensive,” Eisenzimer said. The average price for hay in Montana in April was $160 a ton, a 61 percent increase from the price a year ago, according to the National Agricultural Statistic Service. Typically hay supplies in the U.S. are short at some point during the spring, as ranchers continue to feed their livestock, waiting for pastures to be ready for grazing. “But as dry as it was throughout some parts of the country last year, that situation has moved up earlier this year,” said Erika Sorenson, the market reporter for the USDA Market News Service. “Supplies are tight all over, and I know in eastern South Dakota there is concern that some ranchers will run out of hay before pastures are ready for grazing.”...more