Curious if anyone is having trouble getting hay, good hay. I pretty much gave up on getting alfalfa hay because it's so inconsistent. One load will be nice, leafy, soft and green, the next will be stemmy, dry and dusty and my horses will push it around. I can only get 3 strand around here and it pretty much all comes from the same place.. Arizona. I'm in Central TX. I was buying big 3 strand giant bermuda from California for a while. It's expensive but really nice. We bought 120 bales of some jig bermuda hay from someone local and the bales were kinda light, but seemed like pretty decent hay for the most part. Just light 2 strands. I'm burning thru hay like crazy with 4 horses to feed. Pasture is out... nothing there.  I got to thinking I need to probably think about trying to stretch our hay a little. I have to soak any cube I get. Right now I'm feeding some danco omni cubes I got but I'm not comfortable feeding those in large amounts because of the inclusion of oats. What do yall that use hay stretchers feed? Just plain alfalfa cubes? I can get those or I can get Timothy/ Alfalfa cubes as well. I do have 1 horse that cannot have timothy. Roundbales aren't really an option either. My horses are all stalled separately and each have their own large run.. dry lot. I currently use slow feed hay nets to try to slow them down but I'm filling those full twice a day. They are just really hitting the hay hard right now since it got cooler. 

If you have a space and ability to move round bales, you can turn it on end and peel off to feed daily. We have a covered lot on one side of our barn and have put a good bermuda/prairie hay mix bale in and fenced off, then peeled off daily as much as was needed.

Plentiful in Wisconsin. i sold all mine off our 20 as it was older field, and mine wont eat. I bought 1,000 bales of 2nd and 3rd crop alfalfa for 4 and 5 a bale and they big!

Last month I got my hay guy to brimg me 200 bales.  It is beautiful.  Pretty and green, no weeds.  Very pleased Northeast Texas

We bring in semi loads of the big square bales of alfalfa (3x4x8 1400#). I had 6 that I didn't have room for and they sold in about 2 hours after posting them.

This is prob our 12th load from the same producer this year. It tests great and the horses do wonderful on it.

My hay guy shipped his current western alfalfa in by rail. It is in Richmond, VA, and has been for three weeks. He has no idea when he will be able to find a truck to bring it to his place. ALL trucks are at the ports. So my feed program has become a covid victim. He has also raised his price from $36 per bale to $42.

Necessity is the mother of change, right? So I was talking to a local friend about it and she hooked me up with a local dairy farmer who grows his own alfalfa. I used his many years ago and was always very pleased with the hay. So I got ahold of him and he is going to be able to keep me supplied indefinitely, at less than half the cost per pound/ton. Heck, about 25%. Even if it isn't the 22% protein of the western hay I bet it hits 18%, and who needs more than that for horses? 

I've had a few feed stores tell me that hay is going to be difficult to come by. I don't typically buy hay, other than alfalfa from the feed stores anyway.  So they try to sell me cubes. I much prefer pellets. I know they aren't considered long stem forage but they are much easier to soak and have always seemed less dusty than any cubes we've tried.  I use to be able to get really nice timothy hay from a feed store in town .. big 3 strand heavy bales then suddenly they couldn't get it anymore. I was talking to the guy on the dock when I picked up bedding yesterday and he told me that their timothy supplier and one of their alfalfa suppliers had totally ghosted them ... just like that. Won't return calls or messages and won't take calls. So they've been trying to find others. They aren't a small feed store either. Looms like I'll be getting another 150 from our last supplier. It's been pretty decent hay. But I think I'm putting the 2 horses being used the most back on those giant bermuda bales. Seemed to do just a little better and they were definitely less dusty.