The opposite of Bob Wright's observation

[Mobuck]

"In Mobuck's post that you quoted he stated that the buyer was offered the option of purchasing by weight or by the bale. The buyer chose by the bale. He made his choice."
This correct. For those who may not understand how this works: Farmer A has hay to sell. He may or may not have actually weighed the bales (we usually weigh 6 to 12 bales but this costs at least $5/bale and 1 hour per load just to reach a certified truck scale). This year, we've been overwhelmed with day to day work and didn't have the extra time to weigh bales while moving them to the bale yard. If Farmer B is 2-3 miles away, he often doesn't want to spend the time/money to weigh every bale he gets so 'by the bale price is agreed on. If Farmer B is further and paying a semi to move hay, he may not want to add the extra time/miles to the hauling bill so may decide to gamble on true weight in the interest of lower hauling rates.
BUT (and this is a big one), once the terms are agreed the deal is DONE for better or worse. For a man operating in a 'handshake' world, such antics are totally unacceptable and in the old days a gunfight would have ensued.

 

[Kevin]

Since people are still talking about this topic.

My big question is. How much of a price difference are we talking about? If the buyer wanted to change the terms of the sale, how much did he expect to save? What was the total dollar amount of the sale? Over a thousand? Less than $750?

 

[Mobuck]

10-12% so around $2K
Not small change

 

[Kevin]

10-12% so around $2K
Not small change

Thanks, yeah, I know farmer's work on really tight budgets. But in the grand scheme of things, $2,000 really isn't very much, that buyer should have eaten the costs. He wouldn't have lost that much in dollars compared to his, now much lower, reputation.

Around here, we had our trees trimmed this summer, that was $3,000. Our A/C broke this summer also, that was $6,000. I'd be happy with a $2,000 bill for a change.

 

[black1970]

Hey Kevin, I had our trees trimmed 3 years ago to the tune of 9800 dollars. We give our hay away to a friend that keeps the fields cut twice a year. But it is only about 50 round bales. He has about 100 head of cattle.

 

[eveled]

Im very surprised its ever sold by the pound. It would be like buying donuts by the pound.

A bail is a unit of measurement of hay. I figured it was sold by the bail.

Hay is supposed to be dry wetter hay would be heavier. So why would you want to pay extra for water that you don't want?

As always I enjoy these glimpses into farming.

 

[Mike J]

Im very surprised its ever sold by the pound. It would be like buying donuts by the pound.

A bail is a unit of measurement of hay. I figured it was sold by the bail.

Hay is supposed to be dry wetter hay would be heavier. So why would you want to pay extra for water that you don't want?

As always I enjoy these glimpses into farming.

I believe having some moisture in it is fine. I do recall reading of fires started by wet hay that had been stacked up.

 

[krw]

A “bale” is not a unit of measure. Some bales are 4x4, 4x5, 5x5, 5x6. Figure cubic footage and a 5x6 is nearly twice as big as a 4x5
When selling “ultra” prem bermuda hay to horse people, lots of times there is a maximum amt of moisture allowed
There ought to be a way to sell hay based by ton taking into acct TDN, Protein
Putting up quality hay has turned into a very expensive proposition
And ask me about putting “green” hay and burning a barn. Been there done that!! A very expensive lesson learned

 

[Mobuck]

To add more 'insight': these were 5' wide by 66" diameter net wrapped bales from a good baler @ 12-14% moisture(we checked a similar bale at Son's hay yard and currently tested 7-8% which would account for nearly 100# of weight loss due to moisture alone). There is a reason these weren't 'full' 72" diameter bales. When I baled the hay, the guy renting my pasture agreed to buy the hay and haul it out of the field and his pickup bale bed couldn't handle bales over 1500-1600#. Plus Son's chore tractor can't handle bales heavier than that. The original buyer backed out leaving me looking for another buyer. Regardless, a bale is a bale and a gazillion bales of hay are sold 'by the bale'(both large and small).
I talked to the hay broker yesterday. The buyer shortchanged the first loads even though HE weighed a representative sample that came out heavier than later loads. When the broker asked him why he didn't honor HIS original weights, he then claimed his scale wasn't certified. He said it was good enough to claim the weight was short but not good enough to pay based on the weight. Buyer also made some claims that I was intoxicated during our conversations and didn't know what I was saying. That didn't fly with the broker who told him I don't drink and he'd best not push that claim.
The deal is done, broker has the check, good thing I wasn't FTF with the buyer. His reputation has taken a solid kick in the pants. The broker sees him every week at the sale barn and is going to rip into him every chance until the guy gets mad enough to fight and then he'll lose his job at the sale barn.