In every edition of eHay Weekly, we offer examples of market prices for alfalfa and grass hay from selected state USDA reports. Those reports are also used to complete the Market Update column toward the back of every Hay & Forage Grower magazine.
Although I’ve gotten familiar with price reporting and entering data into a spreadsheet, I’ve never gone behind the scenes to see how those prices are determined and why they fluctuate. I’d never been to a hay auction before — until last Saturday.
This particular auction outside of Whitewater, Wis., is held at noon on the second and fourth Saturday of every month from October through May. Unload times start Friday morning and end an hour before bidding begins, which is about the time I showed up last weekend.
I have to admit that I didn’t go to the auction to get a story — I was just there for the experience. Therefore, I neglected my due diligence as a journalist to take notes, photos, and get quotes from other attendees. I also didn’t walk away with a “My first hay auction” button pinned to my coat, but I did leave with a better idea of how hay auctions operate and learned a few things from the buyers there.
Local intel. The first man I talked to was a dairy farmer-turned beef producer who lived a couple miles down the road. He is a regular at the auction and pointed out the other farmers who also show up every week, as well as the auctioneer, the ring men, and the owner of the auction site. He shared some insight as to what type of livestock those individuals own, the hay they tend to buy, or who they were buying hay for. It felt like we were gossiping.
Hay quality has been pretty poor this year, he said, and for that reason local prices have been low. All the rain we received early in the spring really set back harvest schedules and delayed first cuttings, which was confirmed by the posted forage test results with rather wimpy relative feed values (RFV).
Auction protocol. I guess I was expecting a less formal atmosphere given the relatively slim turn out, but I was impressed that the small crowd still adhered to proper auction protocol. With that said, I was nervous to make eye contact with any of the three ring men and mistakenly indicate a bid. It seemed like even the slightest twitch of an eyebrow would result in a hand wave and a loud “Yep!” followed by a price increase. As a solo attendee with no livestock, no barn, and no truck to haul bales, I had no intention of actually buying hay.
The auctioneer and his bid assistants sat in a makeshift viewing box in the back of a pickup, which we followed around the perimeter of the auction site, stopping at each hay lot. I imagine the box is also a nice refuge from winter weather, but on this Saturday in early November, it was a balmy 55ºF.
Bidding strategy. I didn’t know you could bid on only a number of bales instead of taking the whole lot. For one lot of 49 large square alfalfa bales, the farmer with the highest bid announced that he was only taking a dozen of them. Therefore, another round of bidding began, and a different man took another dozen from the same stack. For the third round, the first farmer came back and bid on the rest of the hay, securing a lower price per bale than his first deal.
“I’m lowering my average price,” he said.
It almost seemed like cheating. But he wasn’t breaking any rules. And he did, in fact, lower his average price by a significant amount. Well played, I thought.
Loading up. After the last sale of oat straw bales was made, the next order of business was loading hay. Buyers filed into the farm office to settle up and then hopped in their trucks to form a line to load up. They had until 11 a.m. the following day to move hay. That didn’t seem like a tall task for those taking a bunch of small square bales to feed their horses, but I could imagine the logistics for hay buyers with multiple clients would have been a bit more complicated.
At this point, I decided to clear out. But I’m curious how sales will shape up for the rest of the hay buying season, as well as how our local hay prices in southeast Wisconsin will compare to the rest of the state reports. Perhaps I, too, will become a regular at the Whitewater Hay Auction.
