Southwest Missouri Hay Auction

A very wet day for this month's hay auction as most of the southwest part of the state has seen 2-5 inches of rain over the last few days. Areas farther east and southeast dealing with rain totaling in the double digits causing dangerous flooding. Buyers were able to stay inside and dry today however, as auction managers shuffled sample bales from each lot to the bidding barn though out the day which resulted in very happy customers and a very efficient auction. Overall, a very good offering of hay especially for this late in the season when one might not expect to still find as much quality. Demand was good to very good even as the feeding days wind down and new crop hay is not far away. Another good crowd of bidders on hand that bid aggressively throughout the day and obviously didn't come out in the foul weather just to window shop. Hay prices were mostly steady with last month but much more consistent and reflective of the quality being offered from lot to lot. Small square bales accounted for 1764 bales or 46% of the total offering. Not including any of the small square bales, once the math was done most of the fair to good quality round bales of grass figured in the 100-130 per ton range, good to premium quality alfalfa in round bales mostly 150-175. Big 3x3 and 3x4 square bales sold for a slight premium pushing up to or just slightly over 200 per ton. A few consignments of top-quality alfalfa or alfalfa orchard grass in big squares fell just slightly under 300 per ton with this month's extreme high being a load of 3x3 alfalfa which figured to 351 per ton.