Bait n Switch

I looked over the hay ads in the country paper yesterday.
The day was too chill and drear for much else.

I saw an offer of grass hay at $25 a big round. Now that's cheap,
even in this time of plentiful hay (round here). The ranch was about
36 miles, and when I got there, the owner (whose name really was
"Bubba") said, "The grass is all gone, but I have these alfalfa bales.
$50" I will admit to that old sinking feeling. I thought I was past
this kind of sales approach.

Now $50 for alfalfa is a reasonable price round here at this time -
but not a fire sale price. Still I took one. The line of bales were
at the edge of a field which seemed to be open, so I turned so
I could back onto spearing a bale, and quickly saw I had pushed
a hot wire down.

I apologized. Bubba said "I just put that wire up, should have
warned you..."

He urged me to drive over the down wire to turn - in fact there
was no other way to go, so I spiked the bale, and he
hammered back the T-post in ground that he said was iron hard.
"No harm done."

After I dropped off the alfalfa in the horse pasture, I stopped off
for a coffee against the cold damp chilly drizzle, and asked the
owner of the diner, called "Bronc's Corral": ( yep, another horse
freak.) He said, "Go see the guy who owns the gas station up the
road. He bales for everyone round here, and he knows..."

So I did, and HIS alfalfa was $50-70 depending on quality,
and it's 100 yards off my straight line to the ranch..

So it turns out that asking for local insights will save me a little
cash: 10 mpg from a 3/4 Silverado sure mounts up these days!

Today, I reap the reward. The horses are already showing fat padding
either side of the backbone, and roly-poly barrels - but that won't do
them much harm today, when I had to scrape a 1/2 inch of glaze off the
windshield to go to breakfast and church with the thermometer at
28.....

Another day in the life - where any horse effort is a fun effort.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: putting on weight
    ... with the understanding that this is not my horse ... lost tons of muscle and weight with the EPSM. ... plus all the hay he could eat. ... of really good alfalfa per day. ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: Switching from hay to alfalfa
    ... Would those of you, who do get bales of both, inter-change them without ... ie - if you had ran out of hay just go and get a bale of alfalfa and feed ... Absolutely not - horses who are not used to eating alfalfa should not ... Generally we prefer to feed alfalfa but oft times, ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: how can we explain how we sell our hay ??? arggghhh
    ... the horse people really "don't get it"...and you are all horse people ... Give a brief overview, as you did here, describing hay production and explaining that bales from the same field on the same machine can vary in weight as much as x pounds. ... Give a per ton price, with an average number of bales per ton on current stock. ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: OUCH! & Horse prices
    ... I've been very casually horse shopping a bit. ... I don't know about horse prices, but the hay situation in Texas is ... I had contracted for a delivery of 200 bales on Monday and had ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: Switching from hay to alfalfa
    ... Would those of you, who do get bales of both, inter-change them without any ... balance of alfalfa so would not consider this as wise but maybe its because ... IF I ran out of grass hay and only had straight alfalfa, ... I just cringe when someone tells me that they feed straight alfalfa. ...
    (rec.equestrian)
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