Saturday we went to the Kutztown Produce Auction to see if we could get a small load of hay. The produce auctions are held on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday with hay only on Saturday.
The majority of the produce is from local farms and it is a very cool place to people watch. It is at the edge of Amish country with lots of farms and horsedrawn wagons and buggies, both Amish and Mennonite. No produce on Saturday as nothing is in season right now but lots and lots of eggs for sale. There was a huge amount of hay sellers, more than some sellers have ever seen. Trucks just kept coming in. It seems that everyone is clearing out their barns in anticipation of first cutting. One of the sellers told me that next week will probably be slow as field work will start and no one will have time to bring their hay down. The morning dawned warm (it hit 70 in the afternoon) and sunny with a bit of a haze. I thought it might be fun to share glimpses of what the auction looks like. The auction itself is surrounded by farms. There is a building at the center that contains the office, a small breakfast area and mostly just open space for produce on carts. The hay trucks are parked all around the building and since there were so many yesterday, they were parked two deep in some spots.
I took these pictures early, about 45 minutes before the auction started. There was even more hay by the time the auctioneer got to the first truck.
The view of the auction from the road through the field
Pulling in to the auction, building and loading dock to the left
Hay trucks lined up, waiting for the auctioneer
Another view of the hay trucks with the loading dock on the left
Lots and lots of hay and straw
The loading dock and the area where farmers can drive their wagons in to sell right from the wagon
This area usually doesn't have hay trucks but there was no where else to park them
The loading dock looking through to the other side
More hay as I walked around the building
The opposite side of the auction with the building on the left
The opposite side of the auction with the building on the left
The white roofed building ahead is the buggy shed 
By the time the auction started there was this buggy and 3 horsedrawn wagons
Looking back to the hay sellers from the buggy shed, building on the right
So we ended up buying a small load of hay. It didn't have a weight which is uncommon but it didn't look like a lot and the price was very good. The seller had obviously stacked it in his truck well as it seemed like the hay bales were never ending. It ended up being 47 bales of timothy/alfalfa/grass mix. Very nice hay with some clover in it.
And this is what 47 bales, approximately 2400 pounds of hay looks like loaded into the bed of our F150 pickup truck. We stopped to buy more rope to make sure that all of the bales survived the 25 mile trip. We could have paid to have it delivered ($2 per mile for each mile over 10 miles) but what's the fun in that?
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13 comments:
No, what the fun in having it sent? I loved joining in on your excursion!
When we buy hay, we stop a man with a donkey heading in to sell his produce at the market. Similar concept!
HAY! That was very interesting....:-)
I've never heard of hay being sold at auction. Interesting photos of the meeting place and exchange. Hope none of those bales fell off on the way home!
We have several hay auctions in our area. If anyone is interested the PA Dept of Agriculture publishes the prices every week:
http://tinyurl.com/32oz7e
No bales were harmed during transport :)
That is a big load of hay. Hope it made it back without you loseing any of it. I have never been to a hay action. Sounds cool! (Ok I am a total farm nerd I love the barn!)
I remember the "hay days". We always just had our delivered.
That's a lot of hay--both at the auction and on your truck!
Love the smell of hay but sure is heavy work. Like the Horse & buggy too.
I am tryign to imagine the fields that produced all this hay. A delicious thought.
Nice to have a look at a part of PA I knew well - I grew up and raised my family in Lancaster County. I see you don't have any snow on the ground.
Wow that's a wide load. Glad to read that it all made it back home safely :)
PA had a huge hay production last year, eh? I've never heard of hay being sold at auction. Around here, it gets sold quickly if only by word of mouth at local farms down in the valley. We also buy ours from Colorado. It tends to have less weeds and is much greener and leafier.
I'm curious how much a bale of single string hay sells for you in your area. Around here it's anywhere from $6.00-$12.00 a bale.
~Lisa
That looks weird...I meant to type a "single string bale of hay". lol!
Pennsylvania had a very good year for hay last year which was great since the prior year was really bad (we had a drought). There are at least 4 hay auctions within an hour and half's drive. To buy a single small bale of grass hay locally, it costs me $5.25. The advantage to buying it at the auction is that it sells by the ton so the savings is huge - as much as half the price per bale.
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