Who ships hay, and when do they book?

Commodity playbook

Who ships hay

Export compress plants, where the truckload freight concentrates. Domestic hay is a local business with a different call list in every county.

Ask for the logistics or transportation manager at the compress plant. Export hay companies buy from a wide grower network and consolidate it, so the plant is both the destination for inbound farm freight and the origin for outbound port drayage. Both legs are brokerable and the inbound one is the less contested of the two. On the domestic side you are calling the farm or the feed dealer directly.

Where it hauls

Two very different businesses. Export runs out of the Columbia Basin and the Kittitas Valley in Washington, where compress plants at Ellensburg and Mattawa squeeze bales to container density and rail or truck them to Seattle, Tacoma and Portland. California's Imperial Valley does the same through Long Beach and Oakland. Domestic hay is a local business everywhere there are cattle and horses, moving short distances on flatbeds. The export compress plants are where the truckload freight is:

How to open

Asking about the cutting by number is the tell that you know this freight. First cutting is volume, later cuttings are quality, and which one they are talking about changes both the lane and the urgency.

Qualifying questions

• Compressed or field bales? Export hay is compressed to roughly double density for containers and loads completely differently from field bales. Domestic big squares and round bales are bulky and light. Ask which, because one weighs out and the other cubes out.
• Is it going to a port, and what is the cutoff? Export loads run against a vessel cutoff, and missing it does not mean a late delivery, it means the next boat. Get the cutoff and the terminal, and confirm whether you need a port appointment.
• Do you need tarps, and how many? Hay on a flatbed has to stay dry, and wet hay is not just a claim, it is a fire risk. Confirm the tarp requirement and who supplies them before you dispatch, because it changes the equipment you need.
• What is the moisture, and which cutting is it? Moisture drives both spoilage and spontaneous combustion risk, and the cutting number tells you what grade you are hauling. Anyone who works this freight expects the question and worries about the answer.
• What are the payment terms? Export forage runs on thin margins against international buyers and the trade has seen real credit events. Standard diligence applies: agree terms, check credit, and do not let a receivable age quietly on a lane you like.

When to call

May and June, as the first cutting comes off and the year's buying begins. By September the supply is known, the contracts are placed and a new call is quoting the remainder. This is the commodity brokers most reliably discover eight weeks late, because the freight looks like it peaks in autumn when the decisions were made at the start of summer.