What a season

We're generally not ones for doom and gloom here, but there's a bit of a sad feeling on the farm at the moment.

The last of our bale stock went out of the door last week, and it's a bit of a surreal feeling.  We're seeing parts of the hay shed that normally don't get seen, we have empty stores where they would usually be full.

It's no secret that the 2025 harvest season was a bit of a mess.  Heat and near-drought conditions early in the year stopped everything from growing, and a near perfect-storm of conditions with poor grass yields and a very early arable harvest left us down by as much as 70% in some fields.

To add insult to injury, because areas of the grass we use for hay are in countryside stewardship schemes, there are limits on when it can be cut, so we had no choice but to sit and watch it slowly die off in the fields, only to be hampered with endless (and useless) showers of rain when we were finally able to get to it.

It sounds like we're moaning a lot (and we are to a certain extent) but we're by no-means the only people to struggle.  Other producers are in the same boat; livestock farmers have been struggling to get feed and to manage spiralling costs; equestrian owners are battling with availablility and prices.

We've tried to keep our prices down to sensible levels over the past 12 months - we don't want to profiteer at the expense of animal welfare.    We've had to ration our stocks of hay and straw to try and maintain supply for as long as possible.   We've been doing deals to restock and re-supply.

So, as spring 2026 looks like it is finally trying to appear, we wanted to say a little "thank-you" to our customers.  It's been quite a year!    Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Let's hope that 2026 will be a little easier on all of us.