My neighbor Wayne told us about a hay sale that occurs every other Monday in a town nearby. We currently have an overabundance of 2010 alfalfa hay that we probably should have been more aggressive of selling it last winter. Spring is here and soon all the forage animals around here will be eating grass from their pastures. Alfalfa is a perennial plant that is rich in nutrients. When dry, it can provide the necessary forage with nutrient value for any ruminant animal, such as goats, horses, sheep, and cows, especially over the winter months when grazing is impossible in Northern Iowa.
So, Wayne showed me the ropes at this auction, how to check in, introduced me to the auctioneer, and answered a lot of questions for me throughout the sale. It was my first auction I’d been to in over 18 years and I had forgotten the etiquette of an auction sale. In addition, I felt a bit intimidated by all the “regulars” being a newbie and all. These buyers and sellers of hay were hardcore. When a truck or wagon load of hay would arrive, many of the buyers would walk up to it, grab a handful of hay and bring it up to their face as they took a big “sniiiiiiif”. Then they would either give a facial expression of, “not bad”, or “mmmmm, now that’s some good hay”, or give no expression at all – a great pokerface, and walk on to the next newcomer. Sellers would do this ritual too, probably to see what their competition smelled like.
I was so fascinated with the sounds the auctioneer made, I wasn’t paying attention to how weird I may have seemed taking a video of him and the people there. Auctions are fairly common in Iowa, but maybe not to the rest of the world. I found out from Wayne that the International School of Auctioneering is located in Mason City, Iowa, very close to where this hay auction was located. He said that people from all over the world go to that school to learn how to auctioneer! Really!
I took a video of the auctioneer, Col. Fox (all auctioneers have a Col. or Sgt. or something like that before their names) selling the 30 small square bales I brought to the sale, but he pointed me out because I was taking pictures and video, so my video quality was not very good. I did end up getting $3.90/bale, almost $4…..that was my goal. But with all the hay there at the sale, mine brought the most for that size and type of hay! A little competitiveness doesn’t hurt….
In the video below, the auctioneer is auctioning off large square bales of alfalfa hay. QUIZ: After watching the video, what was the starting bid and in the end, what did each bale sell for?