Hay cost per ton in Ohio

Ohio's hay market is anchored by the large Amish-country auctions at Mt. Hope, Kidron, and Sugarcreek, which the USDA AMS Ohio Hay Market Report tracks roughly twice a month. Across 2024-2025 report cycles, large round bales of grass and mixed hay consistently cleared between $180 and $240 per ton, while premium small-square alfalfa for the horse trade routinely pushed $260-$340 per ton and supreme dairy-quality alfalfa topped $300 per ton at the upper auctions.

Ohio's humid continental climate delivers 38-42 inches of annual rainfall, enough to support 3-4 alfalfa cuttings and 2-3 grass cuttings in a typical year, per OSU Extension forage guidance. The catch is timing: first cutting in late May is frequently rained on, which downgrades a portion of the crop from premium to 'fair/good' and compresses the price spread. Dry second cuttings in July usually produce the season's highest-RFV lots, and those are what set the $300+/ton ceiling in the USDA reports.

For a cow-calf operator, the practical math runs like this: a 1,200 lb beef cow eats roughly 25 lb of hay per day during a 120-day Ohio winter feeding window, or about 3,000 lb (1.5 tons) of hay per cow per winter. At the 2024-2025 mid-range round-bale price of about $210/ton from the USDA AMS Ohio reports, that works out to roughly $315 per cow in winter hay alone - before factoring waste, which OSU Extension typically pegs at 15-25% for unrolled or ring-fed round bales, pushing the real cost closer to $375-$395 per cow.