Hay farmers struggling with rain

LEXINGTON/GEORGETOWN, Ky. (WTVQ) — Friday’s been one of the few dry, sunny days we’ve had lately.

But that doesn’t help hay farmers who need at least four to five dry days to get into the field and bale up their hay.

“Go away” is the message John Hymer, a local hay farmer, has to say about the rain.

He’s been having to get hay imported from other states.

“It’s been about a month since I’ve been able to get out and actually get good quality forage together and it’s a tremendous amount of stress, ya know, there’s a lot of people out there, a lot of animals that rely on me to be able to provide them with what they need and when it’s wet like this it makes it nearly impossible,” says Hymer.

He has been providing hay to local horse and cattle farms, for six years now and says since he started out, the price of hay has gone up nearly 50%.

“The price is gonna have to go up because supply and demand’s starting and on top of that you have a lack of a product and this year there’s not gonna be enough to go around,” says Hymer.

The lack of hay is affecting Evans Orchard in Georgetown.

The farm doesn’t have it’s hay castle up in the kids play area due to the demand being so great.

“Well the kids are like ‘Where’s the castle?’ or ‘Where’s the straw bales?”, says Kevan Evans, owner of the farm.

He says the hay is only one of their issues..

“I’ve got peach trees that have a beautiful crop on them and they’ve turned yellow. The leaves have turned yellow. They’re just drowning,” says Evans.

He says the rain is making planting anything that much more difficult.

He hasn’t been able to plant his sweet corn for weeks now.

“The stuff I have in the ground we’re just trying to keep disease off of,” says Evans.

Both farmers we spoke with are just begging for the rain to give them a break.

“Ya know, we need some sunshine.”