Hay and Feed Near Cochrane and Calgary: A Local Buyer's Guide

Finding hay around Calgary is not hard. Finding the same hay again in February, from someone who can tell you when it was cut and how it was stored, is a different problem.

Most acreage owners in Rocky View County learn this the hard way. You buy a load that works, come back for more, and the supply is gone or the quality has changed completely.

This guide covers what is available locally, what to ask before you order, how farm-direct buying differs from a retail feed store, and how to plan a season's supply rather than buying reactively.

Horse Creek Hay & Feed grows and supplies forage from Rocky View County, near Cochrane, with delivery throughout the Calgary region and across much of Alberta.

Where Can You Buy Hay Near Cochrane and Calgary?

You have three practical options in the Calgary area: buy farm-direct from a grower, buy from a retail feed store, or source privately through classifieds and word of mouth.

Each works, and each suits a different situation. The right choice depends on how much you need, how often, and how much certainty you want about what you are feeding.

Farm-direct buying generally gives you better information and better pricing at volume. A grower can tell you the cutting, the field, the baling conditions, and how the bales were stored which is exactly the information that predicts whether your horses will do well on it.

Retail feed stores win on convenience and on carrying bagged feed, supplements, and small quantities alongside forage.

Private sales through classifieds can be excellent or terrible. The variability is the issue — there is no consistency from one seller to the next, and no recourse if a load turns out badly.

Which Areas Do You Deliver To?

We deliver throughout Rocky View County and the surrounding Calgary region, with wider Alberta delivery available on larger orders.

Rocky View County covers close to a million acres and wraps around Calgary on the north, west, and east sides. It holds roughly 40,000 residents across fourteen hamlets, and a large share of those properties are acreages with horses or small livestock.

What Types of Hay Are Available Locally?

Most Calgary-area buyers are choosing between grass hay, alfalfa, and a grass-alfalfa blend, in either small square bales or round bales.

Hay type	Typical use	Notes for local buyers
Timothy and grass hay	Forage base for most adult horses	Widely grown on the prairies; good harvest window
Alfalfa	Added for higher nutrient needs	Higher energy and protein; usually blended, not fed alone
Grass-alfalfa blend	Common all-purpose horse forage	Lifts protein without overloading calories
Orchard grass	Picky eaters and horses with intake problems	Softer texture; prairie supply varies year to year

Bale format matters as much as hay type for most acreage owners. Small squares are easier to handle and portion but cost more per pound; round bales store more volume with less labour but need a feeder to control waste.

We cover that trade-off in detail in our comparison of round bales and small square bales.

If you are deciding between hay types, our guides to timothy versus alfalfa and orchard grass versus timothy go through the differences properly.

You can see current hay availability for what is in stock this season.

Is It Better to Buy From a Farm or a Feed Store?

It depends on what you are buying. Forage volume usually favours farm-direct; bagged feed and small quantities usually favour retail.

Factor	Farm-direct	Retail feed store
Price at volume	Generally better	Generally higher per unit
Information about the hay	Cutting, field, baling conditions, storage	Often limited to species and grade
Consistency across the season	Same fields, same crop	Varies as the store restocks from different sources
Convenience for small amounts	Less suited to a few bales	Well suited
Bagged feed and supplements	Limited or none	Full range
Delivery	Usually available at volume	Often pickup only

The information gap is the part worth thinking about. A grower can answer questions a retailer usually cannot — what moisture it was baled at, whether it got rained on, whether it was stored under cover.

Those answers determine whether you are buying hay that will still be good in March. Our guide to spotting problems before you buy covers what to check yourself.

Many acreage owners use both. Farm-direct for the season's forage, retail for feed, minerals, and anything they need in small amounts.

What Should You Ask a Hay Supplier Before Ordering?

Six questions separate a good load from a gamble. Ask them every time, including from a supplier you have used before — crops change year to year.

1. What cutting is it? First, second, or third. This affects protein, fibre, and price.

2. What does a bale actually weigh? Not "large round." A number. Price only means something per pound.

3. Was it rained on after cutting? Rain-damaged hay can still be usable but should be priced accordingly.

4. How was it stored? Under cover, off the ground, or outside on dirt.

5. Is there a hay analysis? Essential if you have a metabolic horse, a broodmare, or a growing animal.

6. Can I see and open a bale before committing? Any legitimate seller will say yes.

That last one is the real test. Judging a load from the outside of a stack tells you about weather exposure and nothing about what your animals will eat.

For horses with health conditions, a lab analysis is worth the cost. Our guide to understanding a hay analysis report explains what the numbers mean.

How Much Hay Should You Order for the Season?

Work from pounds per day, not bales per week. Most owners underestimate, particularly for winter.

A common planning figure is roughly two percent of body weight in forage per day, which puts a 1,000 lb horse around 20 lb daily as a starting point. Multiply by your feeding days, add a margin for waste, then convert to bales using actual bale weight.

Alberta winters push that number up considerably. Once temperatures drop below a horse's lower critical temperature, energy requirements climb roughly one percent for every degree Fahrenheit of additional cold which means a hard cold snap can add several pounds of hay per horse per day.

Budget for that rather than being caught short in February, when local supply is thinnest and quality is most variable.

Our guide to calculating daily hay requirements walks through the full calculation, and what drives Alberta hay prices explains how cutting, quality, and freight affect what you pay.

When Is the Best Time to Order Hay in the Calgary Area?

Mid-summer through early fall, right off the field. Selection is best, quality is verifiable, and you are choosing from a full year's crop rather than whatever is left.

Late-winter buying is the expensive end. By February and March local supply is thin, quality is inconsistent, and you have very little negotiating room.

The constraint on early buying is storage. Buying a season's supply only saves money if you have somewhere dry, off the ground, and ventilated to keep it otherwise spoilage eats the savings.

That matters particularly in the Calgary area, where Chinook cycles mean repeated freeze-thaw. A stack that looked fine in January can develop a spoiled bottom layer by spring if meltwater pools underneath it.

If you are unsure whether stored hay has gone off, our guide to identifying mouldy hay covers the checks.

What Else Is Available Besides Hay?

Alongside forage, we carry horse and livestock feed products for the range of animals kept on Rocky View County acreages.

That includes horse feed, Masterfeeds equine products, and Hi-Pro feeds, as well as processed forage options like timothy-alfalfa cubes for seniors and horses with dental limitations.

Acreage properties around Calgary tend to run mixed livestock — a few horses, some goats or sheep, occasionally cattle or alpacas. Requirements differ meaningfully between species, so what suits the horses is not automatically right for everything else on the property.

How Do You Place an Order?

The most useful thing you can tell us up front is how many animals you are feeding, what they are, what bale format your setup can handle, and where you are located. That lets us tell you quickly what fits rather than sending you a generic price list.

Get in touch with our team and we will let you know what is available, what it costs delivered to your location, and whether waiting for a particular cut makes sense for what you need.

Conclusion

The Calgary and Cochrane area has plenty of hay. What it has less of is consistency — the ability to get the same quality forage from the same source through an entire winter.

Ask about cutting, bale weight, storage, and analysis before you commit. Buy in late summer or early fall if you have the storage for it, and plan your volume around winter requirements rather than summer ones.

If you are working out what suits your animals and your setup, tell us what you are feeding and we will give you a straight answer about what we actually have.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you deliver hay into Calgary city limits?

Yes — we deliver to acreages and boarding facilities within Calgary as well as throughout Rocky View County. Access and unloading arrangements vary by property, so let us know what equipment you have on site and whether a large truck can reach your storage area. 

Can I buy just a few bales, or is there a minimum order?

As a general rule, larger orders make delivery more economical, because the freight cost is spread across more bales. If you only need a small quantity, pickup is usually the better option.

How do I store hay on a small acreage without a barn?

Get it off the ground on pallets or a gravel pad, cover the top, and leave the sides open for airflow. A fully sealed tarp traps condensation and causes exactly the spoilage you were trying to prevent. Watch the bottom row through spring melt, since that is where most losses occur on Calgary-area properties.

What if my horse does not like the hay?

Most refusals trace back to maturity, dust, or a dental issue rather than hay type. Coarse, over-mature hay gets sorted and wasted, and dusty hay gets refused by horses with any respiratory sensitivity. Tell us what the horse is turning down and we can usually suggest a cut or blend that works better.

Do you supply hay to boarding facilities and larger operations?

Yes. Boarding barns, training facilities, and larger acreage operations generally benefit most from a grower relationship, because consistency across a mixed herd matters more than a one-time price. Volume arrangements also change the freight economics considerably.