Gainesville Hay Delivery and Feed | Farmers Direct

Gainesville is approximately 25 to 30 miles north of our Williston farm store at 21091 NE US Hwy 27, which is roughly a 40-minute drive south on US-27. Depending on your specific address, you will fall into Zone 1 ($35 flat, within 25 miles) or Zone 2 ($40 flat, 25 to 40 miles). Addresses in south Gainesville and the Haile Plantation corridor tend to be Zone 1. Addresses in north Gainesville, Jonesville, Newberry, and Tioga may fall in Zone 2. Call (352) 528-1255 with your zip code and we will confirm before you schedule.

The flat rate applies regardless of order size. One bale or twenty-five bales, the delivery charge is the same. Most Gainesville customers order five to fifteen bales at a time to spread the flat rate across more bales and keep a comfortable buffer in the barn. If your property goes through hay faster than that, ask about our container service.

For high-volume customers, ordering hay by the 20-foot container is the most cost-efficient option. Each container holds roughly 130 bales. Delivery is FREE within 40 miles of Williston, which covers all of Gainesville and most of Alachua County. The first 30 days of on-site storage are free, then $25 per week if you keep the container longer. Most customers swap the empty for a full one before the 30 days are up. The container stays on your property as a powder-coated, weather-sealed hay barn with no exposure to the Florida humidity that damages stored hay. Visit /products/shipping-containers for details.

Store hours are 9 to 5:30 weekdays and 9 to 2:30 Saturday. Call ahead a few days and we will schedule a delivery window that fits your barn schedule.

We source direct from two regions: Alberta, Canada for two-string Western Canadian bales, and Nevada high-desert farms for three-string premium hay. No regional broker, no middleman markup between the grower and your barn.

Timothy 1st Cut (Nevada, three-string): Coarse-stem, lower-protein timothy. CP typically 8 to 11 percent, low NSC. Ideal for easy keepers and horses at risk for metabolic issues. Our most popular hay for Alachua County horse properties with mixed herds.

Timothy 2nd Cut (Nevada, three-string): Higher protein and energy density than 1st cut, softer stem, higher leaf retention. Suited to performance horses, growing horses, and horses in light to moderate work.

Premium Alfalfa (Nevada, three-string): CP 18 to 22 percent. Leafy, high-energy, steamed for lower dust. Works as a flake-per-feeding top-dress alongside grass hay, or as a complete alfalfa ration for hard-keeping performance horses.

Orchard Grass (Nevada, three-string): Soft, highly palatable, high fiber (NDF 58 to 65 percent). CP 8 to 11 percent. The go-to for picky eaters, horses with dental issues, or barns that want a lower-sugar grass alternative to timothy.

Teff Grass (Nevada): Ultra-low NSC grass hay for horses with EMS, Cushing's, or insulin resistance. Current lots typically test ESC 5 to 6 percent. Warm-season annual that grows without the high-sugar risk of cool-season grasses.

Timothy Alfalfa Mix (Alberta two-string and Nevada three-string variants): Blended at roughly 12 to 15 percent crude protein. One-hay solution for multi-horse barns covering several needs. Alberta two-string at $20 per bale is the value format; Nevada three-string at $34 is the premium.

Orchard Alfalfa Mix and Western Canadian Timothy Orchard Alfalfa Mix (Alberta, two-string): Versatile blends that cover broodmares, growing horses, and moderate-work adults. Good value at $18 per bale.

Browse the full product list at /products or use the hay finder quiz for a three-question recommendation based on your horse's age, workload, and any metabolic concerns.

Gainesville has feed stores and some local hay brokers. Most hay sold locally in Alachua County moves through the regional broker network: a load is purchased from an out-of-state farm, marked up by a regional distributor, resold to a retailer or delivery operator, and marked up again before it reaches a horse owner. That chain adds cost and removes information. By the time the bale is on your property, the farm of origin, the cutting date, and the forage chemistry values are typically gone.

Farmers Direct is structured differently. We buy direct from the grower: Alberta farms in Canada for two-string hay and named Nevada high-desert operations for three-string premium hay. We sample every lot at Equi-Analytical before delivery. The price you pay reflects the farm-gate price plus our delivery and handling, not a broker markup stacked on top of a distributor margin.

For comparison, a three-string Timothy 1st Cut from us is $38.50 with the Equi-Analytical lab report included. Similar format hay from the regional broker network in north-central Florida typically runs $45 to $55 without any lab values attached.

We are also a working farm store, not a hay section inside a larger retailer. When you call (352) 528-1255, you reach the people who called the farm that grew the hay, arranged the truck that hauled it, and cut the sample that went to the lab. Delmar and Trennis run the store themselves, and the team that handles deliveries is the same team that manages the inventory. That chain of custody is what makes the lab report meaningful, and it is what makes us different from the broker model.