Feed stores charge small barns the highest prices in the market. A Pool flips that. Split a full truckload of hay with your neighbors, sold and shipped straight from the grower. One freight bill is split among all the buyers. Buy one bundle or fill a whole truck, and if the truck doesn't fill, you don't pay. The truck rolls once the pool reaches its shipping minimum, or the grower chooses to ship it short. Also, each lot is lab-tested by a 3rd party, so you can see the nutrition details before you buy.
Pick a pool and choose how many bundles you need (one bundle is about two horse-months). Host your own delivery stop, or join an existing one near you. You authorize a maximum payment and will pay that number or less. Payments are never processed until the truck is ready to roll.
Watch the truck fill as neighbors join the pool. The full truck's freight quote is split among all the buyers in a pool, so each new buyer lowers everyone's individual shipping cost. When the pool fills up, the load is confirmed and the truck rolls.
The truck picks up the hay from the grower's farm and delivers directly to up to four barns. Choose to have the truck offload at your own barn, or share an offload stop with a neighbor. Nutrition spec sheet always included.
A share of one full truckload of hay, straight from the grower. Shares come in bundles, and one bundle is roughly two horse-months of hay. Buy one bundle or enough to fill a whole delivery stop.
We are launching in Florida. Each pool serves a claim zone, a radius around the delivery area, and inviting friends inside that radius is the fastest way to fill a truck and lower everyone's freight.
Never while the pool is filling. When you join, you authorize a maximum payment. This is a payment authorization, not an escrow: nobody holds your money while the pool fills. If the load is confirmed, by the grower or AgBid, and the truck ships, you are charged once. Your final number is always your maximum authorized payment or less. Every neighbor who joins after you lowers your freight split, so the number usually falls.
Every pool shows the number of bundles it must reach to ship. This way, we can assure a low maximum delivered price for the hay you buy on AgBid, and stacking you ask for sits on top. The pool still fills toward a full truck, because every bundle that joins lowers everyone's freight. By waiting until this minimum, we ensure that trucks don't roll empty and that everyone gets the most bang for their buck out of the freight cost. Once the minimum is reached, the grower can choose to roll the truck or wait until it reaches 100% capacity. Cutoff is four days before departure, and it is the last moment a pool takes a commitment: after it the grower books the carrier against the weight already in. If the minimum is met by cutoff, counting the stops that qualify, the truck can ship with what is aboard. Before the cutoff the grower can also choose to ship short, as long as one stop holds at least 30 percent of the truck: the grower then pays the missing freight, the truck's fixed freight is still split as if it were at the minimum, and you never pay more than your authorized maximum. If neither happens by the cutoff, the pool closes, everyone's authorization is released, and nobody pays a cent.
The minimum order size is 1 bundle of hay, as defined by the seller's pool listing. Orders qualify for their own delivery stop at 25% of the full pool capacity. If you order less than 25% of a truckload, you'll need to share a delivery stop with another neighbor nearby. The maximum order size is the entire remaining capacity in a pool (up to a full truckload if you are the first buyer in a pool). If you need more hay from a lot, tap Order this again on My Pools and the grower is told to post another pool.
Each pool is timed so that we can assure when the hay will reach the buyers. By assigning a cutoff time to a pool, growers and buyers can better plan their schedules, and we can more effectively organize shipping so that your order reaches you when your animals need it.
One truck, one freight bill, split among all the buyers and scaled to each barn's order size. The carrier is paid the quoted freight in full, and your share is shown on its own line in your cost breakdown at checkout.
14% standard fee on pool orders, reducing to as low as 12% on higher orders. The hay payment goes straight to the grower, and the freight cost goes straight to our shipping partner. AgBid charges our service fee on the transaction value to keep our platform running so we can keep finding you great deals. The fee rate steps down by how much of the truck you take as follows: Standard rate: 14% 路 10% truck-share rate: 13.5% 路 Quarter-truck rate: 13% 路 Half-truck rate: 12%. The ledger prints whichever rate you earned at checkout.
To your barn when your order is big enough for a delivery stop of its own. The truck makes up to four stops, and a stop qualifies for the route at a quarter of the load (see the minimum order above); the truck unloads those bales at your own address. A smaller order joins the route once its stop reaches that floor: start a stop at your barn and let neighbors fill it with you, or join a neighbor's stop and collect your bales from their yard. A stop still under the floor when the load is confirmed is left off the truck: everyone on it is released and nobody on it is charged. A host barn approves each neighbor before anyone sees the address.
You only need to share a stop if buying less than 25% of a pool. For shared stops, the truck will deliver to the barn hosting that stop and you have 72 hours to collect your bales from their yard. You get the address, the pickup window, and a reminder by email. A host is a neighbor keeping your hay dry, not a warehouse.
You get 1 hour to fix it from My Pools, with a countdown and a Fix payment button. If it is not fixed in time your share is released so the rest of the pool keeps moving, and you are not charged.