Pay for someone to harvest hay

[TheMan419]

Just got to thinking about another angle. A "therapeutic riding facility", what is that? Is it some sort of charity organization? Could doing the work be considered a tax deductible contribution?

Yes we provide services to disabled people. We are a 503(c) organization so donations to us are tax deductible. So that may get someone more interested.

 

[Sysop]

Good, make sure you start mentioning that to folk. I also do work for a lot of non-profits and any discounts I provide are tax deductible. Hopefully mentioning this to potential candidates will ease the search.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

For ten years I had various guys cut and bale my fields and then I gave up and bought my own hay equipment. I'm sure conditions vary around the country, but around here no one does it for anything other than 100% of the hay, there's lots of fields and few guys still baling. People do it just to keep their fields mowed and keep the weeds down.

What I came to realize is that when you have someone hay your fields, your interests are fundamentally misaligned. How much hay a guy can take in a season is fundamentally determined by the weather. If your guy made as much hay as he could have due to the weather, but didn't get to your field, from his perspective he's not out anything. From your perspective you didn't get any hay, and your field never got cut and now you're going to have to mow it anyway to keep the weeds down. Part of this misalignment of interests is that the guy doing the baling is motivated to commit to any field that comes his way. If it's a dry season and he has lots of days of mowing, that means he never runs out. If it's a wet season, he's not out anything.

The other thing I've learned is that when it's a wet season, it's a wet season for everyone. So if your guy is too busy to get to you there's not going to be some other guy with free time.

For most people the limiting factor in haying is manpower. If you have lots of volunteers, I would consider getting hay equipment and doing it yourself. You can get old hay equipment pretty cheap, the reason it's cheap is not that it doesn't work, it's that the new equipment is so much less labor-intensive. Don't try to do it all at once, do a little bit every week over the whole summer. A schedule that would work here is every Thursday mow for a few hours after dinner. Fridays ted, and depending on how the drying is going, ted again on Saturday. On Sunday bale and rake, and put it up. Sunday is the only day you need more than one person, that's the day you have your crew picking up and stacking the bales. If you have 40 acres you could do 4 acres every week of the summer. That's really not very much if you have a bunch of helpers. If it rains between Thursday and Sunday just skip a week.

 

[sweettractors]

I am on the board of directors of the local therapeutic riding facility. We have had a local farmer donate 40 acres of hay. Issue is that we have to cut, bale etc.

So we are looking for someone to so same. The 40 acres will likely produce more hay than we need. So rather than pay someone to bale it and then sell the excess we are thinking let someone do the work and keep a portion of the hay as their pay.

Is there a common share to give them? Is this even a reasonable idea?

Around here, the land owner gets 1/2 and the man with the machines gets 1/2. Ken Sweet

 

[kthompson]

If you are in hay country I really believe you can find a retired or semi retired farmer who would enjoy being a part of your operation and can do the baling. It could be another out reach of the group. The old farmer teaching another generation. Advertise what you need in farm supply stores, country stores, tractor dealerships, craigs list and local rural Churches. Local media might do a story on the camp and your work and need for someone to help with the baling.

 

[coralhead]

I do my own hay and it is not a lot. That being said, getting volunteers on a short notice is next to impossible. Short notice is always a problem because one cannot set up and say that two Thursdays from now I'm going to start haying, the weather always changes. People who volunteer will usually show up if the day is planned well enough in advance but asking them to show up on short notice marginal at best.

 

[txdon]

Around here, the land owner gets 1/2 and the man with the machines gets 1/2. Ken Sweet

My Dad, the land owner here gets 1/3 of the bales. He does not pay for fertilizer.

 

[EddieWalker]

Interesting thread. I have friends that have tried to have people come cut their hay in exchange for keeping some of it and they are always upset at the results. Either they didn't get enough hay, they guy who did it last year isn't interested in doing it again this year, or they can't find anybody to do it for them. I never heard the other side of it and all of a sudden, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Currently I have a guy selling me round bales for $40 each that is very nice that my horses really like. He'll also deliver 17 bales at a time for the same price. I'm going to get two loads from him on his second cutting and be done for the year.

I'm curious at what point does it make sense to buy and maintain the equipment to cut your own hay compared to buying it from somebody else?

 

[sweettractors]

Interesting thread. I have friends that have tried to have people come cut their hay in exchange for keeping some of it and they are always upset at the results. Either they didn't get enough hay, they guy who did it last year isn't interested in doing it again this year, or they can't find anybody to do it for them. I never heard the other side of it and all of a sudden, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Currently I have a guy selling me round bales for $40 each that is very nice that my horses really like. He'll also deliver 17 bales at a time for the same price. I'm going to get two loads from him on his second cutting and be done for the year.

I'm curious at what point does it make sense to buy and maintain the equipment to cut your own hay compared to buying it from somebody else?

What I hear more than anything is they do not want to depend on a 3rd party for hay. Also, when you produce your own hay, you have better control of quality. When hay square bales cost more than $3 and big rolls cost more than $30 would be my breaking point. Ken Sweet

 

[TheMan419]

I'm not sure where that point would be for me. Esp making small squares is a lot of manual labor. We have friends that do it. They are too far away to help with this project.... but I see how much they work to cut, bale and store the hay. They have 4 horses but produce much more hay than they use, so they sell a good bit.

Currently I am hopeful we can find someone to come do the hay for a cash payment. However, I would also hope they would do it at a discount due to the charitable nature of our organization.