Pay for someone to harvest hay

[txdon]

Opps, I re-checked with Dad and he gets 1/5 of the round bales not 1/3. But the baler fertilizes the coastal twice a year at no expense to Dad. However Dad cannot run his cattle on the hay patch.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

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?

You couldn't pay me enough to make hay for a living. But as a hobby...

Do you enjoy driving your tractor? Most of the time of haymaking is driving your tractor in circles around the field.

A lot of the stress of making hay comes from being dependent upon the weather, and working away from home. I find that working my own fields relieves a lot of that stress. If something breaks I have my tools and things at hand, I can probably fix it. I do small batches, if some hay gets ruined by rain, so be it.

I have about six and a half acres of hayfield. I spent about $3000 to buy old but working hay equipment. My first year I made enough hay to pay for the equipment. I figure it takes four passes through the field to do a batch of hay -- mow, tedder, rake and bale. I'm a hobbyist and my technique is poor, so I often rake and bale a second time after picking up the bales to get the stuff I missed on the first pass. I do batches of about 1-2 acres, and it takes me about an hour per acre for each pass, I'm an hobbyist after all. But it's something I can do between dinner and sundown.

Doing as little as I do, I haven't found the equipment needs a lot of maintenance. Do you have space to store all of the equipment and hay? If you can't keep your equipment in a barn, I'd say forget about it.

With square bales, the real work is in gathering them and putting them away. But I figure that when we were buying hay we would drive to someone else's place, unload hay from the barn, load it into the truck, drive home, unload the truck and load it into the barn. Gathering it from the field is the same amount of work, it's just compressed into less time. Plus it's a lot less driving.

 

[zzvyb6]

You couldn't pay me enough to make hay for a living. But as a hobby...

Do you enjoy driving your tractor? Most of the time of haymaking is driving your tractor in circles around the field.

A lot of the stress of making hay comes from being dependent upon the weather, and working away from home. I find that working my own fields relieves a lot of that stress. If something breaks I have my tools and things at hand, I can probably fix it. I do small batches, if some hay gets ruined by rain, so be it.

I have about six and a half acres of hayfield. I spent about $3000 to buy old but working hay equipment. My first year I made enough hay to pay for the equipment. I figure it takes four passes through the field to do a batch of hay -- mow, tedder, rake and bale. I'm a hobbyist and my technique is poor, so I often rake and bale a second time after picking up the bales to get the stuff I missed on the first pass. I do batches of about 1-2 acres, and it takes me about an hour per acre for each pass, I'm an hobbyist after all. But it's something I can do between dinner and sundown.

Doing as little as I do, I haven't found the equipment needs a lot of maintenance. Do you have space to store all of the equipment and hay? If you can't keep your equipment in a barn, I'd say forget about it.

With square bales, the real work is in gathering them and putting them away. But I figure that when we were buying hay we would drive to someone else's place, unload hay from the barn, load it into the truck, drive home, unload the truck and load it into the barn. Gathering it from the field is the same amount of work, it's just compressed into less time. Plus it's a lot less driving.

My story is just about the same: cost, fun, equipment and profitability. I use a NH stack wagon to pick up bales and drop them off at the barn. Most of my customers drive away with hay rather than it going up the elevator. They get a price break for this.

If you have a long term commitment to use this field, have your organization buy some cheap equipment and take advantage of your 'help'. They can be taught to run the machinery, maintain it and enjoy the process. You don't have to do all 40 acres, just enough to get enough hay for the horses and maybe some to sell. As long as the help can stay off their smartphones long enough to circle the chosen area a few times, you will come out a winner.

 

[SethWilliams]

Here in middle TN I pay $14 to a friend of mine per roll for a 5x4. Last year a different friend charged me $16 per roll for a 5x5. If they were to cut it on shares then they would typically take 2/3. A 5x4 typically sells for $25 and a 5x5 typically brings $30.