Hay hauling

[CCOUGHRAN1]

It's that time of year again....

I spent two weekends hauling small squares out of the field in Gause, TX and brought them home to La Porte, TX ~ 150 miles.

Due to the location of one of my barns, I cannot get a 32' trailer to it, so I had a few loads on 20-24' trailers.

Also brought in 22 5x6 HEAVY rolls of first cut (had some thistle and rye grass) for the cattle.

Here's a pic of an 11 Bale load


You will have to excuse the poor loading job on this load, the bales were about 4" longer than they should have been, and gave the guys a hard time figuring out how to tie them in.

179 bales on the 20' BP, and a ton of feed in the bed.
270 bales on the 32' GN
In case you are wondering, No, I did not drive off with the fuel hose still in the tank I just had to make a pit stop and fuel up with the in bed tank.


This fella greeted us on our way into the hay field.


Another pasture critter





270 bales on 32' GN behind a 2009 Dodge 2500 4x4 auto...



Another 270 bales behind the 1999 Dodge 3500 4x4 5 spd


250 bales on a 32' behind the little Freightliner.


Also had 270 bales behind a 2012 Dodge 3500 4x4 megacab Longhorn, 96 bales behind a 2003 Dodge 3500 4x4, and 179 bales behind the 2009 Dodge 2500

Ended up with 1,514 squares over a period of 2 weekends.

An interesting side note.

On the final trip home, I was running the 1999 Dodge with 270 bales, and the Freightliner with a Cat/Allison had 250 bales, both pulling 32' Gn trailers.
Running 65 on the flats, I would drop to 55 on the hills and the Freightliner would drop to 35 on the hills. I sure like the looks of the Freight, but I was really surprised out how bad it did on the hills.

 

[bucktaker]

Dang..... I thought I had it bad when I hauled 1100 bales 6 miles to my customers barns. whats hay running in texas this year?

 

[CCOUGHRAN1]

I paid 4.00 for fertilized coastal and tifton 85 out of the field. It was a BIL type deal... I have seen plenty of 6.00 out of the field.

I am still feeding alfalfa that I had brought in last year, 3-string bales from Arizona @ $25.00 per bale for bales averaging 115#

Excellent quality 5x6 rolls I am paying $45.00 from my friend with the exotic ranch, while I paid $50.00 per roll for the 1st cut 5x6 rolls seen on the trailer in the first pic. We have had some rain here in Texas this year, but I still think it's too early to tell how the rest of the growing season will play out. Because of that, I have also agreed to buy a barn full of 5x5-1/2 rolls of last years hay at $25.00 per bale.

About 75 big rolls in the hay lot will help me sleep better at night...

 

[ME83]

I pay $3.50 a bale for nice hay out of the field (uncle deal); bales are 40-50 lbs. Most people want $4.00 but I have seen up to $6.00 a bale . I have a 16' dump trailer which I put 160 bales on and another 44 on the truck. At times I wish I had a bigger flatbed, the dump trailer is heavy. Been thinking about putting air bags on the trucks rear axle, it handles heavy loads fine but it could use a little help and it would be nice not to blind people at night with the headlights.

As a side note: My Ford V10 doesn't slow down on the hills, I keep it at 65-70 mph without pushing it hard at all. I also get 7-8 mpg .

 

[NHmitch]

I just hauled 250 bails to our two barns 10 miles apart. I payed 3.90 a bale for 50 lb Bales and made the decision not to buy a new trailer. I rented a uhaul bumper pull trailer because for $33 a day and abuse to their trailer, I couldn't go wrong. I have to do more this weekend, yay....

 

[bucktaker]

Here in Sw Ohio First cut small squares grass 3.00 out of the field. First cut Alf/orchard grass is 3.50 and up Second cut is being taken in now and its not looking like much yield so the price might go way up. We need rain bad

 

[Diamondpilot]

Here in Sw Ohio First cut small squares grass 3.00 out of the field. First cut Alf/orchard grass is 3.50 and up Second cut is being taken in now and its not looking like much yield so the price might go way up. We need rain bad

We are in the same price range here. We have not had rain in about 30 days and they cut the seconds around me earlier this week. Its been raked but not baled but I can not imagine the yield will be that good.

Chris

 

[Soundguy]

6-7$ for square bales here and 70-80 for rounders..

 

[DJ54]

Thought I'd post this picture from days gone by. The year was 1971, and that's 215 bales of hay on our home built 20' BP trailer, built in '69. Being pulled with Dad's '69 3/4 Dodge Camper Special. Had the big block 318, manual 4 spd., w/ 4.10 gear, and thought he really had something...

What I would give, to let him pull that with my Cummins Dually...

I still have the trailer, and still has the original bed on it. Let's see what y'alls trailers look like, 43 years from now..., LOL...

 

[CCOUGHRAN1]

DJ54,

I would hate to be the guy throwing and stacking the last bales on that load. Makes my back hurt just thinking about it.


Pretty neat that the trailer is still in use 43 years later... We still pull a 1973 Hanover 22' stock trailer on a regular basis. Up until about to months ago, it was used by my friend daily. Since then, we have converted it to a 1/2 top catch trailer.