sweettractors
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A new 4 wheel hay rake and a used sickle bar mower and a used NH 68 square baler for Under $5000 is something we can do. Ken Sweet
What equipment for small scale hay?
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A new 4 wheel hay rake and a used sickle bar mower and a used NH 68 square baler for Under $5000 is something we can do. Ken Sweet
dmay
Gold Member
How many goats? Why not simply put a fence around your 3 acres and send the goats in. They will be sure to "use" it and a lot cheaper then buying equipment to cut and bale hay, and no tractor time required. :laughing:
Do you have a loader on your tractor? There is no way that acreage will justify a baler but it wouldnt take much to fashion a hay fork for your bucket and an old hay rake can generally be found for less than $200. You probably already have a wagon of some type. For $200 - $250 in equipment cost, you could get a good ammount of loose hay up there in your barn. Having that hay in the winter is real nice for your goats. They dont forage so well thru the snow. As long as your loft is big enough, I dont see any trouble with loose hay.
I do have a loader on my tractor. I currently have the following:
Tractor
Loader
Backhoe
Pallet Forks
Chains
I do not actually have a wagon just yet...but my fields are right around my barn so I can make do while I shop around.
With your suggestion I would be looking for the following:
Sickle Bar Mower
Hay Rake
Hay Forks
Anything else?
As you can see, I am quite a newb.
ac
smstonypoint
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For loose stored hay, sickle bar mower, rake, and make a set of hay forks for the loader.
Cut, windrow and pick up windrows with hay fork and store ??? depending on climate??
Out of idle curiosity and boredom (I'm waiting for a medical appointment), I did some seat-of-the pants calculations as to how much storage space the OP would need if he chose to go the loose hay route and wanted to store the hay inside.
According to NASS, the average hay yield (excluding alfalfa) in NJ in 2010 was 1.70 tons/acre. http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_Jersey/Publications/Current_News_Release/Press%20Release2010%20Crops.pdf So, if the OP obtained that average yield on 2.5 acres, he would have to store 4.25 tons/year.
Assuming dimensions of 14"*16"*36", a square bale has a volume of 5.25 cubic feet. Assuming 50 pounds per bale, the OP would require 892.5 cubic feet to store square bales or 4462.5 cubic feet to store loose hay.
As I said, I'm bored.
Steve
You are going to want to skip the sickle-bar mower and get yourself a 5 or 6 ft, light-duty rotary mower instead, such as a Bush Hog squealer. That will also be a much better tool for pasture maintenence and be far less troublesome. With it, you could cut 2-3 acres for 50 years or so with no maintenence at all. A decent, used 5 footer can be had for $400 - $500. I would set up some type of rotation where you pasture the goats on an acre, keep one acre mowed but not harvested, and harvest another acre for hay. That way you will be able to maintain good hay for many years without adding fertilizer. If you harvest the hay every year from the same section, it will degrade in quality and tonnage.
My family raised beef since before the Civil war on this farm but I gave that up in the 80's due primarily to an exploding population of free-range whitetail deer. The hay, particularly the small square bales is something I dont miss at all. The venison is better for you and better tasting than the beef. When and if this gravy train ends, I too am thinking of goats and loose hay. Somewhere I heard that goat is the most popular meat on earth, although I have never tried it myself. The best part of the whitetails however, is there is no need to worry about them in the winter, and no need to harvest the hay, they handle those tasks all by themselves.
My family raised beef since before the Civil war on this farm but I gave that up in the 80's due primarily to an exploding population of free-range whitetail deer. The hay, particularly the small square bales is something I dont miss at all. The venison is better for you and better tasting than the beef. When and if this gravy train ends, I too am thinking of goats and loose hay. Somewhere I heard that goat is the most popular meat on earth, although I have never tried it myself. The best part of the whitetails however, is there is no need to worry about them in the winter, and no need to harvest the hay, they handle those tasks all by themselves.
sweettractors
Advertiser
I would not skip a sickle bar mower Unless you love to weedeat. Sickle bar mowers are more versatile on the acreage you have. You can mow your hay, trim under your fences, trip around and over the pond and mow along your steep road banks and drop offs. A brush hog cannot do any of that "well". They are good for rougher material cutting and open field clipping. Ken Sweet
rankrank1
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Unless you get really lucky then custom hay operators will not even bother fooling with you unless they just happen to live in close proximity to you. Heck in my area, most custom operators will not return your calls unless you have more than 10 acres.
2-3 acres is simply not worth the investment of transporting equipment to your location even if you offered to give them 100% of the hay. On most small parcels that a custom operator will bother with even fooling with they will want ast least 2/3 of the hay and leave you 1/3, but 3/4 to 1/4 is even more likely on your small acreage if you get lucky. If you insist on a 50 50 split then I can guarantee that you will get zero calls - a 50 to 50 split is sorta the standard for large acreage though.
Since it sounds like you want to use the hay for yourself, then explore putting up the hay loose. Yes it does take up more room to store loose hay in a barn , but it has been done that way for centuries. Balers are only a product of the last 75 years or so and really only necessary if you intend to sell hay. Eliminating the baler saves considerable expense - and headaches.
In all practicality 2 to 3 acres could be done with a hand scythe for cutting, some type of $150 dollar antique steel wheel hay rake, and a pitchfork using either a pick-up truck or a flatbead trailer to transport the hay. If you have a bushog or rotary cutter then use that instead of the hand scythe to cut with. Since you have a loader for the tractor it would also be easy to build a hay loader to eliminate the pitchfork - again videos are on youtube. You can even turn the hay by hand too with a hand rake -videos on youtube on how to do it. Heck if you have no barn space to store the loose hay then it is also possible to shock the hay for outside storage which has been done for centuries too. Shocked hay stores outside very similar to how round bales can be stored outside. Goats are not picky like horses are so there are no mold type worries with them in regards to hay stored outside.
That said I hay with a 26 PTO horsepower Kubota L285 tractor, using a bushog to cut (yes bushog leaves 30% or more behind in the field in yield loss but as mentioned in other posts a bushog requires almost zero maintenance and is useful for other jobs too), two antique John Deere hay rakes on steel that I have refurb'd, and a small vintage New Holland 65 compact baler. I sell my hay, but I have yet to turn an actual profit as haying on small acreage is simply not profitable and I have a very minimal investment in all my equipment - less than scrap iron value of each piece (excluding tractor which I already had just like you do).
I am doing 4-6 acres or so every year and have yet to turn a profit, but it can be fun if like to tinker with old worn out junk. If you do NOT like to tinker with worn out junk then do not pursue a full lineup of haying equipment as even using minimal cost junk is not cost effective on really small acreage, but it can be fun as a hobby if profit is not an utmost consideration. Pics of my hobby operation have been posted on this site before if you care to search. Last words I will leave you with is to just remember that there is no easy money in hay. Lots of newbies think that it is as simple as sitting on the tractor, but there is much more time and expense involved than that - not to mention physical labor.
2-3 acres is simply not worth the investment of transporting equipment to your location even if you offered to give them 100% of the hay. On most small parcels that a custom operator will bother with even fooling with they will want ast least 2/3 of the hay and leave you 1/3, but 3/4 to 1/4 is even more likely on your small acreage if you get lucky. If you insist on a 50 50 split then I can guarantee that you will get zero calls - a 50 to 50 split is sorta the standard for large acreage though.
Since it sounds like you want to use the hay for yourself, then explore putting up the hay loose. Yes it does take up more room to store loose hay in a barn , but it has been done that way for centuries. Balers are only a product of the last 75 years or so and really only necessary if you intend to sell hay. Eliminating the baler saves considerable expense - and headaches.
In all practicality 2 to 3 acres could be done with a hand scythe for cutting, some type of $150 dollar antique steel wheel hay rake, and a pitchfork using either a pick-up truck or a flatbead trailer to transport the hay. If you have a bushog or rotary cutter then use that instead of the hand scythe to cut with. Since you have a loader for the tractor it would also be easy to build a hay loader to eliminate the pitchfork - again videos are on youtube. You can even turn the hay by hand too with a hand rake -videos on youtube on how to do it. Heck if you have no barn space to store the loose hay then it is also possible to shock the hay for outside storage which has been done for centuries too. Shocked hay stores outside very similar to how round bales can be stored outside. Goats are not picky like horses are so there are no mold type worries with them in regards to hay stored outside.
That said I hay with a 26 PTO horsepower Kubota L285 tractor, using a bushog to cut (yes bushog leaves 30% or more behind in the field in yield loss but as mentioned in other posts a bushog requires almost zero maintenance and is useful for other jobs too), two antique John Deere hay rakes on steel that I have refurb'd, and a small vintage New Holland 65 compact baler. I sell my hay, but I have yet to turn an actual profit as haying on small acreage is simply not profitable and I have a very minimal investment in all my equipment - less than scrap iron value of each piece (excluding tractor which I already had just like you do).
I am doing 4-6 acres or so every year and have yet to turn a profit, but it can be fun if like to tinker with old worn out junk. If you do NOT like to tinker with worn out junk then do not pursue a full lineup of haying equipment as even using minimal cost junk is not cost effective on really small acreage, but it can be fun as a hobby if profit is not an utmost consideration. Pics of my hobby operation have been posted on this site before if you care to search. Last words I will leave you with is to just remember that there is no easy money in hay. Lots of newbies think that it is as simple as sitting on the tractor, but there is much more time and expense involved than that - not to mention physical labor.
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sweettractors
Advertiser
I shipped a sickle mower, 4 wheel rake and a square baler to New Mexico from Ky. The Gentleman had 7 acres of hay, total. The way he explained his situation to me, was that the big farmer neighbors would not give him the time of day because his hay field was not big enough for them to mess with. His thinking was that he was retired, wanted to be self reliant/independent and he had financial resources to do so. Some people just don't feel right begging the neighbors for a favor. Ken Sweet