Putting up own hay vs contracting out

[dhawken]

I've seen a couple threads touching on this subject a bit, so apologies if this looks like a dupe thread or in the wrong place. The other info I've found around has been pretty definitive on the costs associated with the two options - it comes out pretty clearly in favour of trying to contract out most putting up of hay on the small sized acreage I'm working with, but I'm starting to have an internal debate over it, mostly due to quality of the contract work and not merely the money debate.

Some background - we've got anywhere from 3-6 horses depending on what's going on, pasture feed in the summer on 5 acres, and get hay put up on another 8-10 or so. My wife is the horse expert, I'm pretty much the muscle in the operation. I grew up on a cattle ranch, where my father would not allow a horse on the place after his childhood experiences, so that's the root of my lack of horse experience and possible aversion Anyways, my wife does not like to feed first cut to the horses, just feeding second (and 3 third when there is one). We've been contracting this out for about 6 years and we're on our 3rd guy. The first guy was pretty good, but only did big rounds. Depending on the situation, that may be ok but not always. So we switched to another guy who did squares, and this year switched to a new guy who also does squares.

Essentially it comes down to us feeling that we are always at the bottom of the list with these guys. This is probably one of the standard issues with contracting it out, and probably one I won't be able to change. Guys with their own hay to put up all make sure its put up first before coming down the road for ours. I guess I can't blame them, but we're paying them. We are always late and its really affecting our production. We haven't gotten a 3rd cutting in years, despite everyone else getting one. First gets done so late, pushing second to later, and then second gets done late too, making 3rd irrelevant. The guy last year cut our second finally, then went on vacation for a week and a half with it laying in the field. Ruined the entire run, and there was no 3rd after that. We switched again this year, and while first was ok, second was left until everything was dry and flowered out, so third is almost non-existent already. With the drought, we got 40 squares off second, so third is really going to matter.

I guess when you do the money analysis, having to buy some hay here and there is still less than getting into the business of doing it ourselves. Or perhaps we could structure a deal somehow to reduce this tendency to ignore our stuff? Maybe the guy puts up our first for free, then we'll pay some way higher rate per bale on second and third - some kind of incentive to not ditch us. I don't know - just getting pissed off I guess. If I was to get into it, it would be with a smaller tractor, probably sickle mower and rake and a small square baler. None of it would be new of course, so maintenance might be an issue. I guess there's no guarantee I'd get to everything on time, but so far we've been guaranteed to never get anything done on time it seems. Maybe I just need someone to talk me off the ledge!

Opinions welcome - let me know what everyone with the experience thinks...

 

[DJ54]

I make about 5 acres for myself, for my horses. It's older equipment, but it works fine. I use a mower-conditioner to cut. Makes the hay a little more palatable, and dries quicker. Also bought a basket tedder to help with the drying process. Sure don't want moldy hay with horses.

A sickle bar mower will work fine for starters. You can always upgrade along the way. I would suggest a tedder. I've seen several, what look to be decent square balers on Craigslist for less than $1000.00 around here this week. Biggest issue is labor. If you have plenty of help, not a problem.

I round bale most of mine, simply because of it is a 1 man operation around here. I store it inside, and the barn is pretty well large varmint proof, so opossums, and racoon's don't mess in the hay. I make a few squares to take horsecamping/trailriding too.

Since your wife isn't fond of feeding 1rst cutting, if it is decent hay, you can sell that, and help recoup some cost. I used to sell all of my first cutting, and would pay for the 2nd, and 3rd cutting expenses.

Just figure at least 5 years to break even on your equipment.

In years like this, I'm glad I make my own. A lot of 2nd, and 3rd advertised for $10-$13 for squares. In past years, I usually have 8-10 rounds left over. This year, I'm gald I had it to get through this drought. Been feeding hay since June.

 

[sdkubota]

I just contracted out or partnered on cutting my 10 acres of native grasses. The farmer gets 50% of the hay and offers me a price to buy my half at fair market value. He rolls 6' round bales. Mind you I have no use for the hay and don't even plan on cutting it every year but the volunteer trees and weeds were getting unmanageable and thought a cutting will put me back in the game. A sharing arrangement might make the people you hire more motivated to get 3 cuttings.

 

[dhawken]

That might be a better plan than what we were doing. We've tried a pseudo-sharing arrangement, given our desire to not use first cutting on the horses, wherein the contractor got first at a lower cost, and we get second and third at a lower cost. Course in hindsight, this is tantamount to paying your contractor before he does any work for you as it turned out - or worse, as the longer they left first grow, the more they got. I'm reading nefarious motives into what went on probably, but that's what happened. Perhaps we need to adjust a sharing thing a bit like you said.

 

[Gary Fowler]

You are lucky to get anyone to cut it. A couple years ago we had good rains and more grass than cows could eat so we looked for a guy to bale about a 15 acre plot. Most guys wouldnt even mess with small plots and had more acreage than they could cut but finally found one guy who charged $25 per bale and at that time you could buy it for $30. I wasnt worth the fertilizer it took to replace the lost nutrients for the difference in price we could have bought it cheaper and left our grass standing for winter grazing.

 

[aczlan]

What is the problem with first cut hay? We feed it to all of our animals (horses, llamas, goats and a cow) and they will take it over grazing most of the time. Do they prefer our second cut (lots of alfalfa and clover)? Yes, but variations in the weather and when it is cut can make first cut better than the later cuts.
On the other hand, I have had people come out who couldn't tell our first cut from other people's second cut.
If the horses are working (racing, pulling farm equipment, etc) I can see needing second cutting, but otherwise, first cutting should be fine for them.
We baled around 700 bales of good first cut this year and will probably get 200-300 bales of ok second cut as July was too dry and the grass didn't grow very much.

As for doing it yourself, we have ~35 acres with 3 hayfields on parts of it (perhaps 15 acres of hayfields) and we do all our own hay. We have a 9' NH mower conditioner, a 18' tedder, a rollbar rake, a baler and 2 haywagons. We need to add a wagon or two so give us some more storage space, but that works well for us.


Aaron Z

 

[hosspuller]

A lot depends on the location of your hay fields. 10 acres is hardly worth my effort, fuel & time to move equipment to. Unless your field is close to the operator's field that he can do yours while doing his, you will always be low on the priority. Weather is another big issue. It only allows a certain amount of hay to be cut, dried and baled at a time. Look at the situation from the operators POV. Unless money you're paying for your baling is more than the value of his crop, which is more important to HIM ?

 

[aczlan]

A lot depends on the location of your hay fields. 10 acres is hardly worth my effort, fuel & time to move equipment to. Unless your field is close to the operator's field that he can do yours while doing his, you will always be low on the priority. Weather is another big issue. It only allows a certain amount of hay to be cut, dried and baled at a time. Look at the situation from the operators POV. Unless money you're paying for your baling is more than the value of his crop, which is more important to HIM ?

Agree. We are a small operation, so we don't have as many issues with that, but small fields are a pain to work around.

Aaron Z

 

[MotorSeven]

I've seen a couple threads touching on this subject a bit, so apologies if this looks like a dupe thread or in the wrong place. The other info I've found around has been pretty definitive on the costs associated with the two options - it comes out pretty clearly in favour of trying to contract out most putting up of hay on the small sized acreage I'm working with, but I'm starting to have an internal debate over it, mostly due to quality of the contract work and not merely the money debate.

Some background - we've got anywhere from 3-6 horses depending on what's going on, pasture feed in the summer on 5 acres, and get hay put up on another 8-10 or so. My wife is the horse expert, I'm pretty much the muscle in the operation. I grew up on a cattle ranch, where my father would not allow a horse on the place after his childhood experiences, so that's the root of my lack of horse experience and possible aversion Anyways, my wife does not like to feed first cut to the horses, just feeding second (and 3 third when there is one). We've been contracting this out for about 6 years and we're on our 3rd guy. The first guy was pretty good, but only did big rounds. Depending on the situation, that may be ok but not always. So we switched to another guy who did squares, and this year switched to a new guy who also does squares.

Essentially it comes down to us feeling that we are always at the bottom of the list with these guys. This is probably one of the standard issues with contracting it out, and probably one I won't be able to change. Guys with their own hay to put up all make sure its put up first before coming down the road for ours. I guess I can't blame them, but we're paying them. We are always late and its really affecting our production. We haven't gotten a 3rd cutting in years, despite everyone else getting one. First gets done so late, pushing second to later, and then second gets done late too, making 3rd irrelevant. The guy last year cut our second finally, then went on vacation for a week and a half with it laying in the field. Ruined the entire run, and there was no 3rd after that. We switched again this year, and while first was ok, second was left until everything was dry and flowered out, so third is almost non-existent already. With the drought, we got 40 squares off second, so third is really going to matter.

I guess when you do the money analysis, having to buy some hay here and there is still less than getting into the business of doing it ourselves. Or perhaps we could structure a deal somehow to reduce this tendency to ignore our stuff? Maybe the guy puts up our first for free, then we'll pay some way higher rate per bale on second and third - some kind of incentive to not ditch us. I don't know - just getting pissed off I guess. If I was to get into it, it would be with a smaller tractor, probably sickle mower and rake and a small square baler. None of it would be new of course, so maintenance might be an issue. I guess there's no guarantee I'd get to everything on time, but so far we've been guaranteed to never get anything done on time it seems. Maybe I just need someone to talk me off the ledge!

Opinions welcome - let me know what everyone with the experience thinks...

Sounds like my old dilemma exactly. Here they cut on half, or now even a third(they keep 2/3). My fields can be cut 4 times in most years. For many years I struggled to get guys to come cut it and before we moved here I was giving it all away just to keep it mowed and still had trouble. The problem is that most farmers are cutting for cows, not horses. Cows eat just about anything, so they don't care if it's weedy, stalky seeded out etc. So for them the longer they let it go, the less work for them.

Well two years ago I had enough of watching my pastures go to weed & seed, so my neighbor and I went in the "hay business". We did some things right and some things wrong and here are my observations.

Your ok buying a used tedder and rake(not much big that can go wrong with it/easy to fix if it does break). We bought a brand new drum cutter($3500) and it is a pure pleasure to use, 6 blades cost $1.75 ea, are reversible and take 10 min to change out....a fantastic piece of machinery. Then came the baler, bought a used(20 years new) Hesston 530 4x4 baler for $2500. First year the pick-up shaft failed...$600 and 3 weeks waiting for parts, then 3 days crawling around under the baler in July...NOT FUN. Then this year it was an ongoing problem of bales halfway rolled, stopping in process, then us having to dump unroll and try again. I spent a few weeks reading researching the possible problem, but never figured it out, then the drive chain broke and we parked the dang thing. So for the rest of this season I found a local farmer to cut our hay.

The moral of the story is that if you buy used worn out junk your going to have high blood pressure and a short Irish temper very soon. I like doing my own hay, and there is a market if and ony if you have a place to store it out of the weather...no one wants hay that has sat out in the rain a few times. Next year I am going to bite the bullet and buy a brand new baler. I know I will never get my money out of it, but it will work for me instead of me having to work on it.

 

[dhawken]

A lot depends on the location of your hay fields. 10 acres is hardly worth my effort, fuel & time to move equipment to. Unless your field is close to the operator's field that he can do yours while doing his, you will always be low on the priority. Weather is another big issue. It only allows a certain amount of hay to be cut, dried and baled at a time. Look at the situation from the operators POV. Unless money you're paying for your baling is more than the value of his crop, which is more important to HIM ?

Closest guy was half mile up the road, farthest was 3 miles south. We made a point of making sure we were either on the way to other fields or surrounded by their land to avoid such issues. I am factoring in the weather in all my issues - I keep up on the forecast and know how that goes when it turns bad. I know it also always doesn't work out right, but it shouldn't always work out wrong either. The second guy for example cut ours down and went on vacation the next day last year. It rained pretty much the entire time he was gone, ruining the entire thing, but that's not a weather issue per se. It should never have been cut given the guy's schedule and the forecast.

I think I have a good perspective on the operators POV - I know where the priorities are and they're not matching mine, hence the thoughts to switch things up, either to doing it myself or an arrangement to make things more important to the operators.