What are the general terms and costs for leasing fields?

[Tx Jim]

sea2summit
If you're considering round baling some hay both equipment & liability insurance is good to have plus a ready to utilize fire extinguisher. To my knowledge all brands of rd balers are capable of catching on fire. I've seen many different brands sitting in salvage yard rusting with paint missing due to previous fire. In 30+ yrs custom baling I've had the misfortune several yrs ago of one rd baler burning after I had exhausted my water filled fire extinguisher.

 

[Hay Dude]

My general terms with my customers for hay farming are as follows:

I mow your field for free and in exchange for mowing, I keep all the hay.
I provide you with a copy of my property and casualty insurance and you give me reasonable access to your property.

Thats about it. Im not paying rent. If you dont like that, pay me or someone else $125/hr for bush hogging or buy $100,000 in equipment and see what it feels like.
Times have changed. The days of taking advantage of farmers selling hay for $3/bale or mowing your field for beer money are over.
We are tired of being a philanthropist for people with 10-100 times the money I have.

 

[JethroB]

My general terms with my customers for hay farming are as follows:

I mow your field for free and in exchange for mowing, I keep all the hay.
I provide you with a copy of my property and casualty insurance and you give me reasonable access to your property.

Thats about it. Im not paying rent. If you dont like that, pay me or someone else $125/hr for bush hogging or buy $100,000 in equipment and see what it feels like.
Times have changed. The days of taking advantage of farmers selling hay for $3/bale or mowing your field for beer money are over.
We are tired of being a philanthropist for people with 10-100 times the money I have.

My BIL has a similar arrangement with a small local hay guy for his 20-30 acres of good hay. He also mows around edges and fence lines to keep them clean. A friendly and give and take agreement.

 

[ovrszd]

I have 4 small fields totaling 6-7 acres of hay ground. I give it to my neighbor for cutting it. Win win.

 

[sea2summit]

My general terms with my customers for hay farming are as follows:

I mow your field for free and in exchange for mowing, I keep all the hay.
I provide you with a copy of my property and casualty insurance and you give me reasonable access to your property.

Thats about it. Im not paying rent. If you dont like that, pay me or someone else $125/hr for bush hogging or buy $100,000 in equipment and see what it feels like.
Times have changed. The days of taking advantage of farmers selling hay for $3/bale or mowing your field for beer money are over.
We are tired of being a philanthropist for people with 10-100 times the money I have.

More what I’m looking for. I’d be happy to put in a few extra tractor hours because I enjoy it the pay money...if it’s possible.

 

[Hay Dude]

I see some rent being paid for corn, beans, etc. but grass hay?
Seriously?
I had a local conservancy call me with 2 adjoining fields they wanted cut. They wanted one 35 acre field cut for hay and one 20 acre field cut with my 15’ rotary. The fella there says to me we will give you all the hay, but you would need to cut the back field for free. I said Ill cut your hay field free and youll pay me $750 to cut the back field (5 hours @ $150/hr, my standard hourly rate). He said he couldn’t pay any money. Click went the phone.
Next day he called me and took the deal.
Like I said, everyone thinks farmers are people you screw over.
Not this one.

 

[PROFarms]

My general terms with my customers for hay farming are as follows:

I mow your field for free and in exchange for mowing, I keep all the hay.
I provide you with a copy of my property and casualty insurance and you give me reasonable access to your property.

Thats about it. Im not paying rent. If you dont like that, pay me or someone else $125/hr for bush hogging or buy $100,000 in equipment and see what it feels like.
Times have changed. The days of taking advantage of farmers selling hay for $3/bale or mowing your field for beer money are over.
We are tired of being a philanthropist for people with 10-100 times the money I have.

Wish that was the case over here in the UK. My landowners the best deal I have is I do all the work and we split the bales 50/50. Most I have to pay around £60-£100/acre for silage ground which we take 3 cuts a year on. Makes winter forage around here expensive but that’s how it is here

 

[Hay Dude]

Wish that was the case over here in the UK. My landowners the best deal I have is I do all the work and we split the bales 50/50. Most I have to pay around £60-£100/acre for silage ground which we take 3 cuts a year on. Makes winter forage around here expensive but that’s how it is here

Open land probably more scarce?

 

[sea2summit]

So here's my first attempt at beer math for what it would cost for folks to poke holes in (already struggling with the baler, think that would have to be $6-8K for something that will be mostly reliable and operational).

Bit of an explanation:

-Two tractors are the top left blocks and I'm billing each .3 hr/bale with the intent that the cost per hour covers operating costs .
-Incidentals are twine/wrap/pins/whatever billed at $3 per hr.
-Hrs calculated by hr/bale times the target bales just as a baseline and really a random number I figured maybe I could hit...and hopefully sale/move.
-Fertilizer is billed at $50/acre and used the worst case 4 bale an acre, or 50 acres.
-Seed is $30/acre also using worst case.
-Breakeven number is the number of bales at that price into the total cost, it obviously would require more time and associated variable costs to achieve the breakeven number of bales so it would go up it's just a data point.

Everything else is pretty self explanatory I think, at the end of the day I'm losing money baling hay just at variable cost let alone trying to pay for the hay equipment but if I keep $2k or more in hay for myself that makes a difference.


It's fun ideas to mess with over lunch breaks if nothing else

 

[AKfish]

So here's my first attempt at beer math for what it would cost for folks to poke holes in (already struggling with the baler, think that would have to be $6-8K for something that will be mostly reliable and operational).

View attachment 677621

It's fun ideas to mess with over lunch breaks if nothing else

Like yourself and many others on this site - we all started down this road. Got critters to feed and been payin’ good money for sometimes lousy hay and drivin’ 100 miles round trip for half a trailer load ‘cause the field sold out!

First question to answer - what are your current livestock feeding expenses? You’ll save yourself most of those minus the operating costs of fuel, wrap/twine, repairs, etc. Not a total savings - but, likely significant.
Looking over your spreadsheet there were a couple of things that stood out: 1-baler. $4,000 is not much for any kind of round baler. You’ll probably be workin’ on that baler a lot more than balin’ hay! 2-cutter. $1,500 will get you into a decent sickle mower but not much more. They’re slow, will plug in heavy hay and require quite a bit of maintenance. IMO - look for a good, disc mower.
3-seeds. Typically, that is a one-time cost for a long term field depending upon what you’re growing. Figure to pro-rate that cost over several years, at least.
Starting out, pick the brains of the local growers and level that info with assistance from your area USDA folks. Between them, they can help you with those production variables that can be the difference between making money and losing your shirt. Good luck.