complete machine system for one man small hay bales

[zzvyb6]

I am not exactly sure this is what the article refers to, but I have a mow elevator with 3 stations on it. Each station has guide bars which can divert hay bales to the left or right, depending on which diverter bar is swung into position. The guide bars can be controlled by ropes from below. This elevator is a tradition pipe type transporter with these stations inserted every 20 feet or so. The elevator is usually mounted horizontally and feed from the ground level by a conventional elevator, either pipe or grain style. With the dump station designated by a swing bar, the hay bales are shunted off the main line off to the side making piles. When so many bales are dumped, or the pile gets to a certain height, you pull a cord to close the shunt and open another one. You also have the end of the mow elevator avalable for making a pile.

Given a welder and some square or round tubing, you could easily make up a few of these diverter stations.

Its not a computer controlled inventory management system if thats what you were thinking about, but is does work for a one man hay loading task. I keep this elevator at elbow height so that I can unload the barn too. Just reverse the motor and the bales are easily transported out to customers and my delivery trailer. Customers like this system very much because its easy to work with, it means lifting a bale at a time, not carrying it, can be operated with more than one person putting bales on it. and minimizes danger to the person supervising below (they can see the bales coming along from below instead of a surprize hit on the head and messing up their hair).

 

[terence]

Do you have pictures of your system? What key words should I search to buy this type of elevator system? Thank you so much.

 

[Briana03]

Hello & WELCOME to TractorByNet.com!

I have moved your thread to the Ag Tractor & Machinery Forum. You'll get a better response there.

 

[Barry Bowen]

Terence,

you are embarking on a huge potential project. From where you are standing, the pit falls may way out weigh the rewards. I have been in the hay business for years, and I can assure you it is NOT as simple as it looks. To make good hay is extremely labor intensive. There are no short cuts to good quality. You need to know as much about your soil,and plants as you do about your equipment and how to use it.

What kind of grass fields are these and where are you located? Did you know that pregnant mares cannot tolerate fescue with endophyts? It can cause spontaneous abortions and well as still births, and no one will insure you against this. What would you market be? Cattle pay cheap, small horse people who have them as pets tend to pay much better but require much much better quality then cattle. If you are dealing with orchard grass or most meadow grasses, if first cutting gives 2 ton to the acre, second cutting will be about 1/2 ton per acre. First cutting is where seed production takes places, and all later cutting are just vegetative leaf. Leaf is higher nutrition, but lower volume.

You may want to consider working for some one in the hay business for a while to learn it at their expense. Other suggestion, renegotiate rent to be a percentage of sale price, say around 15% or so. Far more equitable. I pay percentages here in MD, and my rents range from 60-110 per acre. This is a very fair price for my area anyway. What is the current tenant selling the hay for cattle or horses? Cow hay will bring under 100 a ton, and horse hay will bring much more. 1200 pound bale, 100 a ton, 15%= $9 per bale, and that is very fair or even low.

Some times the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a big one. Do not take loans. If you cannot do this out of pocket, do not do it. It took me years to get my equipment together, but it is all paid for. (3 tractors, 2 square balers, 1 round baler, 3 rakes, 2 tedders, 4 elevators, discbine, and 13 wagons just for starters wait till you see what they cost to maintain.) More expensive equipment is not usually any better. I have seen 4 year old balers ready for the scrap heap, and 40 year old ones well cared for, like mine, produce thousands of bales per year. It will mater what you can do to work on your equipment more than what you pay for it. I could go on for ever, but may be you need to sit down and wait for this feeling of want to make hay to go away? If not, come on in the water is warm and all are welcome to sink or swim.

 

[DAY]

"you are embarking on a huge potential project"-Barry Bowen

Listen to the man! A quarter of an acre in tomatoes- you can sell them beside the road and make a few bucks. 250 acres of tomatoes, and you need a contract with Heinz- and migrant housing!

Same with the hay. Do you own the land? Where is it? Why hay? You can make more dollars per acre with corn or beans.

It sounds like you are not a farmer. If so, asking about machinery is like asking about what type of equipment should I buy to open a dentist office.

 

[flusher]

I bought a John Deere 7130 at an auction this winter so I need to gather the balance of the equipment. The math for 2 tons or 80 - 50# bales an acre times 250 acres times a modest $3 a bale = $60,000 for each cutting with hopefully two or three cuttings per year.
Is this sober thinking?

How much do the large squares bales sell for in your area? Perhaps this is a more efficient approach?
Thank you.

That's a nice tractor. I assume that you're harvesting the native grasses only (no planting, just fertilizing and overseeding).
I suppose that to go haying on 250 acres, you'd need a some type of large grass seeder/fertilizer spreader (Brillion, grain drill with grass seeding attachment, no-till drill?), a large (10ft wide) mower/conditioner, rotary rake, tedder, baler, bale stacker.

One of my neighbor farms about 200 acres of hay (oats, beardless wheat, etc). He uses a Steiger Super Wildcat (about 170 hp) to pull a 15-ft wide offset disc for primary tillage (no moldboard plowing needed), a large Landpride seeder with seed and fertilizer boxes pulled by a 70hp Kubota tractor, a NH self-propelled swather with 15-ft wide pickup, a NH 3-twine baler pulled by the Kubota, a NH self-propelled bale stacker. He has a full time job so haying is something for evenings and weekends. So he's gathered an assortment of used, large size equipment since he needs to get the work done quickly.

 

[AKfish]

I've been working my way to a "fortune" in the hay business for a few year's now... It's really a "bass ackwards" way of money management and investment strategy!

Of course, one of the worst things you can do is - "count all your hay" - before it's in the barn! Makes you all goofy and likely to go out and buy a new tractor or disc mower or big baler or well... any and all of the aforementioned!

Nonetheless, if I recall from my farm days back in SD - the yield generally declines with each successive cutting. You're not likely to get the same ton/acre harvest with either the 2nd or 3rd cutting as you did with the 1st. However, the quality is generally higher and that can tend to offset the lower yield - in your revenue picture. (That's why folk's will typically want to buy 2nd cutting hay instead of 1st cut hay.)

Best of luck.

AKfish

 

[DAY]

"Hay" is a nebulous term, and can mean many things. Timothy, orchard grass, alfalfa, and clover can all become hay, and different qualities at that.

Here in the Reading PA area a lot of hay goes to the mushroom houses, and they don't much care if it was rained on, is moldy, or otherwise unfit for livestock feed. At the end of the spectrum is prime alfalfa hay that looks and smelsl good enough for me to eat!

Hay is just pasture grass in a different form, preserved for winter use. Many farmers in areas where land prices are too high to pasture their animals will cut green chop daily and put it in a feed lot. Or put it in a silo as haylage.

As someone else said there are different markets for different types of hay- horses, dairy, beef, sheep, etc. If you are going to SELL your hay, you need to know the market(s) for your product, what the going rate is, and who is your competition.
And that does not have to be just local. In times of drought or flood hay prices can be high enough to pay for delivery three states away. In blizzard conditions it is dropped from aircraft to stranded cattle- talk about a high transportation price!

 

[riptides]

And don't forget about the droughts. The weather patterns in my area over the last five years have given me one good cutting a year off MY property.

My first year I had three, and thought I was set for life.

 

[Grateful11]

We looked long and hard at this system for square bales but decided round bales was the way to go for us. The bales still have find their way into the barn and labor is too hard to find. We have a gas powered elevator but you still need hired hands, round bales can be a one man operation if done right. When we looked at it at a farm show 2 years they had a satisfaction guarantee, not sure if they still have that or not.

Kuhns Mfg Hay Accumulators