Custom Hay Baling

[ddivinia]

What are people paying for cut, rake and round bale? I am in the Dallas, Texas area and i am paying $20 a bale. We rolled up 133 bales this year. We sprigged 100 acres this year - pretty happy to get anything. Who knows how many we will get next year.

Thanks,
D.

 

[JESSE1]

What size rolls did they make? With the price of fuel and equipment $20 is probably the going rate. Seems like 4x6 is the most common since it's easier to haul. I have a JD 535 that makes a 5x6 roll. I usually just bale my own land but since the hay shortage I've gone in halves on some other pastures and have to haul it back to my place.

 

[Bird]

Time sure passes fast as you get older. It's been about 10 years now since I was working for a neighbor doing custom hay baling. He had an old Oliver tractor, a couple of old Farmalls, an old side delivery hay rake, and a brand new Gehl 9' haybine and new Gehl round baler. Most of our baling was 5 x 5 bales, although we did just a few 5 x 6 (too heavy to suit most folks). Back in the late '90s, he was charging $12.50 a bale for 5 x 5; a dollar a bale more for 5 x 6, and another dollar a bale if we moved the bales and lined them up at the edge of the field instead of leaving them where they fell. And I think he lost money at that. We were 60 miles south of Dallas. So I'd guess $20 now isn't bad.

 

[FL4400]

We have a guy buying up all the the round rolls we can get up, he is paying $10 per foot. He mostly wants 4 x 4 for $40.00 a roll if we keep them in the barn before pick up he will pay $50.00.

 

[ddivinia]

4 * 5 bales -> $20 They are easier to manage. Some of those bales get pretty big and heavy in a hurry.

 

[ddivinia]

I am trying to determine at what point do I buy my own equipment. Time of course is a factor. Is it 500 bales? $10K for baling expenses adds up in a hurry. With a cab tractor, the work isn't too bad. I might be getting 500+ bales off my pastures. Any advice?

D.

 

[hudr]

We paid 17 per 5x6 bale this year. ddvinia, that is a hard call on when to buy your own equipment. Dad and I tried several years ago and we eventually went back to hiring it out. There are just not enough hours in the day. Also, think about this; we had plenty of H2O this year and lots of hay. But think about going through the last several years of drought, not having much hay to cut, and still making the payments on all that high dollar equipment w/ no income to offset. Not to mention in a good year you will end up spending a lot of time and $$ chasing parts. I have yet to see a baler that didn't need a lot of bearings thrown at it from time to time.

 

[JESSE1]

If you buy new equipment, roughly expect to pay around $25-30,000 for a John Deere baler. A Kuhn disc mower will run around $7000, a good rake will run close to that. A cab tractor is almost a must for running a round baler. Naturally the more hay you can bale the more you can justify your own equipment. At the very least you have the tax write-off. Even if you don't bale a lot you can decide when you want to bale and not have to get in line for a custom operator. The equipment lasts a long time if properly cared for.

 

[ddivinia]

All good info guys. I have a 5525 cab now and a 4720 open station on the tractor front. I wil have to keep running the numbers, but it seems like I am on the hook or $40K or so in a cutter, rake, and baler. The gear would last forever. I would probably buy new or like new just to limit the headaches. Until I am paying a lot of money out for custom baling, I am going to hold off.

Not sure how big a baler I would buy. 468? 458?

D.

 

[HayDR]

What are people paying for cut, rake and round bale? I am in the Dallas, Texas area and i am paying $20 a bale. We rolled up 133 bales this year. We sprigged 100 acres this year - pretty happy to get anything. Who knows how many we will get next year.

Thanks,
D.

You can purchase a new rake, mower and round baler all for $20,000 or less. A good quality used round baler can be purchased for $4,000 and up.

This stuff about having to have $50k-60k invested to make hay is a joke. We harvest 800 acres of hay twice a year with 3000 Ford- raking and tedding, JD2355 & 2755- mowing, tedding, raking and baling, JD2940-mowing & baling, McCormick C70 mowing, raking, and baling. All you need is a 50 PTO HP tractor and you can do everything. It can be done with a 40 HP tractor but the 50 PTO HP tractor works a little faster.

 

[ddivinia]

All new gear for under $20K? Really?

Tell me more,
D.

 

[HayDR]

All new gear for under $20K? Really?

Tell me more,
D.

Yes, Here are some prices of new equipment.

1. Vermeer 5410 baler- $14,500
2. HayMaxx 205 disc mower- $4,700
3. MayMaxx 190 drum mower- $ 2,900
4. HayMaxx 4 wheel Rake- $600
5. Sitrex 10' tedder- $1,500
6. Sitrex 17" Hydraulic Fold - $3,600

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

D,
What did you sprig it with? If you have horse quality hay, I think horse folk prefer smaller bales (some like only squares). While ranchers prefer big bales for cattle.

My neighbor just bought all new equipment and I know he spent about $40 K.
He bought a big Vermeer round baler with net wrap that was $29000. He said the Deere big model was almost $35K. He also bought a high end Kuhn cutter and a wheel rake that was about $7K and $3K respectively. He wants $29 to netwrap a bale 5 X 6. This is the highest I've heard of but my fields have lots of oak trees and so he has to drive like a Ferrari. I worked another deal with him where he cuts, wraps and bales and keeps half the hay after I bought the fertilizer.

He says the net wrap costs him $2.00 per bale alone. Another buddy says the netwrap is good unless you leave the hay sitting too long and it will easily tear due to age. He charges about $22 for large open fields with standard twine 5' X 5.5'

Conditions of your soil and rain will determine your bales per acre or acres per bale. The fertilizer bill will kill your profits if you have a bad year.

 

[Bird]

says the net wrap costs him $2.00 per bale alone

I wouldn't doubt that since I knew a couple of guys in the business 10 years ago who figured it cost about a dollar a bale more than twine, and that didn't count the extra cost of the baler equipped to handle twine.

 

[HayDR]

I wouldn't doubt that since I knew a couple of guys in the business 10 years ago who figured it cost about a dollar a bale more than twine, and that didn't count the extra cost of the baler equipped to handle twine.

The only 2 advantages of net wrap are:

1. Faster tying time with net than with twine- This means that you can bale more bales per hour with net over twine.
2. Net-wrap does hold the hay together better that twine- Hay stored outside on the ground and exposed to the weather will spoil more from the ground up than from the top down. You have the same spoilage rate with net and twine from the top down. It takes time to cut the net off the bales when feeding bales. You set the bale out with sisal twine.

Remember that over 50% of all the cattle are owned by part-time farmers and taking extra time out in the cold, cutting the net off a bale is a definite negative.

 

[ddivinia]

D,
What did you sprig it with? If you have horse quality hay, I think horse folk prefer smaller bales (some like only squares). While ranchers prefer big bales for cattle.
------

Coastal Brermuda

I need hay for my cows - 4 * 5 rolls.

In regards to tonnage - small square bales for the horse people is the way to go. Lots of labor and storage required. Of course I could do both round and squares.




My neighbor just bought all new equipment and I know he spent about $40 K.
He bought a big Vermeer round baler with net wrap that was $29000. He said the Deere big model was almost $35K. He also bought a high end Kuhn cutter and a wheel rake that was about $7K and $3K respectively. He wants $29 to netwrap a bale 5 X 6. This is the highest I've heard of but my fields have lots of oak trees and so he has to drive like a Ferrari. I worked another deal with him where he cuts, wraps and bales and keeps half the hay after I bought the fertilizer.
----

A new JD 468 is $28K
Cutter is around $7500
Cutter dolley $2550
Rake $3000


He says the net wrap costs him $2.00 per bale alone. Another buddy says the netwrap is good unless you leave the hay sitting too long and it will easily tear due to age. He charges about $22 for large open fields with standard twine 5' X 5.5'
-----
5 foot wide bales are harder to sell here - hard to transport. The cops bust ya pretty quick. You need special permits for a 10' wide load, etc.



Conditions of your soil and rain will determine your bales per acre or acres per bale. The fertilizer bill will kill your profits if you have a bad year.

There is a lot to this hay stuff. I am still sorting thru it.

One interesting note: Wrap is much quicker than twine. Some of these guys down here can crank out 60-75 bales an hour.

D.

 

[JESSE1]

If you're baling commercially net wrap might be the way to go, just from the speed advantage. If you're doing your own hay, twine might do as well.

 

[Bird]

If you're baling commercially net wrap might be the way to go, just from the speed advantage. If you're doing your own hay, twine might do as well.

When I was working with my neighbor baling hay, he mentioned on more than one occasion regretting the fact that he did not get the baler equipped to handle the net wrap. We did learn (from talking to others, but mostly from trial and error) that there are some huge differences in the different twines.

Now the neighbor who used the net wrap was full time in the hay business; 3 air-conditioned John Deere tractors, John Deere baler, a couple of rakes, tedder, his own 18-wheeler for delivering the hay, etc. He also used a baler that made 4' wide bales simiply because the flat bed trailer on his 18-wheeler was 8' wide. And of course, he was mostly selling hay to dairies by the ton instead of by the bale or roll.

 

[HayDR]

Just remember there are economies of scale in farming. If you are harvesting hay for 20-40 head of cattle do you need to have a $100k worth of equipment investment? No. Cab tractors are nice but not necessary. You do not need 100 HP tractors to bale hay. If you are baling thousands of round bales of hay a year then you need all the comforts you can afford. Getting back to reality most of the horse owner's and cattle producers own less than 100 acres. They just need equipment sized and priced to meet their needs. Bigger is not always better. If a mower that has the capacity of 7 acres per is sufficient then why do some say you must have one that will cut 10 acres per hour. You have 20 acres of hay and that 30% more capacity cost you and additional $50K and you save 1 hour of cutting time. Remember you the consumer do have a choice, smaller equipment does exist that will work fine and produce the same results as the larger equipment.

 

[LoneCowboy]

hay equipment breaks
all the time
It also takes time to bale, not just investing in all the equipment.
Diesel is about $3/gallon.
For a $20 a big round bale and someone else takes ALL the risk.
Shoot, let them at it.