Custom Haying - Dealing With Large Orders?

[Negligence]

Hi folks, I'm new to the farming scene as of last year. I bought a thrower baler, haybine and rake to do some small squares for ourselves. I will be cutting/raking more hay that will be round baled by a neighbour for us, too. We've got 135 acres with about 90-100 I can cut.

I now have a customer who is interested in approximately 2,000 square bales delivered. This is a very large amount and I'm concerned about the logistics of handling this much. So I thought I'd ask for some seasoned advice.

I was planning on buying 2 hay wagons for our own hay, but I realized if I'm doing 2,000 bales, I will need at least 3 to 4, or more, otherwise my hay will be sitting on the field, unbaled. The problem is hay wagons around here run anywhere from $1800-2200 a piece. I can't imagine spending $8,000 in trailers.

Is there any way to handle this much hay, short of unloading and reloading trailers to delivery, or purchasing 4 + trailers to hold it?

What do other folks do? I thought of buying a stock trailer to transport the hay in (might be able to get 200-300 bales in it), but my 07' Ram 1500 can't tow that much weight... scratch that idea.

 

[zzvyb6]

From my experience, both from buying my own hay, on to making my own, you have a number of choices.

1) Don't do so much until you figure out how all the machinery works, where does help come from, who are your customers, what is the weather buffer like (time between rain storms) and just how strong is your will (and back).

2) Don't deliver it, make them come and get it. Charge a lot more for delivery. Who and how are you going to get to unload it at their place?

3) Store it on site at your barn. Most people couldn't possibly use 2000 bales all at once. Store it fresh, then haul it out 100 at a time on a good, small, safe trailer as they need it. Sure they will pay more but that's their problem, not yours. Find at least 4 - 6 customers who have flexible needs, maybe some with young adults who will help or you can pay to help in shares.

If you have not done this before, this is a lot of work even if everything goes perfectly: Good weather, mower doesn't hit something hidden, rake keeps all its teeth, baler doesn't STB, kicker doesn't launch the bales into orbit, wagon tires avoid all the rake teeth that fell off, and wheel bearings that stay working, you get the idea. Now imagine all the things that could go wrong and stack them up in time.

Do 10 - 20 acres and try it out. Other wise, have your buddy be prepared to finish the job with the round baler.

 

[Negligence]

Thanks, and good reply. I will be cutting and baling some strips of hay before the season starts so I can become familiar with how everything works.

I will not be unloading the hay -- I drop off the wagon and wait for them to clear it off. Otherwise it's $70/hr for me to help out.

I'm wondering if I should maybe avoid such a large job. I do have other customers who want smaller orders (under 500). Perhaps it would be wise to stick with a manageable size in the beginning? I'm not getting into haying to make money, only to cut my own, so I don't care about any (potential) profits just yet.

 

[Richard]

I will not be unloading the hay -- I drop off the wagon and wait for them to clear it off. Otherwise it's $70/hr for me to help out.

I don't know anything about hay jobs but this comment struck my chord...

I hope you don't mean that as literal as it may be, else you might be leaving them a storage wagon...

Hopefully, you mean you'd drop off the wagon & wait for them to unload it in the next 90 minutes (or what ever might be normal) before your $70/hour "waiting clock" starts to tick....

In other words, I'd make sure the burdon is on them to get it done and get it done NOW instead of having some excuse for it to sit there for 6 hours or 2 weeks.

Again, I presume you thought of that so pardon any negative vibes that comment might sound like...they're not intended. I don't know anything about hay jobs.

Well...one time I rolled around in the hay but that's for another thread...

 

[slowzuki]

2000 bales is not that crazy, I would however want to be paid partly in advance. With 2 wagons, hand stacking from the ground and loading a mow in a hay barn we used to do that in a day.

There are lots of ways to handle large numbers of bales, the multiple wagons are a good way when you have a thrower. If you removed your thrower there are easy trail wagons that can be dumped very quickly at the customers. There are also bale accumulators that make packs and you use a grapple to handle them.

Also there are New Holland Bale wagons that pick up the bales and stack them into a stack that comes off the wagon in one piece.

All of these options cost money!

 

[leftturn7m]

How close is the person wanting 2000 bales? Are they a couple of miles or 100?

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I have one customer who orders 2100 bales and they are priced to be stacked in their barn. I have a young lady who has been a great help to me over the last 4-5 years. She more or less can run my operation. Where she is the most helpful is finding help. For some reason young guys are more then happy to go stack hay when she ask them. I pay them all well and she runs the stacking operation so that everything is stacked properly and no one is slacking. The barn is 8 miles from my field so they usually get a little break between wagons which I don't mind. The faster they unload the wagon the longer their break.

I had 5 kicker wagons but the only wood kicker wagon I had blew over in a wind storm and now it is a flat wagon But we never used that one unless we really needed it. 4 wagons will work well and if you have good help you can get by with 3. I had my father baling while I shuttled wagons to the barn where we had 4 people (2 unloading, 2 stacking). I used the customers tractor to push the wagon to the back of their barn to unload and the stackers pushed it back out when it was empty and had it set so it was out of my way for the next wagon but in line for me to hook on and go out the drive.

This can work very smoothly if your baler doesn't break down and your help doesn't quit on you. One guy quits and the others are then short handed and wear out quick. So you need good equipment and good weather but most importantly good help.

And if you do leave your wagon for them to unload be prepared for a major headache. I let one of my customers take a wagon to unload early in the morning. They never brought it back to late at night. That was the only real problem I recall having. Most of my customers understand how this thing works and to keep the bales coming out of the baler I need my wagons back. I baled over 2500 bales one day (its all I had down at the time) and I only had to unload 140. The rest went to 3 different customers farms. I would have wagons going two directions at once, once one customers order was filled the wagons went to another customers. With everything working smoothly no one had to wait at all, as they showed up with the empty wagon there was a full one waiting for them (and this was the day the one guy stole my wagon for the whole day )

Haying can be a lot of fun when everything is going right. But if one thing doesn't cooperate then you are in for some headaches.

 

[frank_f15]

i also know nothing about haying but you would be well advised to heed ROBERT IN NY he does know about haying!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

i also know nothing about haying but you would be well advised to heed ROBERT IN NY he does know about haying!

I learn something new every day when it comes to haying but I gladly pass along the lessons I have learned along the way.

As for the OP and anyone else who is interested. Ohio State just published their average rates for various custom farm operations. This will give you an idea if you are charging similar to others or if you are too cheap or too expensive.

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioagmanager/news/documents/OhioFarmCustomRates2008.pdf

 

[RichZ]

If you've never hayed before, you may be moving a little too fast in taking an order that big. Haying is EXTREMELY time consuming, and is much more complicated than it appears. When you cut, you need to be sure that you have a 3 day window to rake and bale, not to mention to ted the hay if it needs it. You also need to know at what point of growth to cut the hay, which varies as to what kind of hay you're dealing with. Plus, you'll find out just how mechanical you are when you deal with a baler. I'm no mechanic, but I can do simple stuff. But adjusting the knotter and tension adjustemnts on a baler and kicker is NOT for the fainthearted.

I'm a livestock farmer, and I thought that I could save money by baling my own hay. I struck a deal with a neighboring farm, he provided the hay fields, I provided the equipment, and we shared the work. My neighbor quickly realized that it was more work than he wanted to do, and hiring more farm help than I already have, made the venture lose it's cost effectiveness.

So, my advice is to go into haying slowly. Also, around here in upstate New York, you can usually pick up decent wooden haywagons for reasonable prices.