The difference is there is a robust market for used hay equipment for 4-wheel tractors. I bought a 50-year-old Deere baler for $900, when I'm done with it I will sell it for $900 and some other fool can fiddle with it for a while. There are millions of those old balers out there, they're easy to buy and easy to sell. Two-wheel stuff is hard to find and hard to sell.
There are only two business models that make sense for haying: the first is to invest in new equipment, and run it continuously for the entire haying season. New equipment is so expensive that you have to make lots and lots of hay to justify the capital outlay, hay is a low-value commodity. The other model is to use old, cheap equipment to make hay on your own property for your own needs. You don't have to pay for transportation and you have so little invested in the equipment that your only inputs are fuel, twine and your own labor. If the equipment breaks down and you lose some hay it's no big deal, because you have so little in it in the first place.
You're not going to get rich with either model. Hay is a low-value commodity. Around here a good cutting might yield 5,000 pounds per acre, and a generous price would be ten cents a pound. So for $500/acre you have to mow, tedder, rake, bale, gather, haul and store that hay. Plus the costs of whatever amendments you choose to put on the field. The new equipment is much more productive than the older stuff, so you need less labor, but more capital-intensive so it evens out.
With a 2-wheeler you get the worst of both worlds: low productivity and high equipment cost. From an economic standpoint it's never going to pencil out. However, life isn't just about economics. If you enjoy spending time in your field, feeling productive and independent, go for it. I've never believed you should tell other people what they should want.
This is all true, but have you priced haying equipment for a 4 wheel tractor?
When I did my classes on sheep farming, I showed where a 2 wheel tractor was $9,0000 for new haying equipment, and using a dealers haymaker bundle deal, it was $27,000 for new haying equipment for the 4 wheel tractor. Sure you can buy used haying equipment, but that is not comparing apples to apples.
At a fair a dealership had a USED baler and were proud of its cheap $14,000 price tag! That is a steal, the same thing new was $44,000.
I break everything down by lamb costs, so assuming a $100 profit per lamb, I would have to raise 90 lambs to pay for the 2 wheel tractor haying equipment, and 270 lambs for the 4 wheel tractor before even beginning to make a profit. That is a lot of extra lambs for getting the exact same thing: hay.
To make it easier though, I would buy a sulky and save myself a lot of walking. That is always the limiting factor with my BSC; it actually accomplishes a lot of work, I just get tired from all the walking. But a sulky is cheaper than buying 4 wheel haying equipment.
You are right of course, but I found what you said to be true of any farming operation, not just hay.
One way I found a farmer can get ahead is to build your own equipment, and think outside the box.
For me, I hay on the shares, which is, a guy with haying equipment comes in and hays my fields, and I get half of the hay. I would rather do it myself, BUT I cannot beat the price. I get hay for free basically. And that would work for anyone, as long as they have twice as many acres as they need.
But if I had to put up my own feed, I would never go with hay. I have sheep, and they thrive on silage. The average person also has the equipment already to process corn, and if they grow a garden, to plant corn as well. At 24 tons to the acre, they could really cut down on their feed costs. In the past I have fed my sheep with corn, cutting the corn down with a chainsaw, and then chipping it in a Troybilt Tomahawk Woodchipper. The result was corn silage that was identical to the silage that came out of our 1/4 million dollar silage chopper. But I used a woodchipper because I had it, a person could also cut a hole in top of a push lawnmower and run their corn stalks through that to produce silage.
If that is too labor intensive, a person could mow their field with any type of mower, then after it has wilted down to get the moisture content down to 60 percent, take a flail chopper and blow that into a wagon, and then form a nice pile and cover like any other silage pile. That would be a lot easier then using a hay baler because you would not have to have 4 days of good weather, and plastic sheeting is a lot cheaper then putting hay in a dedicated barn. That is what I would do if I did not have free hay.
Around here if you watch, you can get a used 30-50HP gas tractor for $3000-5000 (less if you are foolish enough to not want a loader), a used mower conditioner for $600-2000, a side delivery rake for $600-1200 and a baler for $600-2000.
A Tedder (required around here, possibly not necessary in warmer dryer places) is another $1200-2000.
Total $6200-12,000.
Aaron Z
You could not give me a used baler.
I spent some of the summer pulling hay from a used square baler my friend bought, and it had such a dull knife that it would snap shear pins if you overloaded it, and the bales came out like linked sausages.
Silage is my friend.
Cut it in the morning, and that evening it is in the pile being covered. With silage you can dash between the rain drops and not have to look for a 4 day window of good weather.
Maintenance!
You buy new and the next week it's used...so you still have to maintain it!
Remember - EVERYTHING that people are selling used they're selling for a REASON - if it was perfect it's not likely they'd be selling it! This is particularly true for cars in my experience - THEY know the trans is going, or a wheel bearing is going, or the rad may be bad, etc. Impleements that' don't 'move' (back blade, box blade, etc) are pretty safe bets. Things that move..teh more parts the more you gotta check it out.
And if it's been sitting...WHY? and most anything that sits needs attention.
