Looking for n opinion on haying

[hosspuller]

I do 10 acres of orchard grass. The break even point is far far away. I mainly harvest tax deductions. Hay is a risky crop, weatherwise. Even if you get a good stand, mow it on time, a rain shower can ruin it. Then you have to bale it at the proper moisture. Too much and it molds, too little and the leaves fall off. I think you over estimate the value of your hay field to the farmer. Moving equipment is a huge pain. Picking up square bales is worse.

 

[flusher]

Would like to hear opinions on whether it is worth my time to do my own hay on my 20 acre hay field. I have a good tractor, Oliver 1855 Diesel with 98 hp at the pto. I have a bobcat 78hp skidsteer with a round bale spear. That is all i have. I had a farmer that was doing my field and this year he is moving on and not going to do my field. He just reseeded it this spring and the first cutting was 90% stalky weeds. The second cutting is coming in looking much better with allot grass. I have 5 horses that need roughly 600 to 700 bales per year.
Should I invest in the used equipment to mow, ted, rake and bale or see if I can have someone do it for us?

Used hay equipment can be a pleasure to use or a nightmare, especially sickle mowers and balers. Cheap, older equipment takes know how and TLC to get running and to keep running. If haying is a second job, then maybe you ought to find another guy to replace the one who quit. I'm retired, have a lot of old used hay equipment that I've restored and probably have more than a 1000 hours invested in figuring out how to get that old junk working again.

 

[jerry shannon]

Makes sense Lou66. More and more that I read it appears that there is not a payout here. Did not intend to make hay a second income,, it was thrust upon me. A part of me would like to give it a whirl just to see how I do with it. Never thought it would be a money making venture. More of controlling my own fate and paying off the equipment in the process. Thanks.

 

[jerry shannon]

Thank you flusher. I hear what you are saying. I do not want to spend precious time away from my Harley, the horses, and fishing wrenching on old equipment. Having said that though,,, I am still curious if I could do a good job of it and show some folks I am not just another pretty face.. Kidding on that.

 

[jerry shannon]

I agree. The farmer was my brother in law. I think he made out good on crops as he has several hundred acres of land he leases and has the labor and equipment to do it. He can disc, plant, and spray my 20 acres in a day and a half and harvest soybeans and or corn in less than a day. For me I just moved from square bales (small) to 4x4 round bales. I would want to have my field now baled in rounds. That is what I would look for is a baler to do either 4x4 or 5x5 round bales.

 

[jerry shannon]

My brother in law is set up for hay. He milks about 170 head of cows and has hay for them. I think he lost interest in doing a grass hay for our horses. He likes rounds and we used small square bales. He has the equipment to bale, pick up and haul square bales but I think it's a pain for him to haul the bales from his other fields to our barn. That is why he wanted to plant our 20 -25 acres in grass hay so we could get first cutting and he could take the rest for his use. Just changed his mind this spring after he planted the field.

 

[Larro Darro]

I'm sure you could learn to cut, tedder, rake and roll hay. But before you get too far along that road, price out all the equipment you will need. You know the drill, craigslist, e-bay, tractorhouse.com, etc.... Once you see what used equipment cost, then think about the time. If you work five days a week, it may be hard to do the hay when it needs it. Like others have mentioned, a passing shower can screw up a fine field of hay.

When we switched from square to round bales, we had 200 head of cattle and 30 acres of hay. It still took a few years to reach the break even point on the new equipment. If it was me, I would find a hay farmer and go in on halves. You should get more than you have been getting. There would be less risk for you, and way more free time.

 

[bsrfarms97]

Either way you do it your gonna have some aggravation. Getting another farmer to go in on halfs is probably going to be easier though. He may not get it cut right when you think he should be, but remember your field probably isn't the only hay field he has. And he is going to cut and bale his own first before he does any share cropping. If you purchase your own equipment then the upkeep and breaking down when your in the middle of getting it done is enough stress to make a preacher cuss. But you will get it done when you want to instead of waiting on someone else. You mentioned he had made alittle in row cropping on your land. I know corn is way more expensive and risky to plant than hay. If he made 12000 in corn he probably spent 5 or 6000 in seed, fertilizer, and diesel to plant it. Plus you have ever eliminate nature can through at you to deal with. Not only weather, but insects, birds, rabbits, raccoons, bear etc to deal with. They all love to snack on corn. And I've seen bear demolish a half acre of corn in one night. All in all I say if its a project you want to try to tackle then go for it. You may find you enjoy putting up your own hay. But it will be less headache to share crop with a already established well known farmer in your area. Best of luck either way to you.

 

[rtimgray]

I've posted in a couple of threads about haying equipment because I just got into doing all aspects of haying this year. We've always had the land, done the cutting, raking and hauling of the square bales (between 5,000 and 12,000 per summer, depending on the year and if we were doing some to sell), but we never baled it ourselves (also never messed with rolls). Due to issues with the custom baler's increasing unreliability, I decided to pick up the equipment to do hay from start to finish. Due to the size of our operation, used equipment was the only option, and since I was going to be trying to roll most of it, the size of the roller was a large concern, because my tractor is only 45 hp.

I'll have to say that the stars aligned perfectly for me, because I found a New Idea 484 roller (makes a 4' x 5' roll) about 20 miles from the house and it works great (got a thread about that one) with my tractor. I picked up a Kuhn GMD500 disc mower just about 4 miles from home (and I have had to replace a bearing on it - there's a thread about that). Just a couple of weeks ago, I got a New Holland 256 rollabar rake, and it was about 20 miles from home, and it is great (just had to grease it and clean a bunch of old, crusty oil out of the gearbox). I also picked up a John Deere 24T baler - didn't have to do too much to it other than get the twine threaded correctly through the needles and it promptly punched out 300 bales. On all the the equipment I got, I've had to spend a few hours on each getting it ready to go, and I'm sure there will be problems with them in the future. However, I've also picked up all the manuals that I can find for each piece of equipment, PM'ed them as well as I can, and have gotten pretty familiar with them so I'm comfortable I can maintain them and fix them as required. Plus, with the balers, I at least have a back-up of sorts; if one fails catastrophically, hopefully I can use the other.

I think it is a great convenience to be able to do all the hay myself without having to worry about someone else's schedule, someone else's breakdowns, someone else's sickness, etc. However, I also think that haying is not necessarily as complicated or critical as some folks describe - no offense intended to anyone. Of course I love to cut hay, let it dry, and bale it; but everytime that it's been rained on, it dries out as well. Of course it hurts yield and quality, but it's not the end of the world if it gets wet, in my opinion, so long as it dries before you bale. Also, since now I have all my own equipment, I don't have to do all of my hay at one time - I do it in sections to mitigate the risk of poor weather or equipment failure. You could do the same thing.

I was lucky with some of my equipment finds and have about $6,000 invested in the equipment listed above, and found it all locally - and some of it really was just good luck and word-of-mouth conversation. I'd say if you want to give it a try, go for it, and invest in the proper equipment. Odds are that if you don't like doing it, you can probably sell the equipment at a minimum loss and be richer in experience.

Good luck and take care.

 

[atgreene]

If you have the time to do it and are mechanically inclined, sure. If you think it's going to be a simple cakewalk keeping all the equipment going and you'll still have time for pool parties, days at the beach with the wife and kids and camping trips, you may want to re-think it.