neighbour needs custom baling

ddivinia · Jul 30, 2006

How does baling on the "halves' work anyway. I have heard it explained a number of different ways.

Thanks,
D.

NoMo · Jul 31, 2006

I'm sure there can be different ways of making the deal and I don't know how good of a deal I made...

My "halves" deal is that the other guy cuts, rakes & bales my property. He then takes half the hay as payment for his work and I keep the other half of the hay.

ddivinia · Jul 31, 2006

What about fertilizer?

D.

NoMo · Jul 31, 2006

Well, my situation is somewhat unique...

Until this year, I have not owned a tractor. So, I have been trading my half of the hay to the baler in exchange for tractor work on the part of my property that doesn't produce hay. Because he ends up with ALL of the hay, it benefits him more to take care of the field. Thus, he has been the primary contributor of pasture maintenance.

Even though I now have a tractor, I'll still probably barter 'my' hay for his equipment usage. At least until I get all of my land into production. Right now, only half of it is making hay.

HammerFour · Aug 3, 2006

It's usually called baling on shares, the person doing the cutting/raking/baling takes the larger share, usually 3/4 or so of the hay.

In our area, they hay needs to be good quality, decent amount of growth and not to many weeds for the custom baler to be interested in doing the work on shares....in other words the hay he gets needs to be worth his time to harvest it.