New to the Haying.....Barn sizing help

mdjohn1427 · Jan 2, 2020

This past summer I planted 25 acres of Bermuda Grass for Hay. Due to the late season drought we didn't get a cutting. Now, the Bermuda is dormant. Come April, we will spray for weeds and expect our 1st cutting in late May/early June. Local co-op says I can expect between 50-75 square bales per acre. That's 1250-1875 bales from the first cut. According to Co-op, I can expect to get 3 to 4 cuttings before October (depending on late summer rains). So, I'm getting ready to build a new Hay barn. My thoughts are a 40x60x14 with 20 leans on both sides for additional space for equipment. Please share your thoughts on the size. PS...I have an existing barn with loft space that is 16 x 40 x 10

EddieWalker · Jan 2, 2020

When I first got horses I started out with square bales and the barns that I went to where massive. They had hay stacked up against the walls and either a skid steer or tractor inside there to load the bales and bring them out to my trailer. Both places where very organized and had each cutting stacked separate from each other. First cutting was the cheapest and what they had the most of, the second cutting was what I wanted and that was on the other side of the barn.

I don't know what the dimensions where, but if I was guessing, I'd say something like 60 x 120 with the main door in the middle of the long wall with a big covered porch over it.

Before building, I would draw it out on some graph paper and include a plan on how I would handle loading and moving it around.

Will you be selling the hay? If so, how will you load customers? How will they get to your barn, where will they park and how will the hay get from the barn to their trailer?

CobyRupert · Jan 2, 2020

"Square bales" can be a variety of sizes.
Around here, some farmers have gone to the larger square ones that weight hundreds of pounds, have >2 strings, and are usually moved with a loader; but usually when somebody says "square bales" they are talking about the ones that have 2 strings, are "easily" (arguably) handled by one person (~40-50 lbs) and typically baled into a "kicker" hay wagon (or picked up in the field).

Let's say these are typically 18"W x 14"H x (say) 38" long. That is, the chute of the baler is a fixed width and height, the length of the bale can be adjusted. Double check YOUR bale dimensions as a little error times 1875 bales becomes a bigger number.
So, based on above dimension, that's 9575 cubic inches or 5.54 cubic feet per bale.
Bales can be stacked fairly tight, but I'd add a 5-10% factor for the space between bales, and when they don't fit evenly into the designated space. You might also need to leave room for a hay elevator (conveyor), that runs the length of the mow, etc..

1875 bales x 5.54 cu. ft/bale = 10,390 cubic foot + 5% = 11,000 cu. ft.
Would 2nd, 3rd, cuts be another 11,000 cubic foot, or even more?

40'x60'x14' barn gives you: 33,600 cubic feet to work with.

As Eddie alludes to: Do you need access to get at the 1st cutting, without moving all the 2nd and 3rd?

mdjohn1427 · Jan 2, 2020

The hay will be used for onsite livestock (goats and few cattle...300-500 bales). The remaining hay will be sold to local horse owners. I plan to purchase an accumulator/grapple to assist in the handling of the hay. I'd say that the 2nd and 3rd cuts would not produce as much as the 1st. I'd expect the annual bale count to be in the 4000-4500 range. Sounds like 40x60x14 should suffice.

PS...these are small bales 18"W x 14"H x 38" long

SethWilliams · Jan 2, 2020

I square baled one of my fields, approximately 8 acres, and it yielded ~600 square bales. I fertilized it with 300 pounds per acre of triple 19 so I had nice hay. I moved every single one of those bales by hand and then vowed that I will never square bale again. I absolutely would not consider doing square bales unless you buy a grapple/accumulator.

In regards to selling square bales, expect a lot of people to only want 5 or 10 bales and to be picky about what's in it. I hate selling hay to horse people because they are so picky.

Are you pouring concrete in your barn, stacking them on pallets, or something else? Who will work on your equipment when it breaks down? Haying is such a tough business when you consider the amount of money required, weather concerns, and future break downs.

mdjohn1427 · Jan 2, 2020

There are three guys around my area that I call every winter for square bale hay. Every December, without question, I call for hay and all of them are out. This year I was fortunate to find a guy 40 miles up the road and bought his last bales. As I stated, I will have an accumulator/grapple to assist in the handling of the hay. As for the quality of the hay. The co-op that seeded the hay in July of last year, was extremely impressed with the detail I used to till, lime, roll, fertilize and seed these 25 acres. If I’m finding it hard to purchase hay, I would think others are having the same issue, or at least they do a better job buying/storing in late summer. As for working on my equipment. I work on all of the stuff I have now, so that will continue. I have a large supplier of wood pallets, so that's what I'll use in the barn.

aczlan · Jan 2, 2020

mdjohn1427 said:
There are three guys around my area that I call every winter for square bale hay. Every December, without question, I call for hay and all of them are out. This year I was fortunate to find a guy 40 miles up the road and bought his last bales. As I stated, I will have an accumulator/grapple to assist in the handling of the hay. As for the quality of the hay. The co-op that seeded the hay in July of last year, was extremely impressed with the detail I used to till, lime, roll, fertilize and seed these 25 acres. If I’m finding it hard to purchase hay, I would think others are having the same issue, or at least they do a better job buying/storing in late summer. As for working on my equipment. I work on all of the stuff I have now, so that will continue. I have a large supplier of wood pallets, so that's what I'll use in the barn.

You will need a vapor barrier under the concrete slab (such as heavy plastic) or the bottom layer of bales will mold.
You will also need airflow around the stack, or it will mold on the sides.

Aaron Z

mdjohn1427 · Jan 2, 2020

More than likely I will use a vapor barrier under about 6” of crush and run.

kthompson · Jan 2, 2020

I stopped with hay this year. Biggest reason was at the point of needing to spend $100,000 or so in barn for square bales. At my age did not make sense.
First decide on accumulator so you know the size. Forget the size of the bales, you must have barn to work with the grapple. You want to be sure you don't have wasted space the grapple can not stack in or life bales from. Begin with the grapple and machine size you will be using. Check the height the loader will clear for stacking and such.

Find a builder who builds hay barns. Go see the barns, talk with the owners. On small square for horses we were selling loads of 100 to over 200 plus bales but we were delivering the vast majority.

mdjohn1427 · Jan 3, 2020

kthompson said:
I stopped with hay this year. Biggest reason was at the point of needing to spend $100,000 or so in barn for square bales. At my age did not make sense.
First decide on accumulator so you know the size. Forget the size of the bales, you must have barn to work with the grapple. You want to be sure you don't have wasted space the grapple can not stack in or life bales from. Begin with the grapple and machine size you will be using. Check the height the loader will clear for stacking and such.

Find a builder who builds hay barns. Go see the barns, talk with the owners. On small square for horses we were selling loads of 100 to over 200 plus bales but we were delivering the vast majority.

$100,000 for a barn!!! Wow. My first quote for a 40x60x14 with two (20’) leans was $17,900.00.

joeu235 · Jan 5, 2020

We have a 60 x 60 x 16 with a road base floor, closed in on two sides and a top half wall on a third. East side is completely open because weather rarely comes from the east. We lay plastic and pallets down before hand stacking. Barn can easily hold 4000 bales. Dad paid $14k ten years ago. I'd guess $20k now.

We get 50 to 90 80 pound bales an acre at the extremes of rain. A "normal" year is probably 65/acre. 1st cutting with winter grass is round bales for our cows. 2nd and 3rd cutting are for sale to the precious horses (owners). Don't think we ever got a 4th.

MichiganIron · Jan 7, 2020

We palletize all of our square bale hay. 14 bales to a pallet, then stack the pallets with the front loader. The pallets serve a bunch of purposes; provide good air circulation to keep the hay fresh, keeps the hay off the floor, and allows us to do all the stacking with the front loader. We made custom 3' x 6' pallets, the 14 bales fit perfect, and not stacked too high to be able to move them around without tumbling the hay. We do about 4000 squares a year this way.

leeave96 · Jan 10, 2020

We built a 32x88x16ft high barn this past 2019 for square bales of hay. To give you come context of the size vs available space, have a look-see at my youtube video Final Hay Update for 219... - YouTube and there a few others that show the barn and one at the tail end of it showing pulling my MF 1105 tractor and kicker wagon into the barn.

My advice is both drive thru and side door. Make the barn as big as you can afford. Ours is 16 ft to the bottom of the trusses to allow our kicker wagons to fit in easily and for a tractor trailer to back-in if necessary. If you are stacking hay, I would recommend asphalt vs concrete to help prevent mold on bottom bales.

Another reason to go 16 ft or taller is consideration for a lean to on the sides - tall enough middle part that will allow a high enough roof on the lean to to be usable in all situations. We will probably add a lean to on the non-door side of our barn one of these days - but planned for that height from the get-go.

Also - you want some kind of insulation under the tin on the rood to prevent condensation. We used plywood vs bubble insulation for additional structure and knowing the bubble insulation over time can come loose/off. We also provided for ventilation. Our eves are 2 ft and vented and we have a ridge vent on the barn.

Good luck,
Bill

powerscol · Jan 14, 2020

Question How are you going to pick up and stack your hay? Are you going to us a bale wagon, hand stack, or use a hay grapple of some sort. Bale wagons need headroom and width to move around. So if going this way measure the width and height. For the hay grapple measure reach and width and be sure you have maneuvering room, I suggest you check with others in your area how they have theirs set up. Friend down the road has a simple pole barn open on all sides, but he has roll up side tarps to cover everything when stacked. He uses both a bale wagon and hay grapple on a skid steer.
Hope this helps

5030 · Jan 14, 2020

Interesting thread. I've been a commercial forage producer for around 20 years now. If it's been done, I probably did it and if it can be screwed up, I probably did that too.

I run about 200 acres of owned and leased on shares hay ground. Have all the necessary hay tools including the latest and greatest NH stuff. I keep my hay in Clearspan Truss arch storage buildings. The cost per square foot of space is about 1/4th of a pole structure and here in Michigan, a clear span isn't considered a permenant structure so it's not taxable real estate. Keep my tractrors and hay tools in them as well. The first one I out up 20 years ago is just fine btw. They are large enough and the doors high enough to get a full size (13'6") semi trailer in, if necessary.

neither here nor there really. I quit selling hay to horsey people years ago. I really dislike horsey people, most don't know good hay from crap and most are flakey money wise, I quit playing that crap years ago. I have 2 customers now. Both take only rounds in either bet or twine (my round baler runs either),and they pick them up with their semi's out of the field, I load them, thats it.). I get paid for all of it in one shot before the end of the year, every year. It's painless. If I had to go back to small squares and horsey people, I'd quit running hay. BTW, have a nice NH 575 High Capacity square baler in the barn I'd sell. Have not used it in 5 years. Always stored inside. Wif says keep it. I don't see the point. if it ain't round, I don't want to see it.

5030 · Jan 14, 2020

MichiganIron said:
We palletize all of our square bale hay. 14 bales to a pallet, then stack the pallets with the front loader. The pallets serve a bunch of purposes; provide good air circulation to keep the hay fresh, keeps the hay off the floor, and allows us to do all the stacking with the front loader. We made custom 3' x 6' pallets, the 14 bales fit perfect, and not stacked too high to be able to move them around without tumbling the hay. We do about 4000 squares a year this way.

You better stick to selling tractors.......lol

EddieWalker · Jan 15, 2020

5030 said:
I keep my hay in Clearspan Truss arch storage buildings. The cost per square foot of space is about 1/4th of a pole structure and here in Michigan, a clear span isn't considered a permenant structure so it's not taxable real estate. Keep my tractrors and hay tools in them as well. The first one I out up 20 years ago is just fine btw.

Is this the link to what you have? ClearSpan Structures | Fabric, Metal & Hybrid Buildings

I had a client that started a business selling something like this, but I don't remember the brand. He built a display building on his land that looked really nice, and I'm sure he sold quite a few buildings, but after a few years, the fabric tore and then the land was up for sale and he had moved away. I don't know the details of why he moved, or why the fabric tore and was left like that for so long, but it did leave an impression with me on that type of structure.

5030 · Jan 15, 2020

EddieWalker said:
Is this the link to what you have? ClearSpan Structures | Fabric, Metal & Hybrid Buildings

I had a client that started a business selling something like this, but I don't remember the brand. He built a display building on his land that looked really nice, and I'm sure he sold quite a few buildings, but after a few years, the fabric tore and then the land was up for sale and he had moved away. I don't know the details of why he moved, or why the fabric tore and was left like that for so long, but it did leave an impression with me on that type of structure.

Yep, I have 2 big ones and no issues at all. Cover is guaranteed 15 years, mine is past that. Wife and I and the front end loader put up the frames. A case of Bud and a bunch of guys from work did the covers.

There are imposters out there for sure. Clear Span (Farm-Tek) is the original and the best and no, I don't sell them, just use them.

Eddie, never judge a book by the cover. Always read what is between the covers first. Company I worked for was so impressed with mine, they bought 3 for storing new trucks in. They are fine too, least last time I checked. I retired from there a few years ago.

mdjohn1427 · Jan 16, 2020

Thanks all for your input. Working with a builder and I plan to construct a 40x60x14 pole barn (3 sides enclosed) with (2) 20' leans. The base will be crush and run. Pallets will be used. Next door neighbor has already agreed to purchase 200 (5x5) rounds at $40 each. With that, my storage capacity for square bales was reduced by 40%. Still storing about 2,200 squares annually.