Tractor Sizing What Size Tractor?

[Turk53]

New here. i am impressed with the friendliness, experience and knowledge of the people on this forum.

My question:
I am buying 13 acres of land. The land is low, but not swampy. The soil appears to be a sandy loam. The grass/weeds on it are about 6 feet tall. My thought is to use about 9 acres of the land for hay. I would like to harvest the hay myself.

What size tractor should I be purchasing that can run a brush hog and the hay equipment? I would prefer to buy a diesel.

If you could give me different brands and sizes that would be helpful for comparison and education.

 

[smstonypoint]

Here's a recent thread on equipment for small-scale hay operations: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/owning-operating/208980-what-equipment-small-scale-hay.html

I suspect that if you pencil out your potential costs, it would be more economical to have the hay custom harvested. Thus, you could buy a smaller tractor and associated implements appropriately sized for other tasks on your property.

Steve

 

[foreman Etexas]

New here. i am impressed with the friendliness, experience and knowledge of the people on this forum.

My question:
I am buying 13 acres of land. The land is low, but not swampy. The soil appears to be a sandy loam. The grass/weeds on it are about 6 feet tall. My thought is to use about 9 acres of the land for hay. I would like to harvest the hay myself.

What size tractor should I be purchasing that can run a brush hog and the hay equipment? I would prefer to buy a diesel.

If you could give me different brands and sizes that would be helpful for comparison and education.

I have a 2011 m5040 4x4 and pull a land pride 8ft shreader without any problem even in 4ft tall weeds,and in thinner stuff use a 14ft easy. If your going with something like the rebel baler by vermeer the horsepower needed is somewhere around 50hp thats a 4x5 baler.

 

[flusher]

New here. i am impressed with the friendliness, experience and knowledge of the people on this forum.

My question:
I am buying 13 acres of land. The land is low, but not swampy. The soil appears to be a sandy loam. The grass/weeds on it are about 6 feet tall. My thought is to use about 9 acres of the land for hay. I would like to harvest the hay myself.

What size tractor should I be purchasing that can run a brush hog and the hay equipment? I would prefer to buy a diesel.

If you could give me different brands and sizes that would be helpful for comparison and education.

A CUT with 35-50 hp (pto) will handle your chores nicely. I grow hay on 6 acres using a 2008 Mahindra 5525 (54 hp engine, 45 hp pto, 2WD, gear tranny 8F/2R, power steering, triple rear remote hydraulics) with the ML250 FEL (6-ft wide bucket, 2950 lb lift to 10.5 ft height, 3 chain hooks, skid steer quick attach brackets on the FEL arms). Cost: about $19K new.

My brush hog is a 6-ft Hawkline ($1150, bought as part of the tractor package).



I run used haying equipment--10 ft wide grain drill (refurbished Minneapolis Moline P3-6), 6.5 ft offset disc, JD350 side delivery hay rake, MF31 sicklebar mower (7 ft), MF124 baler (2 twine, small bales).

 

[foreman Etexas]

I dont agree with going the custom baling,one thing your going to get into it is that its to small.I have 30acre hay meadow and im hearing that,everyone wonts the bigger pasture not worth there time moving equipment in and/or they are going to charge you a mininum know matter what it makes.Spend the 6 or 7 grand with good used(if your going the square bale way)equipment and do it when you wont,not when someone gets around to it.I truely understand the custom balers gotta make money,dont get me wrong!!!We need rain bad or we aint gonna have to worry about baling anything here.

 

[Soundguy]

as the others have said. expect to buy used equipment and care for it.. at least a sickle bar mower.. small sqaure bailer and tedder / rake.. and figure on a minimum 40 hp machine.. perhaps up to 70hp.

at 9ac, sometimes in about 40 years you might break even on newer equipemnt

soundguy

 

[Turk53]

Thank you all.

I appreciated the responses and the link to the discussion on the other thread.
You basically cover the argument well.
It is not financially feasible, unless you already have a tractor that can handle the equipment and you can get a good deal on the equipment.
However the acreage is too small to be first on anyone's list of baling it, so there is the danger of not getting it done when the time is right.
The baler looks like it is the one that needs the added hp.

First priority then is to search for a baler and see what he can do for me.
If he is willing to bale it for me then I can get a smaller tractor and use it to cut and rake it.
If he is too busy or the job is too small then we go back to the drawing board.

BTW I love the pictures of your equipment.

 

[ford farm boy]

Heres my hay op. last two weeks.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/kubota-owning-operating/212429-mx5100-haying.html
NH 451 mower $400 , baler $1250 , friend give me old 4 wheel rake and used friends tedder .
And had to learned to work on all of it before the hay was done. The important part is knowing that used equipment you will have to work on a lot to keep it going .

 

[Don87]

You can do it all with a JD790 tractor, just gotta choose the implements that will work with the tractor.

Make square bails, don't purchase a kickbailer, but be prepared for leg/arm work.

9 acres ain't much.

 

[b2910]

New here. i am impressed with the friendliness, experience and knowledge of the people on this forum.

My question:
I am buying 13 acres of land. The land is low, but not swampy. The soil appears to be a sandy loam. The grass/weeds on it are about 6 feet tall. My thought is to use about 9 acres of the land for hay. I would like to harvest the hay myself.

What size tractor should I be purchasing that can run a brush hog and the hay equipment? I would prefer to buy a diesel.

If you could give me different brands and sizes that would be helpful for comparison and education.

Please excuse my city slicker questions, and I am not trying to hijack the thread. In a situation as Turk53 has I would think it would be far better to buy the hay he needs and use the 9 acres for another type of crop that is not so complex and costly to harvest, if there is one that fits his needs. I am thinking he may have horses so, would growing something like oats be more practical on a small scale?

 

[TripleR]

Please excuse my city slicker questions, and I am not trying to hijack the thread. In a situation as Turk53 has I would think it would be far better to buy the hay he needs and use the 9 acres for another type of crop that is not so complex and costly to harvest, if there is one that fits his needs. I am thinking he may have horses so, would growing something like oats be more practical on a small scale?

It is really hard to make money farming much of anything on nine acres other than a specialty crop. Many people on here do it for recreation/self satisfaction.

I live on 300+ acres with all row crop cash rented out, 150 acres. We have three acres by our house that use to be farmed, but the big equipment will no longer fit, so we had it in pasture for a while when we had horses. There are a few small hay operators around that we would rent that small piece out as some people just like to do that sort of thing.

If I had to justify our tractors and equipment based on income, I sure couldn't do it.

 

[foreman Etexas]

Neighbor has a Tifton 85 field around 10ac. and makes alot of hay off it and runs horses on it at same time.Wish I had his grass,coastal just aint doing to good with this heat and no rain. Thinking about sprigging something diff.next year in another pasture and change hay pastures.

 

[RPW]

This year hay is going to be expensive. If you only have couple of horses then posturing them on 9ac can be viable. But being able to bale say 6ac and pasture on 3ac you will get enough hay to keep feeding though the winter. After a couple of years you'be paid for the equipment and your total cost of ownership starts to go down.