How many acres necessary to make it worthwhile to do your own haying?

[Dadnatron]

This is my first year with hay in KY. I have a guy with a 組ood reputation in the area, however I have been very disappointed.

I have 20ac alfalfa/Orchard mix and 10ac Timothy. Also have about 50 more ac of pasture Orchard/KBG mix that needs to be either mowed or cut for hay.

I壇 much rather have someone do the work and split the results, however, the guy I have doing it now has let the alfalfa go to about 80-90% bloom for the first two cuttings. He is a nice guy when I catch him 1:1 but he doesn稚 return calls or texts.

I don稚 like the quality of the hay at that late bloom quality and I really don稚 like the lack of communication. He left several rounds on the ground and they killed the grass underneath. He ran over 2wk growth when picking hay out of the field creating a 喪oad where he drove. He could have removed them just after baling and the field would have been fine. Waiting like he did, there Inow have a long dead 喪oad where the regrow this dies. This road and bale dead spots will now just be weed locations that I will have to fight.

I can likely find another person to do the work, but I知 wondering where the likely reasonable point is, for purchasing equipment for small squares. I already have 100hp tractor but no haying equipment. I suspect I壇 need a mock, Tedder, rake, Baler, and accumulator. I have a hay wagon and wouldn稚 need a bale grapple for loading/unloading.

I think that my guy feels that the farm isn稚 as good of a deal since it isn稚 in his normal farming area. But he says 兎verything is fine. But he doesn稚 act like it I said so. I have a need for hay for 7 horses on my property which would only be about 25% of my farm production.

 

[atsah]

Sounds like you have plenty of reasons to hay it yourself especially when you already have a hundred HP tractor.. so you have 80 acres you can process?

 

[aczlan]

Sounds like you have plenty of reasons to hay it yourself especially when you already have a hundred HP tractor.. so you have 80 acres you can process?

I agree, we have 35 acres that we bale part of and it sounds like you have quite a bit more available.
Do you feed square bales, or round bales?


Aaron Z

 

[sammyd]

I bought the stuff to so my own baling when all I owned was 2 acres. I made hay on another 7 or so and the first year I had someone lined up to bale it for me but he didn't show and the hay got rained on twice before he did show.

 

[Argonne]

I have a need for hay for 7 horses on my property which would only be about 25% of my farm production.

Executive Summary: We fed 3 horses all winter on 3 round bales of hay, total cost $180.

We moved to northeast Texas several years ago so my wife could finally have her own horses. Knowing how expensive it is to feed horses, my plan was always to grow and harvest my own hay on about 5 of our 17 acres. Pursuant to that plan I gathered together used equipment, spending about 8 grand in the process (not including a tractor which I already had).

The first year I was going to harvest, my pole building arrived in the spring, and threw off my timetable, and I decided to buy hay again that year rather than harvest. I also decided to try round bales 3 at a time over the winter rather than the $700 worth of small square bales we bought all at once the year before and had trouble storing. 3 round bales we could fit in the barn with the horses, and they were readily available to get more as the winter went on at $60 per bale of "horse quality hay".

So that's what we did. We peeled hay off of the rolls daily and fed the horses out of a feeder, never allowing them to eat directly from the bales. To my extreme surprise and delight, we used the last of the 3rd roll of hay in late April. Based upon that experience I sold all of that hay equipment, and we now dole out hay from high quality round bales. Last winter we repeated the feat, 3 bales all winter, and we had 4 horses for a few weeks.

Those two winters were pretty average for around here. I have no illusions that if we had a particularly bad winter I could require twice as much hay, but that would still only be $360, and weighed against keeping all of that aged haying equipment out of the Texas sun and operable, I just couldn't bring myself to go ahead with the haying plan.

Caveats: a) No doubt your winters are a bit worse that here in Paris TX which would increase your forage needs. b) Our horses are pastured 90% of the time, so presumably they find some supplement out there. c) This method is labor intensive. Stripping hay from a bale and transporting it to a feeder twice a day is the price for the near zero wastage we get.

 

[Dadnatron]

Thanks guys.

Has anyone else noticed how posting on a mobile machine (my initial post was on an iPad) results in all sorts of screwups in the posting? I can barely read what I posted...

I've thought about using round bales. Several of the local horse farms use them and seem to do fine. I've thought about designing a 'hanging bale skewer' which would allow me to hoist the bale slightly off the ground, and simply 'unroll' it into a wagon or wheel barrow.

My biggest concern is having the time, myself, to insure the work is done at its optimum timing. I could NOT be worse, than the guy currently doing the job. But that is a very low bar to match.

 

[M5farms]

To some 10 acres is enough and to other they need 200 acres . Its very stressful either way you go. I personally enjoy it even with the stress and worry. used equipment can be had reasonable for the small guy and if your able to turn a wrench its pretty easy. This year has been far worse than any in recent memory. We are 13" above our 10yr avg on rain. I should be getting ready for 3rd cut and one place I did first cut last week. That puts me a month behind. The good news is I have enough for winter right now so with the pastures growing at this rate I will get to graze a little longer. I DO NOT WANT A DROUGHT . I will not bytch about the rain because eventually it will stop and we will be praying for more. For years I did just enough for my use and started getting approached to sell a little each year so I have been make extra and selling what I do not need . My plan is simple I want to make feed that is good quality for my cows and not try and just make quantity to turn a buck. That has given me a few customers the last few years and in the end all I try and do is pay for what I feed .

 

[flusher]

My neighbor and his partner make a profit off 8 acres, irrigated, oat hay or forage mix, around 400 3-twine 100 lb square bales, plant in Oct, harvest in late April. Equipment includes a 45 hp Kubota tractor, 8-ft wide tandem disc, 10 ft wide grain drill, 12-ft wide swather, NH square baler. He has access to a NH bale stacker and a bale squeeze from a neighbor. He always has his crop sold before harvest. Except for the tractor, all the equipment is used stuff he's accumulated over the years.

Good luck


Good luck

 

[TractorGuy]

Thanks guys.

Has anyone else noticed how posting on a mobile machine (my initial post was on an iPad) results in all sorts of screwups in the posting? I can barely read what I posted...

I see a lot of posts with the skewed characters.

I had it happen once when constructing a post in MS Word and pasting in the forum. Never had it happen from direct posts from PC or Android phone.

 

[cat fever]

I do not like being subject to someone else's timing. Therefore I bought my own hay equipment. Never regretted it and never looked back.

You certainly have enough land to make it worthwhile.

Already owned the tractor.
The baler and haybine were used. (80's models) 6500 bucks for both.
V-rake I bought new. 1500 bucks ?? I think
JD seeder used 450 bucks.
Spring tooth harrow used 1200 bucks.

So not a huge investment to get started. Not counting the tractor.

 

[atsah]

Thanks guys.

Has anyone else noticed how posting on a mobile machine (my initial post was on an iPad) results in all sorts of screwups in the posting? I can barely read what I posted...

Mine does the same thing, don't know why using my phone does that but I find if I go to the full site it doesn't do it as much..

 

[wagne223]

Mine does the same thing, don't know why using my phone does that but I find if I go to the full site it doesn't do it as much..

It is because Apple software is not compatible with anything but Mac based systems. It has to be converted and sometime the conversion adds characters.

That is why people that deal with a lot of files created on a windows computer, use Android based phones and tablets.
Windows and Android are friends.

 

[atsah]

It is because Apple software is not compatible with anything but Mac based systems. It has to be converted and sometime the conversion adds characters.

That is why people that deal with a lot of files created on a windows computer, use Android based phones and tablets.
Windows and Android are friends.

That makes sense.. It's a pain typing on a phone anyway..

 

[Argonne]

I've thought about using round bales. Several of the local horse farms use them and seem to do fine.

Once I decided that I was going to try round bales, I overthought and over-engineered the daylights out of the project, having been worked into a frenzy by watching youtube videos about people chainsawing and unwinding round bales to use them piecemeal. None of that has been necessary for us.

The bales go into an alcove in the barn and are stored there on the concrete floor. They are round side down during storage. With that slick concrete floor I can re-spot those bales easily with my 25hp CUT loader. They slide, I don't even need to roll them.

The "in-use" bale gets flipped on it's side, (carefully with the CUT loader, don't become a tiddly-wink!) flat side down, and the net wrap is peeled off. Peeling hay off of the roll couldn't be simpler, we just use a pitchfork, plunging down from the top and about 6 inches into the bale to peel off a section. How heavy that section will be depends how far along the circumference and how deep into the roll you plunge. My disabled wife has no problem at all doing this, and often as not, she's using hay that uncoiled from the roll and is resting against the floor.

If the horses are pastured, which is usually, we load the hay into our 6x4 M-Gator and drive it out to a Vee type feeder out in the pasture where it gets forked into the feeder. We do that operation twice a day, and the horses don't get anything else to eat except for a token amount of grain as a treat (and a way to get them to back off while we fill the feeder).

 

[Bigfoot62]

I have a couple hundred grand in tractors and hay equipment. Can I justify it? Not really. I could buy what hay I need a lot cheaper. Here's why I do it:
1. I like it! The pure satisfaction of producing a crop. Love being on the farm. I tell people that I have a "day job" so I can afford to farm.
2. I figure it's better to process the grass into hay and sell what I don't need, than to just bush-hog all the pastures. (I have 110 acres, about half of it in hay meadows)
3. Tax benefits. Since I'm in the hay business, I can buy new equipment and write it off.
4. Timing. As the OP has already pointed out, you usually can't find someone to do it for you on YOUR schedule. I don't know what the situation is in your area, but around here, good luck in finding anyone to do it at all.

 

[aczlan]

It is because Apple software is not compatible with anything but Mac based systems. It has to be converted and sometime the conversion adds characters.

That is why people that deal with a lot of files created on a windows computer, use Android based phones and tablets.
Windows and Android are friends.

Actually, what it is is that this site only supports basic punctuation, for example a straight up and down single or double quote versus one that's angled to one side or the other (the specific set of characters is called ASCII, it has 128 characters available).
Mac (or Microsoft Word) by default use the angled or curved single and double quotes which is why they show up with the funky characters here (they are part of Unicode which adds a lot more letters, but also takes up more space than ASCII).

I am not sure why they don't switch to Unicode but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

Aaron Z

 

[wagne223]

Actually, what it is is that this site only supports basic punctuation, for example a straight up and down single or double quote versus one that's angled to one side or the other (the specific set of characters is called ASCII, it has 128 characters available).
Mac (or Microsoft Word) by default use the angled or curved single and double quotes which is why they show up with the funky characters here (they are part of Unicode which adds a lot more letters, but also takes up more space than ASCII).

I am not sure why they don't switch to Unicode but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

Aaron Z

Thanks for the clarification.
Learn something new every day!

 

[vvanders]

Actually, what it is is that this site only supports basic punctuation, for example a straight up and down single or double quote versus one that's angled to one side or the other (the specific set of characters is called ASCII, it has 128 characters available).
Mac (or Microsoft Word) by default use the angled or curved single and double quotes which is why they show up with the funky characters here (they are part of Unicode which adds a lot more letters, but also takes up more space than ASCII).

I am not sure why they don't switch to Unicode but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

Aaron Z

Not to nitpick but as someone who's spent way too much time dealing with unicode as long as you're encoding in UTF-8 they take up the same space as ASCII, assuming you stick to the same 128 characters. Once you go beyond that UTF-8 takes more by way of a variable length encoding.

Those angled single and double quotes are nasty for all the mentioned reasons.

While most modern software deals in unicode these days plenty of legacy stuff out there and unless you're targeting a non-latin character set it only rarely rears it's head, like in this case.

Anyway, back to the thread, great discussion and certainly interested for some of our future acreage as well.

 

[powerscol]

Once you do it yourself you will never want someone else to do it. There is something about doing it yourself. Shop for a good MOCO for cutting as alfalfa needs conditioning. You will need a decent rotary rake and possibly a tedder. The baller is the key unit not to skimp on. If you buy too old you will be very frustrated. I have a Hesston 4550 inline that I love. Check around at you dealers on a decent trade in, or even you local agg rental dealer. That's where I got most of my good used equipment. Other area is estate auctions.
Hope this helps

 

[Dadnatron]

Powerscol, I’m from SW Colorado originally. Durango, Mancos, Cortez area. Parents currently in Dolores mail, but actually out in the country.

BTW... I really miss the mountains. Kentucky Bluegrass is beautiful... but Lone Cone is my favorite place on earth.