Delivering hay pics & stories

[Hay Dude]

You MUST make great equipment deals and be willing to make lifestyle sacrifices to get into hay and snow.
Another thing to contemplate: do you like family vacations? I cant go anywhere during winter because I have to be on call for snowplowing.
Summer I *might* be able to travel between 1st and 2nd cuttings. So how can me and my wife plan vacations ahead of time (get good airfare and hotel rates) when we dont know exactly WHEN 1st cutting will be completed?

 

[deezler]

A buddy of mine is in process of buying an 8ac field just south of my own property. I've been dreaming about conning him into buying an old square baler so we can poke around with haying the field, but, I know it's a truly terrible plan. Would just be nice to keep some pigs and goats fed over the winter off our own hay supply, should the apocalypse come upon us any time soon. My other neighbor is paying $6 per small square bale to keep his goats fed.

 

[Hay Dude]

A buddy of mine is in process of buying an 8ac field just south of my own property. I've been dreaming about conning him into buying an old square baler so we can poke around with haying the field, but, I know it's a truly terrible plan. Would just be nice to keep some pigs and goats fed over the winter off our own hay supply, should the apocalypse come upon us any time soon. My other neighbor is paying $6 per small square bale to keep his goats fed.

Thats a fun plan and I do same with beefers. Just keep in mind your input costs for equipment will exceed $6/bale after you pencil it out.
Please don’t think I’m trying to be schooling you. I’m trying to illustrate what the hay farmer pays for equipment versus retail hay prices. Hay has probably doubled in price since 1990. Equipment is 10x expensive

 

[MoKelly]

You MUST make great equipment deals and be willing to make lifestyle sacrifices to get into hay and snow.
Another thing to contemplate: do you like family vacations? I cant go anywhere during winter because I have to be on call for snowplowing.
Summer I *might* be able to travel between 1st and 2nd cuttings. So how can me and my wife plan vacations ahead of time (get good airfare and hotel rates) when we dont know exactly WHEN 1st cutting will be completed?

Well - I guess it’s good I didn’t go into hay and snow!

We like to spend most of snow season in Florida. In summer, I enjoy watching my neighbor hay our fields. He and his son is really good at getting it done.

I (as mentioned in an earlier thread) was good at office politics.

MoKelly

 

[Hay Dude]

We went to Italy summer 2019. It was great to get in a long, relaxing vacation. Thats more the exception than the norm

 

[MoKelly]

We went to Italy summer 2019. It was great to get in a long, relaxing vacation. Thats more the exception than the norm

Fantastic. Italy is on our bucket list.

MoKelly

 

[senecak19]

Maybe I just need to reverse my logic; Start with snowplowing. My truck was purchased new (as a leftover) and paid for within a year (2500HD GMC). I purchased this because I had to many other things to wrench on at the time. That was 5 years ago. Today I have nothing but my tractor, truck and trailer. I haven't contemplated this yet, but it is approaching 75k miles. Maybe i ought to put a plow on it and just go. I'll be buying another one sooner than not and will likely keep this one anyways.

 

[Hay Dude]

Maybe I just need to reverse my logic; Start with snowplowing. My truck was purchased new (as a leftover) and paid for within a year (2500HD GMC). I purchased this because I had to many other things to wrench on at the time. That was 5 years ago. Today I have nothing but my tractor, truck and trailer. I haven't contemplated this yet, but it is approaching 75k miles. Maybe i ought to put a plow on it and just go. I'll be buying another one sooner than not and will likely keep this one anyways.

Heres a better plan:
Wait till this season ends. Go around your ‘hood :laughing: and get together as many snow plow contracts in one concentrated area as possible.
On the hottest part of the summer, strike a deal on a plow, cause thats when the plow selling populous sells the cheapest
THEN go into plowing business
Oh, and beef up the front end on that HD or make sure its got snow plowing package.

 

[Peter 315]

No silly. It means exhaust brake on :laughing:
Yellow means full exhaust brake, man itll slow that truck down with out touching the service brakes.
Green mean auto-exhaust brake, a little less than full on.

Sorry I'm use to this.......

 

[Hay Dude]

Sorry I'm use to this.......View attachment 687105

Yeah....I havent used that switch since my tri axle-n days......
Might be making a return though.

 

[groundcover]

Yeah....I havent used that switch since my tri axle-n days......
Might be making a return though.

That's what our hay guy used for mushroom hay. Ten wheeler with grapple loading round bales, seemed to be a pretty efficient set up.

 

[Xfaxman]

Since a 21 bale bundle was mentioned earlier, here is ours:

Set it on the dolly:

Wife pushed it back into the hay storage area:

 

[sd455dan]

If you want to make a million baling hay,,,,,start with 2 million.

That reminds me of an old episode of a late night show, thinking it was Letterman, where an old farmer won the state lottery.
He was asked what he planned to do with his new found wealth and replied I think I'll just keep farming till I go broke.

Pic from loading from the farmers field last year with my tractor, they were very busy delivering to their larger customers at the time

 

[Hay Dude]

That reminds me of an old episode of a late night show, thinking it was Letterman, where an old farmer won the state lottery.
He was asked what he planned to do with his new found wealth and replied I think I'll just keep farming till I go broke.

Pic from loading from the farmers field last year with my tractor, they were very busy delivering to their larger customers at the time

I think the key is to have related work other than hay, since hay is not a year round job, at least it’s not in colder states.
In my extra time, I do a lot of related tasks; custom farming, field mowing, large area mowing, snow plowing, barn building, property maintenance.
Unless you marry a rich woman and she buys you all your equipment you need to do other work.

 

[Xfaxman]

We bought 2, 21 bale bundles 10-9-2021:

Set the first one on the dolly in the barn aisle:

Got the second one:

Put it on top of the first:

Rolled them to the hay storage area: