Worth doing hay?

[CH4Ohio]

I could start smaller one field is more uniform. I’d say 40 acres or little less. I figured the more I could get the more I could make to offset the cost of equipment

Start smaller and see what it’s all about. Then decide if you can handle more acres and if there’s a market for it.

Even 40 acres is a lot when you have a weather window of 5 or 6 days to cut it and get under roof. You’ll want a bigger tractor than 50 HP so you can handle a decent size discbine. You don’t want a sickle mower. Your 50 hp will be great for raking and tedding hay. If it’s anything like around here, you need a Tedder. Biggest thing is what size bales and how do you intend to handle them. If you’re round baling labor is minimal. If small squares you need lots of help even if you use accumulators and grapples. Other options get real expensive quick.

Making grass hay is ok. Alfalfa mix is much better. Straight alfalfa is about the hardest to get dried and baled. At least around here. If your fields are smooth, I’d discourage plowing. Just spray and kill the broadleaf weeds or total kill and no-till seed your hay mix.

It takes a lot of hustle and logistics to handle that many acres by yourself. Takes a lot of barn too if you’re doing small squares.

Edit — unless you have big equipment and lots of help, you probably won’t mow it all at once. Instead you’ll do what you can handle during each dry stretch and you’ll be doing hay pretty continuously during the summer.

 

[Hay Dude]

Fertilizer = big $$$$.

IMO, just cut the fields as they are and spray out any bad broadleaf, multi-flora, etc.
Try baling that as cow hay first. If that goes well, then you can start thinking about making horse quality hay. Round balers with net wrap are a good way to enter into the hay business and with your small time window, so I’d suggest round baling.Then you can sell as hay for beef cattle while at the same time, cleaning the fields up.

Small squares are gonna take time and few peeps want low quality small squares.

 

[ultrarunner]

Grandparents dairy farmed on land going back to the 1700’s… never more than 25 milk cows with some the best producers in the county…

As a city kid summers on the farm were the best…

Never any pesticides or commercial fertilizers… just manure.

All done with a 15 hp tractor that replaced the draft animals.

Fields as smooth as can be and with luck several cuttings… but life revolved around hay, weather and milking…

 

[Rockbadchild]

Grandparents dairy farmed on land going back to the 1700’s… never more than 25 milk cows with some the best producers in the county…

As a city kid summers on the farm were the best…

Never any pesticides or commercial fertilizers… just manure.

All done with a 15 hp tractor that replaced the draft animals.

Fields as smooth as can be and with luck several cuttings… but life revolved around hay, weather and milking…

View attachment 5258469

loose hay like that was a lot of work

 

[CH4Ohio]

Another suggestion. Talk to a couple of nearby farmers who bale hay. See if they’d be interested in making hay at your place. Decide on acreage. You pay for everything but they have the equipment and make it happen. You can split the yield or pay them custom rates or anything in between.

This lets you watch and learn and jump in to help where you can. You’ll also get a feel for what equipment you need to put together if you want to take it over and do it yourself.

Finally, they’ll let you know what type of hay sells in your area and what grows well.

 

[ultrarunner]

loose hay like that was a lot of work

Always… before the 1948 tractor it was a family effort.

Hay mowed and with good weather moisture dropped, load hay wagon, drive to barn and fork into the blower to move to the loft above the stable.

Strategic slots in the floor to drop hay to feed on winter.

I tried many times to buy grandfathers tractor but my cousin won’t let it go…

That tractor was replaced by Massey 135 which was replaced by a Fendt with cab A/C.

What took a family is done in total by my cousins wife…

Cousin got a city job driving buses…

The old farmers were the proudest about their fields… passed from generation to generation… it all starts with the grass.

Dairy is fading away because it’s a 7 day a week job 365 days of the year.

That said it was a good life for grandparents and one they cherished…

Haying can be done on the very cheap with the tradeoff being time, labor and material/machine expenses.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Dairy is fading away because it’s a 7 day a week job 365 days of the year.

That said it was a good life for grandparents and one they cherished…

My father haven't had animals in over 25 years or so, he still wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night thinking he has to go feed and milk the cows.

 

[ultrarunner]

 

[zzvyb6]

Jeeze you got a bailer for that cheap? Lucky. I wish I could get hell like that lol.

This was from a wreck. A working JD-14T is now around $1000 - $1500. The trick is to reajust the twine tension in the twine box and twine holders to contain the plastic twine people are now using. Otherwise, you have to try to find sisal twine. That's what encourages owners to give them away. A JD 336 here goes for about $3000 and a 327 goes for around $4500. Not much difference in the mechanisms, just the 'styling'.

 

[VroomVroom]

Start smaller and see what it’s all about. Then decide if you can handle more acres and if there’s a market for it.

Even 40 acres is a lot when you have a weather window of 5 or 6 days to cut it and get under roof. You’ll want a bigger tractor than 50 HP so you can handle a decent size discbine. You don’t want a sickle mower. Your 50 hp will be great for raking and tedding hay. If it’s anything like around here, you need a Tedder. Biggest thing is what size bales and how do you intend to handle them. If you’re round baling labor is minimal. If small squares you need lots of help even if you use accumulators and grapples. Other options get real expensive quick.

Making grass hay is ok. Alfalfa mix is much better. Straight alfalfa is about the hardest to get dried and baled. At least around here. If your fields are smooth, I’d discourage plowing. Just spray and kill the broadleaf weeds or total kill and no-till seed your hay mix.

It takes a lot of hustle and logistics to handle that many acres by yourself. Takes a lot of barn too if you’re doing small squares.

Edit — unless you have big equipment and lots of help, you probably won’t mow it all at once. Instead you’ll do what you can handle during each dry stretch and you’ll be doing hay pretty continuously during the summer.

Yes. Maybe just a dream. Maybe I’ll make a few calls to the agricultural department just to see price of fertilizer, seed. What they’d financially help with. Government is wanting people to farm but little incentive . Depending what they’d say, maybe did talk to a few potential buyers. Go from there. I’m not interested in taking up the whole summer. Normally it wouldn’t bother me. But I am working half the time. Then during the fall months I’m working 100% of the time. Leaving me with not a whole lot of things me in the run of a year. There’s one field I would be interested in doing , it is 35-40 acres. Maybe a mini bailer and few customers would satisfy an itch to try it.

 

[Hay Dude]

Grandparents dairy farmed on land going back to the 1700’s… never more than 25 milk cows with some the best producers in the county…

As a city kid summers on the farm were the best…

Never any pesticides or commercial fertilizers… just manure.

All done with a 15 hp tractor that replaced the draft animals.

Fields as smooth as can be and with luck several cuttings… but life revolved around hay, weather and milking…

View attachment 5258469

Best TBN photo.
It’s iconic.
It captures hard work, the old country, youth, simplicity, joy, innocence and a whole bunch of other things that don’t exist anymore.

 

[ultrarunner]

Best TBN photo.
It’s iconic.
It captures hard work, the old country, youth, simplicity, joy, innocence and a whole bunch of other things that don’t exist anymore.

I’m truly humbled…

It’s where my love of tractors started and at 4 years old it was me behind the wheel up and down the windrows… too small to be otherwise useful but in the drivers seat I was king of the world…

I have the wooden hayfork in the left of the picture my grandfathered made now in the foyer of my house…

In the winter he was always wood working with simple hand tools and made all the furniture at the farm…

Farming has the rhythm of the seasons…

 

[Rockbadchild]

Yes. Maybe just a dream. Maybe I’ll make a few calls to the agricultural department just to see price of fertilizer, seed. What they’d financially help with. Government is wanting people to farm but little incentive . Depending what they’d say, maybe did talk to a few potential buyers. Go from there. I’m not interested in taking up the whole summer. Normally it wouldn’t bother me. But I am working half the time. Then during the fall months I’m working 100% of the time. Leaving me with not a whole lot of things me in the run of a year. There’s one field I would be interested in doing , it is 35-40 acres. Maybe a mini bailer and few customers would satisfy an itch to try it.

if you do make it a business at least it will be a tax right off lol

 

[VroomVroom]

Once down below 40 acres. Might be only worth getting mini baler

 

[CH4Ohio]

Once down below 40 acres. Might be only worth getting mini baler

What are you calling a mini-baler? Are you referring to a basic small square baler or one of those mini-round balers or something else . . . ??

40 acres here makes a lot of hay -- like 3000 - 4000 small square bales per year. Your season may be shorter but I'd think you get a good amount of rainfall. Takes a lot of hustle and/or help to put that up by yourself in your spare time.

I wouldn't be looking at a "mini-baler" either way. If there's a market for round bales, I'd suggest you focus on making good clean hay using a net wrap round baler. All the work can be done on the seat of a tractor and you don't have to rush to get them out of the field after baling.

 

[Gregster613]

Grandparents dairy farmed on land going back to the 1700’s… never more than 25 milk cows with some the best producers in the county…

As a city kid summers on the farm were the best…

Never any pesticides or commercial fertilizers… just manure.

All done with a 15 hp tractor that replaced the draft animals.

Fields as smooth as can be and with luck several cuttings… but life revolved around hay, weather and milking…

View attachment 5258469

Great picture and memories! I remember when you posted this shot before and it surely reminded me of my upbringing also!!

 

[ultrarunner]

Great picture and memories! I remember when you posted this shot before and it surely reminded me of my upbringing also!!

I hesitate to repost but over 20 years on TBN there are always new threads and new members…

 

[Gregster613]

I hesitate to repost but over 20 years on TBN there are always new threads and new members…

Ultra, I sure did "not" mean to imply anything negative about that picture - just that it reminds me of a great youth and farming upbringing!! Post it whenever you like - as you said there are always new members whom may enjoy it, I always will!!