Cutting hay on small acreage.

BryanM · Mar 2, 2010

Just my 2 cents worth! First I dont do hay for a living and only do a small amount. less than 1000 smalls a year. I have a moco, hay rake, wagon and baler. Most of my stuff is antique style 14t baler, 1209 mower, 350 hay rake. But I found all the stuff at auctions and paid very little for them.

You can get older hay equipment and get the Job done at no where near the cost of what other posts have said. Yes you will need to be a little mechanically inclined. And not in a huge hurry, meaning you may need too stager your cuttings so your not cutting all 25 acres at once. So you can take a bit of time to get your bales put away.

Now saying all of that, You better believe if I was doing hay for a living I would by new or newwer equipment to make sure I could do as much hay as fast as possible with min. break downs.

Before you make any decisions do your self a favor and search this site for small hay ventures.

Robert_in_NY · Mar 2, 2010

BryanM said:
Just my 2 cents worth! First I dont do hay for a living and only do a small amount. less than 1000 smalls a year. I have a moco, hay rake, wagon and baler. Most of my stuff is antique style 14t baler, 1209 mower, 350 hay rake. But I found all the stuff at auctions and paid very little for them.

You can get older hay equipment and get the Job done at no where near the cost of what other posts have said. Yes you will need to be a little mechanically inclined. And not in a huge hurry, meaning you may need too stager your cuttings so your not cutting all 25 acres at once. So you can take a bit of time to get your bales put away.

Now saying all of that, You better believe if I was doing hay for a living I would by new or newwer equipment to make sure I could do as much hay as fast as possible with min. break downs.

Before you make any decisions do your self a favor and search this site for small hay ventures.

You are right in that you can buy equipment for a lot less then what has been posted. But with that comes a lot of risks as you said and if you are not good with repairs on the spot then all you accomplished was spending a lot of money and still have to buy hay. The joys of haying

stravis · Mar 2, 2010

Great information, Robert in NY. Thank you. I've heard a lot about the Khun equipment, but haven't really looked into them. I'll have to check them out and find a local dealer. It sounds like a rake is a must. I wasn't aware that a baler required larger rows. I thought without the rake I'd just have to make more passes. Yes, the 5101 is 101 engine hp (82 at the PTO).

BryanM · Mar 2, 2010

Totally agree with Robert that you need to be handy with a wrench and willing too learn about your equipment especially with older equipment. I have been doing hay for a very short time but the lessons that I have learned are- I dont care weither the equipment is new or old haying is work, The degree of work has to do with the equipment you run yes. But in general haying is work!

Robert_in_NY · Mar 2, 2010

stravis said:
Great information, Robert in NY. Thank you. I've heard a lot about the Khun equipment, but haven't really looked into them. I'll have to check them out and find a local dealer. It sounds like a rake is a must. I wasn't aware that a baler required larger rows. I thought without the rake I'd just have to make more passes. Yes, the 5101 is 101 engine hp (82 at the PTO).

You can bale smaller windrows but with balers a good consisten windrow is the most important thing and with round balers you want your windrow to fill the entire pickup of the baler. The more even the windrow the better bale you make.

stravis · Mar 2, 2010

I'm not scared of work. I enjoy it and am looking forward to it, really. I dearly love learning new trades like this.

I'm fairly mechanically inclined. I don't know much about hay equipment, but I'm pretty good at figuring mechanical equipment out and being able to fix it. It would take a while, but I think I can figure it out.

Thanks for the help, BryanM. I'm definitely leaning towards older equipment for all except maybe the baler. I've seen some slightly used smaller round balers in the $10,000 range (I don't know if they were net wrap or not). That seems reasonable, but I'd likely go older on the other equipment seeing as how this is a small scale operation and wouldn't be used too hard.

Mike120 · Mar 2, 2010

For Bermuda you don't need a moco. It gives you zero advantage and it's just something else to break. You can cut it with a used sickle mower (maybe $1,000) and rake it the next day with a used NH 256 (maybe $1,200) and bale it on the third day with a used round baler (Maybe 12,000). If you fertilize it, watch your ph, and get rain, you'll likely get 4 cuttings of between 1 & 2 rounds per acre.

stravis · Mar 2, 2010

Mike120, is a sickle not much slower than a moco? I've also read that a sickle doesn't cut as well, that's why I've been leaning toward a moco. I'd much prefer going with the cheaper sickle if it will do the job without having to mow so slow that it takes 4 days to cut the fields.

Robert_in_NY · Mar 2, 2010

stravis said:
Mike120, is a sickle not much slower than a moco? I've also read that a sickle doesn't cut as well, that's why I've been leaning toward a moco. I'd much prefer going with the cheaper sickle if it will do the job without having to mow so slow that it takes 4 days to cut the fields.

Unless your going to a disc or drum type cutter then a moco or haybine is generally a sickle cutter with a reel to feed the grass into the cutter bar and crimpper rolls to crimp the hay as it goes through. The cutter is the same as a simple sickle mower.