What are the ways to haying agrreements?

[riptides]

Having officially moved to the farm, the haying operations will take a back seat to the farm building renovations. Only two fingers were broke in the raining moving process. So we consider this a victory.

What are the ways to enter proper agreements for haying operations? With other peoples equipment and time? Is there a standard precentage that is considered custom? Or does the equipment owner/operator make the arrangment? I as a landowner, would I be considered the deal maker? In other words, if I find someone willing to cut, do I get dollars at FMV or just bales of my own hay? I am willing to help in the process as best as I can, but what is considered the right way to make the deal.

Thanks.
-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bdog]

I am sure it is done lots of ways, but I have a neighbor who bales a lot of hay on the halves. The landowner plows, plants etc on their own, he cuts and bales the hay and the landowner gets half, and he gets half, both in the field. My neighbor keeps some hay for himself but sells most of it. I have seen other arrangements where a custom bailer charges X dollars per bale to cut and bale it.

 

[Bird]

It's all up to the individuals involved. When I was working for a neighbor cutting and baling hay for others, he simply charged them $12.50 a bale for whatever we baled in 5' x 5' bales or $13.50 per bale for 5' x 6' bales. If the property owner wanted the bales moved to the edge of the field and lined up, that was another $1 per bale. He did have some people who wanted him to cut and bale hay on the halves, and some people do that, but he had all the hay he could use and sell, so he simply turned down those jobs. I know at least one person offered to just give him the hay if he'd cut and bale it, but he turned that down also because he didn't think the hay would be good enough quality to be worth it. Of course, it's been 6-8 years since we did any of that, so I don't know what others are charging now or what kind of arrangements they're making.

 

[fishman]

My BIL does custom square baling and he just told me he gets 2/3 of the hay when baling for someone, or 50-60 cents a bale. Normally the landowners would hear of him via word of mouth or a business card at the local farm store. This approach may be different for round baling.

Many of the landowners sell their part of the hay to customers my BIL has lined up, so there really is little work involved for them other than calling him on the phone. If you need the hay for your own use, than paying by the bale would likely work best.

 

[Indydirtfarmer]

There's about as many "going rates" as there is people with hayfields anymore.

I charge $1 a bale (small squares) to cut, rake and bale. (20 acre minimum. Less than that, I charge hourly. $60 hr cut and rake, $75 bale)

$15 to cut, rake and round bale, or the same hourly as squares.

In both cases, that's left in the field. (Small squares are "bunched" with an accumulator. I'll load them with loader/grapple @ $60 hr.)

I do a couple 60/40 splits (I get the 60) That all depends on the quality of the hay involved. I don't need junk hay, and can't sell it. The only way I'll do splits is when we're talking "the good stuff".

There's folks that'll do it cheaper than I will.... I don't really want a lot of custom hay business (unless it pays well) I do enough hay of my own most years, and don't want to wear out my equipment for "minimum wage".

 

[twinstackram]

Last year we purchased 8.5 acres with only 6.4 tillable,it had wheat on it,but the farmer had put clover in with the wheat,so when he cut the wheat he came back later and baled the clover in the big round bales, didn't count them or anything,but there were quite a few for the small amount of acreage,anyway,the crops are split 1/3 2/3 but for some reason we didn't get anything for the hay,which anything that comes off the land is split 1/2 2/3,didn't get a single dime for the hay that came off my property,so needless to say this will be the last year he will be farming my land.