Buying Hay

[shaz]

I put up 200 4x6 rolls a year and have my own equipment. If you want it done you probably need to do it yourself. quote]
That is BS most custom guys I know including myself but up better hay than most owners probably 90% of the time because it is what we do for a living and most small guys that own equipment do it while trying to squeeze it in between a day job
I am not talking about the guy that has a job in town and him and his buddies bale hay at nite and on the weekends to make a few extra dollars
I am talking full time custom baling guys who do it for a big part of their living
I don't understand how you guys can bale hay so cheap
I guess I need you to come and show me how the numbers work as I guess the wife and I have been doing it wrong for along time
maybe while you guys are at it it you can tell me how you can produce calves and maintain cows for a $200 pr yr
maybe it is that NEW math I have been hearing about

also how many of you guys that bale your hay and don't fertilize know what the quality of that hay is and what kind of production pr acre do you acheive on a longterm basis with NO inputs

I said "If you want it done".

 

[Angus Cowman]

I put up 200 4x6 rolls a year and have my own equipment. If you want it done you probably need to do it yourself. quote]
That is BS most custom guys I know including myself but up better hay than most owners probably 90% of the time because it is what we do for a living and most small guys that own equipment do it while trying to squeeze it in between a day job
I am not talking about the guy that has a job in town and him and his buddies bale hay at nite and on the weekends to make a few extra dollars
I am talking full time custom baling guys who do it for a big part of their living
I don't understand how you guys can bale hay so cheap
I guess I need you to come and show me how the numbers work as I guess the wife and I have been doing it wrong for along time
maybe while you guys are at it it you can tell me how you can produce calves and maintain cows for a $200 pr yr
maybe it is that NEW math I have been hearing about

also how many of you guys that bale your hay and don't fertilize know what the quality of that hay is and what kind of production pr acre do you acheive on a longterm basis with NO inputs

I said "If you want it done".

sorry I miss read probably for properly
I am sorry

 

[shaz]

No harm Angus Cowman.
Actually, I do fertilize. Your hay cost follow your hayfield not your soil sample odd as it seems. I have a hayfield that makes 6tons per acre of fescue without a lot of fertilizer. I also have a hayfield that won't make 3 tons per acre with twice the fertilizer. The two fields are 1/10 mile apart and approx 12ft difference in elevation. Both are fescue and Johnson grass but one is swamp land that drains away after a flood nicely.

The production cost difference is unreal as you can see.

 

[cowsrus]

You can argue this all day, i have enjoyed reading everyones comments, but for myself i actually enjoy baling my own hay and always have. I get a sense of accomplishment out of of doing it myself, its hard work and frustrating at times and sometimes (rare), everything goes great. I buy decent equipment that i can afford and just work with what i've got. I think it has payed off for me cause i don't (can't ) buy new eqipment and since i'm doing it for myself, i can do it whenever i think its ready and the weather is right. I don't fertilize, but i've been trying to add in legumes every year to help . This year my hay tested at 9.2 % crude protein and i was happy with that. I thought it was my best hay ever cause i got everything cut about the right time and not too late. And i might add that i usually only bale about 150- 200 4x5s every year.

 

[TexasBred]

You can argue this all day, i have enjoyed reading everyones comments, but for myself i actually enjoy baling my own hay and always have. I get a sense of accomplishment out of of doing it myself, its hard work and frustrating at times and sometimes (rare), everything goes great. I buy decent equipment that i can afford and just work with what i've got. I think it has payed off for me cause i don't (can't ) buy new eqipment and since i'm doing it for myself, i can do it whenever i think its ready and the weather is right. I don't fertilize, but i've been trying to add in legumes every year to help . This year my hay tested at 9.2 % crude protein and i was happy with that. I thought it was my best hay ever cause i got everything cut about the right time and not too late. And i might add that i usually only bale about 150- 200 4x5s every year.

As long as you're happy with the end product and enjoy the experience nothing else matters. Enjoy yourself. :clap:

 

[Caustic Burno]

You can argue this all day, i have enjoyed reading everyones comments, but for myself i actually enjoy baling my own hay and always have. I get a sense of accomplishment out of of doing it myself, its hard work and frustrating at times and sometimes (rare), everything goes great. I buy decent equipment that i can afford and just work with what i've got. I think it has payed off for me cause i don't (can't ) buy new eqipment and since i'm doing it for myself, i can do it whenever i think its ready and the weather is right. I don't fertilize, but i've been trying to add in legumes every year to help . This year my hay tested at 9.2 % crude protein and i was happy with that. I thought it was my best hay ever cause i got everything cut about the right time and not too late. And i might add that i usually only bale about 150- 200 4x5s every year.

Yes can argue this all day but input cost will never change. It cost me 34 dollars a roll last year to produce quality hay. Now I could lower my hay cost by not fertilizing, I would just raise it on protien. You can't starve profit into a cow. When I was younger and the vertabrae where in good shape I enjoyed baling hay also didn't make it any cheaper or more expensive. The only thing I get by baling my own it's on my time schedule.
My labor has value as well or used to that 34 dollars was with no labor cost. Today I will gladly pay someone 6 dollars a roll to bale my hay.

 

[novaman]

The biggest concern I have with bringing someone in to bale the hay is availability. The weather often doesn't cooperate and only small windows exist to get hay put up right. A custom guy with a few clients may not get everybodies hay baled before the rain hits. For me this is the biggest disadvantage in my mind. If I have my own baler I can hit that field as soon as it is properly dried. A custom guy may get there but he may not. The other thing is the cost of labor. Nobody wants to work anymore and if they do they want to be getting paid top dollar. I suppose in all fairness I should be paying myself exactly the same as somebody hired in to do the work but in reality it doesn't work that way. I always figure my labor is worth the enjoyment I get from doing what I love.

 

[Angus Cowman]

The biggest concern I have with bringing someone in to bale the hay is availability. The weather often doesn't cooperate and only small windows exist to get hay put up right. A custom guy with a few clients may not get everybodies hay baled before the rain hits. For me this is the biggest disadvantage in my mind. If I have my own baler I can hit that field as soon as it is properly dried. A custom guy may get there but he may not. The other thing is the cost of labor. Nobody wants to work anymore and if they do they want to be getting paid top dollar. I suppose in all fairness I should be paying myself exactly the same as somebody hired in to do the work but in reality it doesn't work that way. I always figure my labor is worth the enjoyment I get from doing what I love.

I guess if I was doing lots of small acreages the getting there would be a problem but since most of the farms I do except Jed's are withing 5 or 6 miles from each other and I usually will lay down one farm at a time and don't jump back and forth
except on some of the fields which mature at different rates then I will do all the early maturing stuff and then start on the later maturing then by that time I can go back for second cutting on what was cut first if we have the rain
I only do 3 farms now I bale about 1500 a yr for myself,1000 for one guy and 300 for another and then I usually do one neighbors that mows his when I tell him too and I just go rake and bale it but only takes about and hr as he only has 40-50 bales and it is just across the fence from a field I am already baling so it isn't a big deal and he sells all of the hay except maybe 10 bales as all he does is raise 4 steers a yr for beef for all of his kids and grandkids

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

cowsrus - "This year my hay tested at 9.2 % crude protein" - that is minimum requirement for dry cows. It is not good enough for young stock and borderline for nursing cows.
If it is good enough for you, that's all that counts.

 

[novatech]

Today I will gladly pay someone 6 dollars a roll to bale my hay.

The guy would be better off staying home and just mailing you some money. Or is that what he charges you labor with your equipment? That would still be a bargain.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Today I will gladly pay someone 6 dollars a roll to bale my hay.

The guy would be better off staying home and just mailing you some money. Or is that what he charges you labor with your equipment? That would still be a bargain.

I can buy for 40 bucks a roll, cost me 34 to make a roll and this is good hay.
I have contracted one guy to bale one of my fields at 20 dollars a roll.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I have contracted one guy to bale one of my fields at 20 dollars a roll.

Dry in 2009 and hay was $35 to 50 per roll.
Wet in 2010 and hay was $20 to 24 per roll.
Hard to build a herd if you can only afford hay every other year. :cboy:

 

[kenny thomas]

If I ever see a year with cheap hay and cheap cattle I am going to load up. Will never happen.

 

[chukar]

This thread has been interesting to read. Personally I do not have the equipment necessary to put up my own hay, but I do have a custom guy (cousin) come in a put it up. Around here it is done by the ton. He bales 3x4 big bales.

My question is there are several different sizes of round bales. People on this thread have talked about prices ranging from $25 to $40 something. surely some of the difference is varying size bales (I don't have a clue about round bales as there is only 2 guys within 40 miles that put them up), so if you had to break it down by the ton, a common denominator, what would the "break even" of buying or putting up your own be. Again, that is most likely to vary with the type of hay being considered in each scenario.

I personally am at a point of saying to heck with taking hay off my place, whether that is sourcing thee equipement to do it myself, or having someone do it. I think I am money ahead to bring hay in and increase the carrying capacity on the limited acres I have. I like the idea of having control over the quality to a point, but even with a cousin putting up the hay I am at the will of his schedule and with full time gig in town I am not sure I have the time to do it myself if I had the equipment.

 

[SRBeef]

This thread has been interesting to read. Personally I do not have the equipment necessary to put up my own hay, but I do have a custom guy (cousin) come in a put it up. Around here it is done by the ton. He bales 3x4 big bales.

My question is there are several different sizes of round bales. People on this thread have talked about prices ranging from $25 to $40 something. surely some of the difference is varying size bales (I don't have a clue about round bales as there is only 2 guys within 40 miles that put them up), so if you had to break it down by the ton, a common denominator, what would the "break even" of buying or putting up your own be. Again, that is most likely to vary with the type of hay being considered in each scenario.

I personally am at a point of saying to heck with taking hay off my place, whether that is sourcing thee equipement to do it myself, or having someone do it. I think I am money ahead to bring hay in and increase the carrying capacity on the limited acres I have. I like the idea of having control over the quality to a point, but even with a cousin putting up the hay I am at the will of his schedule and with full time gig in town I am not sure I have the time to do it myself if I had the equipment.

Talking about hay prices by the ton would make sense, however from a practical standpoint it is a lot easier to count the number of "rolls" in the field or shed, etc.

It is my impression that most of the time here folks are talking about big round bales, usually 5 ft wide x 6 ft in diameter. There is a range in weight of these but I actually weigh some of each years that I buy from my very good supplier. This is a man who takes pride in his hay and makes very dense bales. My 5 x 6 bales weigh between 1500 and 1650 lb depending on which type of hay it is. He charges more for the hay with a lot of alfalfa than by weight.

One of the main ingredients of quality hay is timeliness. This has not been discussed very much here in this thread. Hay needs to be cut at the right stage of growth, thoroughly dried and baled hopefully without getting rained on in the process.

The way our weather in Wisconsin (wet, unpredictable but frequent rains all summer) has been the past few years it has been extremely difficult for even full time guys with a full line of big modern equipment to get their hay cut and dry and baled between rains.

For part timers like me it would be near impossible to time hay baling regardless of what equipment I had when even the full timers with equipment are pulling their hair out...

Jim

 

[plumber_greg]

Jim's reason is the same as mine. Someone mentioned paying $12,500 every year for custom haying is insane. Take off the equipment costs, and it won't figure that much. In my situation, if I take a couple weeks off to hay, the lost income and time lost at work would cost me at least that much. Not to mention jobs turned down, cuz' I was haying. Also, there is help to consider, I just can't see Sara driving a tractor all day for 2 weeks and not bitchin'. The other help in the summer ain't never gonna' get on my tractors. gs

 

[Angus Cowman]

Jim's reason is the same as mine. Someone mentioned paying $12,500 every year for custom haying is insane. Take off the equipment costs, and it won't figure that much. In my situation, if I take a couple weeks off to hay, the lost income and time lost at work would cost me at least that much. Not to mention jobs turned down, cuz' I was haying. Also, there is help to consider, I just can't see Sara driving a tractor all day for 2 weeks and not bitchin'. The other help in the summer ain't never gonna' get on my tractors. gs

I don't know Greg she might like the peace and quite of being away from you all day :lol2: :lol2:

 

[jedstivers]

Way plumbers charge here you can work a day an buy a month of hay

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Hey AC i will tell you how to make cheap hay. Get the game and fish guys up Mo to get some elk. Then you get a job making food plots for the elk. Get them to pay you to plow them up and plant and fertilize them. and you get to cut the hay. Goverment hay is a great deal.

 

[bigbull338]

whoa im shocked that AC only bales 3000 bales a year.heck i know a guy that puts up 10,000 bales a year plus square bales.an thats on a good year.he puts up almost 3000 for hisself an son in law.