Cost of baling hay

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

First cutting is done! Yahoo
We had 2 sunny days (8th & 9th) and got 70 acres done, then 3 days later had a sunny day & got the last 10 acres done. All put up as baleage - 52" and inline wrapped.
I do not own ANY hay equipment except the two spears on my tractor. Total labor & equipment cost was $15.72/bale. This will vary from year to year, depending on how many bales per acre. I got 5.13/acre. Mostly grass hay, just starting boot stage.
How does that compare to others?
I put 300#/acre fertilizer.

 

[Son of Butch]

Cut, baled and wrapped for $15.72 bale sounds like a bargain to me.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Cheap, it's $20+ a roll here. Plastic cost $3 a roll. So someone is willing to cut, rake, bale, then haul and wrap for less than $13 a roll using all their own equipment. Working that cheap I don't know how they can afford to pay their New York state property taxes.

 

[Son of Butch]

Owner/operator of baling equipment is not responsible for paying neighbors property taxes.

Heavy yield reduces per bale cost when charging by the acre.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Cut, baled and wrapped for $15.72 bale sounds like a bargain to me.

I totally agree.
Back when I had all my equipment and with fertilizer cost, I had 36 dollars a roll in hay. It would scare the fire out of me to run the numbers today.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Owner/operator of baling equipment is not responsible for paying neighbors property taxes.

Heavy yield reduces per bale cost when charging by the acre.

Not to the one doing the baling and wrapping.

 

[Son of Butch]

Owner/operator of baling equipment is not responsible for paying neighbors property taxes.

Heavy yield reduces per bale cost when charging by the acre.

Not to the one doing the baling and wrapping.

Sure, but Jeanne made a deal with him to pay her own property tax, so that made him happy.

 

[True Grit Farms]

Owner/operator of baling equipment is not responsible for paying neighbors property taxes.

Heavy yield reduces per bale cost when charging by the acre.

Not to the one doing the baling and wrapping.

Sure, but Jeanne made a deal with him to pay her own property tax, so that made him happy.

"Working that cheap I don't know how they can afford to pay their New York state property taxes." Your reading comprehension leaves a little to be desired. I'd blame it brain freeze but it must be thawed out by now.

 

[Son of Butch]

Who says he owns any property to be taxed?

 

[True Grit Farms]

Who says he owns any property to be taxed?

Now that's a fair assumption.

 

[Son of Butch]

Last week I received a copy of a 2019 custom rates guide compiled from over 2,800 farmers.

Minnesota hay mowing & conditioning $12 acre
New York " " " $16 acre

Minnesota Large Round baling $10 bale ($2 extra for net wrap)
New York " " " $10 bale ($2 extra for net wrap)

No rate mentioned for wrapping bales, closest I could find is filling silage bag $4 - $9 per foot

Miscellaneous that might be of interest to others: prices given are the national average.

broadcasting dry fertilizer $6.50 acre
broadcasting liquid fert.... 7.00 acre
broadcasting herbicide 7.50 acre

raking hay 6.00 acre
mowing hay 12.00 acre
brush hogging pasture 15.00 acre
seeding alfalfa/grasses 15.00 acre

Livestock hauling $3.00 per loaded mile

power washing $25 hour
post hole digging $5 hole

skid steer/loader $50 hr
bull dozing D6 or smaller 100 hr
bull dozing D7 or larger 120 hr

Silage - chop, transport and fill silo $10 ton
Silage chopping only $8 ton

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Here's the breakdown:
$11 per bale
$80 per plastic roll
$16/acre mowing/conditioning
We did not rake this time.
this is a neighbor, been doing our hay for 30+ years. He does his first (has a very small dairy farm), then does mine --- then does other customers. I used to part of his hay crew. I ran the wrapper. Started with one of the first wrappers around, had hydrollic lines hooked from the tractor to the wrapper. One for the ram & one for the wheel. My nephew runs the wrapper now.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

That's cheap enough...I could buy it about as cheap as I can make it..but I like too be self sufficient...I'm cheap in my equipment, and its there when I need it..and I hate too rely on another man for it..too many variables..

 

[Son of Butch]

The numbers add up.
11 per bale
$3.12 per bale for mowing & condition (your good yield helped to keep the price down)
$1.60 per bale to wrap (I would have guessed $3 a bale to wrap)
$15.72 per bale harvested

And neighbor got paid $80.63 acre to harvest 80 acres of 1st crop hay.
So the burning question is: Will your neighbor bother to pay his property taxes?

Let's compare it with harvesting corn. Custom combining 30 - $35 acre (National average $33)
200 bushel corn x 15 cents a bu. hauling to local elevator to dry and store = $30 acre to transport

Let's pay extra for combining and give our guy $40 acre.
$40 acre combining + $30 acre to haul off the field = $70 acre

Harvesting hay $80 acre (1st crop only)
Harvesting corn $70 acre

hmmm.... seems to me maybe New York should raise their property taxes...

 

[kilroy60]

Just to wrap hay here is $8 per roll. Cost just to bale (not cut/raked) is $10 per roll. Sounds like you got a deal with what you paid.

 

[TCRanch]

Just wrote a check for $6330. to cut/rake/bale appx. 115 acres. Brome in the west field averaged 2.5 bales per acre and 3.5 -4 bales in the bottom ground. Didn't get squat in the Bermuda. That said, we also let the weanlings graze the brome in the west so it always yields less.

 

[JMJ Farms]

I pay $20/roll, 4x6 rolls, net wrapped. Includes cutting, raking, and baling. With fertilizer and rent I average $50/roll for my hay. May fluctuate +/- $5/roll depending on certain weather factors, etc. But has been $45-$55/roll for the last 10 years.

 

[snoopdog]

I can make a profit baling 5 bales/acre, you done good.Got the numbers right ,your hay guy is happy, you'r happy, and the hay is up!

 

[fhug]

What was your price per acre for the fertilizer?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

You had me a little confused (remember, this old brain doesn't take a lot to confuse!). I think I finally get what you were referring to when you talked about farm taxes. You might be surprised at our farm taxes. Agriculture is the number 1 industry in NY. NY is mostly rural/country. Taxes in our county are very low compared to land across my road. My road divides two counties. Across the road is Tompkins county where Cornell Univ is located. Taxes much higher. Actually, my hay ground is leased land across the road. We have two taxes/year. A County Tax and a School Tax. Agriculture land that has an income of more than $10,000 gets the School Tax refunded to us with our NY State Taxes. Pretty good deal!

fhug - I spent $48.88/acre.
snoopdog - YES - hay is done. My husband would say "too late for 1st cutting now" (because we were finished). Without the ability to put up baleage, we would not have even started. We actually had sections in the fields that the guys had to go around mowing, and some places the baler couldn't go even though hay was cut. We are really, really wet. Hay ground is more like swamp ground!