Cost per acre to bale

[papavillars]

My baler died and the nearest cutter wants to charge per acre. What would be a fair price to cut rake and bale.

 

[BC]

What did you pay by the bale? Take that and multiply by what your field traditionally yields and see if he will cut it for that figure.

 

[muleskinner]

Iowa State has a web page that could help.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/public ... FM1698.pdf

 

[bigbull338]

i would not hire my hay cut raked an baled by the ac no way no how.i would only have it done by the bale.we hired a friend to cut an rake our hay for $12 a bale.as we are baling it with a jd 567 baler.if you have the cutter an rake,then cut an rake it an see what he would charge to bale it.

 

[papavillars]

Guys,thanks for the replies.we agreed on regular by the bale payment.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

We baled a 13 acre plot, got 49 bales off it. $17.00 a bale (he cuts, rakes and bales- net wrap). That is $64 an acre. Another piece we did is only 5 acres, got 18 bales off that, so that was $61 an acre. We had a small piece that we grazed the first part of spring, and rotated off of. It grew so fast we decided to bale part of it, it was about 3 acres and we got 7 bales, so that would be $40 an acre. It just never works. If you expect a heavy cutting (more bales per acre), you might benefit from it. If you do not, you are likely to lose.

 

[Alan_42219]

I do custom hay for a freind of mine and I charge her 10.00 a bale. She has about 22 acres and I only did 73 bales. Then I did a neighbors hay on 9 acres and I made 21 bales. Then I did my land about 20 acres and made 117. So as others said look at the yield your land produces and go from there.

 

[Chuckie]

Alan, you are not charging anything close to what I have been paying. I suppose you are charging really good friend prices, and you all help each other out. Here, the going rate is $20-22.00 a bale.
Chuckie

 

[Caustic Burno]

Here they charge an hourly rate if the field is not under yearly contract.
Cost you fifty dollar's an hour doesn't matter if your field kick's out 10 bales or a 100.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

Local guy in Montesano, charges $80/hr. Bale and wrap 4' rounds.