Do you make or buy your hay?

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hay can easily be a great way to make some money. If you have good enough fields to do it. Traveling around baling up worn out ground isn't the way to profitability.

Last year hay here was 70 per roll. I baled around 1100 bales last year. thats 77k in hay (baled a lot of alfalafa so that figure is more around 100k in hay for 1 year. That will pay for a lot of equipment.
 
I have always baled all my hay and for the exception of last year never bought any. I have three good sized hay fields I have never baled a second cutting this year as the first crop was good and I don't think I will need it. I am going to let the cattle bale it and save me from feeding a month or two. I have three round balers if something happens to one, I have a backup and backup to the backup. All are in good shape as I usually go through them during the winter months and check from end to end if anything needs replacing.

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Where does one hire this mythical person?
My whole statement should be looked at here. I get what you might be implying, and that (I think) is that there is no one around to hire. That is/would be an issue. The point I was making is that the cost/salary for this mythical person is an expense that wasn't being considered as the purchase cost of the haying equipment was the only factor being considered in figuring the cost of the hay.

Admittedly, it would be very nice to hire a mythical person who knew exactly what they were doing/what you wanted them to do and they were always available to do exactly what you needed them to do when you wanted it, and you didn't have to pay them a dime. 🤪
 
Where does one hire this mythical person?
It's nearly impossible to find anyone to do manual labor anymore. If you can find anyone they bring out a crew of 5 to do the work of 2 and charge an arm and a leg. We do 90% of projects on the ranch ourselves because of this. Not sure what the future will bring. I can see everything being store bought before long.

I was watching a car show the other night where an ole boy buys cars that been sitting for 30 yrs and gets them running. On this episode he was at a logging outfit in the UP. Looked cold.
 
We 'limit-fed' hay and DDG for 12 winters; starting in 2007, when there was virtually NO hay available locally.... I saw folks payin $100 for a roll of cornstalks (after grain harvest) or CRP 'residue', released for haying in late Oct... some rolls had a pile of 1" diameter honeylocust stems left over after the cows picked through and ate what overmature grass was present. After that first year, we decided to continue.... feeding 25# hay/cow/day + whatever amount of DDG that our ration calculator indicated was needed to meet TDN and CP requirements. We had a split herd - Spring and Fall calving - which had very different nutritional requirements.

You need a reasonable nutritional analysis on hay and supplement, but there are several good ration-balancing programs (U. of MN Beef Cow Ration Calculator, and CowCulator are two we've used) that can help you tailor feeding, with consideration of breed, cow size, stage of pregnancy/lactation, desired body condition score, etc.

Mark Reynolds said, "Some think that ANY hay is better than snowballs and don't have a clue about hay analysis. (Saying any hay is better than snowballs is a real pet peeve of mine)."
I agree, wholeheartedly... I've seen way too many cattle, over the years, starving to death with a rumen full of poorly-digestible hay - and nothing else. If Crude Protein is less than 7%, the rumen microbes can't function to break down the cellulose in the plant materials... it just sits there, barely moving through the GI tract, causing decreased intake of more indigestible materials, so the cattle begin catabolizing body fat and muscle stores.

If you were in Western KY in 2007 with cattle, so was I. That is the dryest and worst drought I can remember (at least when I have fooled with cattle). My grandad was lucky to have a good buddy with a lot of acreage and a surplus hay crop. We had to make the same round trip hauling hay every weekend from Earlington to Kelly to feed cattle all winter.

That is one reason I elect to make hay, I would rather have surplus from myself vs having to dry all over the country trying to find it in a drought year. We really only got one cutting this year in East TN, but luckily I don't need a lot as I'm just starting my herd.
 
I just saw hay sell at auction an hour away from here for 12¢ a pound. No freight or loading costs in that either.
There are a couple of serious problems with buying all your hay.
In drought years hay gets very expensive. If it can even be found. If it can be found it's likely a long ways away. No matter how good your relationship with your suppliers if they can't provide they can't provide.
I've seen some big outfits around here get into a real bind using very similar ideas to what MarkReynolds is suggesting. I know a guy that had to truck his 1000 cows to a feedlot to be custom fed 12 hours away.
There is a lot of risk not being mentioned in the philosophy being pushed here and my business risk tolerance will not accept that kind of risk.
Buying all your hay can work for some people in some situations but it can break others in no time flat.
 
Lucky, the chart I am looking at is for a 1000 lb cow raising a 500 lb calf. In months 8-9-10 post calving, it indicates the cow needs 21 lbs of DM. That DM needs to be 47% TDN (9.87 lbs) and CP of 6.6% (1.39 lbs). Do these numbers square at all with your calculations? You may be calving at a different time from the 8-9-10 cow I referenced.
We calve from February 7th until May 1st and wean calves in late November. Our feeding season is generally from Thanksgiving to March 15th. We are feeding dry cows for most of the feeding season. I believe the calculator shows 24 pounds dry matter and ramps to around 1.2 # protein. The protein part is easy it's the dry matter part that gets fuzzy for me. It's easy to feed X amount of hay per head but how to you figure what they're picking around on. Lots of people talk about stock piling grass and we try that but it's mostly to keep that cattle content. My experience with standing grass is that they might as well be eating cardboard.
 
Buying all your hay can work for some people in some situations but it can break others in no time flat.
You need a hay barn that will store 2 yrs worth of hay. Might not save you but will definitely buy you time. Fill it up on cheap years.
 
I just saw hay sell at auction an hour away from here for 12¢ a pound. No freight or loading costs in that either.
There are a couple of serious problems with buying all your hay.
In drought years hay gets very expensive. If it can even be found. If it can be found it's likely a long ways away. No matter how good your relationship with your suppliers if they can't provide they can't provide.
I've seen some big outfits around here get into a real bind using very similar ideas to what MarkReynolds is suggesting. I know a guy that had to truck his 1000 cows to a feedlot to be custom fed 12 hours away.
There is a lot of risk not being mentioned in the philosophy being pushed here and my business risk tolerance will not accept that kind of risk.
Buying all your hay can work for some people in some situations but it can break others in no time flat.

We can't find hay around here very easily on a good year yet alone a drought year. This year we had a bad drought all summer and if i had to buy hay it wasn't going to happen, the cows would have been sold. In fact, I am going to be scraping by this year on my share of hay I got from my own field.


I have a barn but not enough for 2 years worth of storage. If im paying to build another building I would rather buy equipment and not worry about being short of hay again. If i had an easy source of hay that was reliable year in and year out that wasn't overly expensive I might buy it.
 
A couple lessons I learned about buying hay. If you are buying hay, buy it early. If you have to start feeding hay early figure out how much extra hay you will need and buy it before you even feed a single bale. If it was an easy winter with lots of leftover hay available come spring. Buy it at a discounted price. It will still feed good next winter. But don't buy hay with damage to hold over.
 
Around here we were always told if you feed 800 plus rolls a year it paid to have your own fields and equipment. Last month I was told that number is closer to 1,250 now. This is strictly from a $$$ point of view. Never baled my own hay so wouldn't know. What do y'all think?

Edit: The man that told me this bales 8-10,000 rolls a year and feeds 1,200-1,400. I didn't question him on anything. He's been at it for along time.
 
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Around here we were always told if you feed 800 plus rolls a year it paid to have your own fields and equipment. Last month I was told that number is closer to 1,250 now. This is strictly from a $$$ point of view. Never baled my own hay so wouldn't know. What do y'all think?
The notion of a threshold like you mention here makes perfect sense. I have no doubt that it is variable as the factors influencing hay cost are variable. In my part of the country having more than 50-60 head is somewhat on the unusual side of things. However, making your own hay is not nearly as unusual. Does it pay for the typical or average producer to have hay equipment around here? The short answer is no. Most of the cattle producers around here also have a primary job that is not raising cattle. We do have 'producers' around here that focus entirely on hay production as their business and have either no livestock or very few. Their business is hay, not cattle.
 
hay can easily be a great way to make some money. If you have good enough fields to do it. Traveling around baling up worn out ground isn't the way to profitability.

Last year hay here was 70 per roll. I baled around 1100 bales last year. thats 77k in hay (baled a lot of alfalafa so that figure is more around 100k in hay for 1 year. That will pay for a lot of equipment.
In each ton of hay there is around $70 worth of NPK, as long as there is a surplus of soil nutrients things are fine but once they are depleted production suffers.
 
We calve from February 7th until May 1st and wean calves in late November. Our feeding season is generally from Thanksgiving to March 15th. We are feeding dry cows for most of the feeding season. I believe the calculator shows 24 pounds dry matter and ramps to around 1.2 # protein. The protein part is easy it's the dry matter part that gets fuzzy for me. It's easy to feed X amount of hay per head but how to you figure what they're picking around on. Lots of people talk about stock piling grass and we try that but it's mostly to keep that cattle content. My experience with standing grass is that they might as well be eating cardboard.
too bad jed stivers isn't on here anymore, he'd be able to help you
 
Around here we were always told if you feed 800 plus rolls a year it paid to have your own fields and equipment. Last month I was told that number is closer to 1,250 now. This is strictly from a $$$ point of view. Never baled my own hay so wouldn't know. What do y'all think?

Edit: The man that told me this bales 8-10,000 rolls a year and feeds 1,200-1,400. I didn't question him on anything. He's been at it for along time.

here they say you need 100 cows.

it really just depends on how much hay is in your area. My last couple places... no hay anywhere and what was for sale was worthless. here, with chicken houses all over.. we have ample hay thats good quality.
 
We calve from February 7th until May 1st and wean calves in late November. Our feeding season is generally from Thanksgiving to March 15th. We are feeding dry cows for most of the feeding season. I believe the calculator shows 24 pounds dry matter and ramps to around 1.2 # protein. The protein part is easy it's the dry matter part that gets fuzzy for me. It's easy to feed X amount of hay per head but how to you figure what they're picking around on. Lots of people talk about stock piling grass and we try that but it's mostly to keep that cattle content. My experience with standing grass is that they might as well be eating cardboard.
24 lb of dry matter and only getting 1.2lb of protein means 5% protein grass. Is that correct? Thats pretty bad.
Your cardboard grass is much different than my good stockpile fescue. I will be posting my test results in December but i expect ar least 18% protein in December on stockpile fescue. I have plans of testing in January, February, and March also just to see how low it gets. Unless we get heavy snow, which is rare, i will graze all winter. Im understocked but i like it that way. Yes i have hay in the barns but hope it stays there.
 
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24 lb of dry matter and only getting 1.2lb of protein means 5% protein grass. Is that correct? Thats pretty bad.
When we have pasture grass hay tested it's generally 6-8% protein and the TDN is always a touch below average. I can get and have gotten really good fertized and irrigated Jiggs and Tifton hay but it's gotten so pricey that we can supplement cheaper.

Your cardboard grass is much different than my good stockpile fescue.
We don't have any fescue and the grass that is left after the heat of the summer is all the junk they don't want. I'm glad it's there and they eat it but it's just a filler. Kinda like me eating a whole bag of BBQ lays.

Im understocked but i like it that way.
I know people that overstock and people that understock. Everyone needs to do what suits them. We want to have the opportunity to make as much money as possible and for us that means having as many calves as possible without having to feed until Thanksgiving. We've avgd 2.2 rolls of hay and 550# of feed per hd for the last several years but, we hand feed everyday.
 

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