Hay equipment

[kenny thomas]

Same here, I could buy all I want for $15. Not dairy quality but plenty good enough for beef cows.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Same here, I could buy all I want for $15. Not dairy quality but plenty good enough for beef cows.

Yep, I lost money by making hay this year, I could have bought and saved money. But sure wouldn't count on being able to do so, that could put you in a mess.

 

[Angus Cowman]

Here's another shot term factor if it makes a difference to anyone's opinion.

At the end of this feeding season I will have about 75% of next years hay left over, and right now I can buy as much good quality hay as I want for 20$ so I could go buy 500 bales of that plus my stockpile and I wouldn't be in need of any hay this next year, I would just be baling for the next year. And another thing I'll mention is even if I do sell my equipment now I plan on getting back in to haying in the next 5 or 6 years, just with newer equipment.

This confuses me as much as M5's termite.
It cost me 36 dollars a bale to bale my own hay in 2010.
You can't buy a bale of hay here for less than 50 dollars that is worth feeding.
Is diesel and fertilizer that much cheaper in Mo.?
How in the world can sell hay for less than cost and stay in business.
There is no way you can fertilize buy fuel to cut rake and bale for 20 bucks here.

one reason you can bale cheaper there CB is the volume of hay pr acre Avg production there on decent hay ground on first cutting is usually any where from 3000 to 5000lbs pr acre on good ground with good fert I have seen as much as 6000 lbs pr acre or a bit more

I was getting $18 pr bale with a 4 bale pr acre min when I left Mo and a lot of guys where doing it cheaper but most of them also don't figure what it really cost them to do it most of them have the equipment and either have a job in town or they have it to bale their own and just figure anything they make is pure profit
I always said I had to bale atleast 2000 bales to make it worth owning my own equipment
but then again I also have always said if you don't bale atleast 500 bales pr yr it isn't worth baling your own ground
7 out of 10 yrs you can buy hay cheaper than you can bale or have your own baled yes their will be some yrs that hay cost 3 time what it did on other yrs but on a 10 yr avg you will still be at a break even or a little better plus with not having ground set aside to hay you can run more cows and on the yrs that hay is short you just need to be in the position to reduce your herd or make other arrangements for your cattle

Also if you don't hay your ground and run the same amount of cows there will be several yrs where you will cut your hay needs in half or better by stockpiling plus your land will benefit by not being over grazed or grazed to capacity

 

[Kscattle]

People forget too easy what hay cost in bad years and only remember the good years when hays cheap. So your saying that you have enough pasture to run 30-40 more cows without pasturing your hay ground? AND are you ready to buy enough hay to feed them? If you have 40 more cows, your gonna want your own equipment, you could still have the custom guy bale some and keep buying that cheap hay if you want to. Hay is cheap here too but I see no clear reason to sell my equipment when my pastures are full of cows. If next year hay goes up like it did the last couple years, then your in trouble! I would rather be self sufficient and stay small than try and be a big cattleman and go broke one year when feed prices bust.

 

[fitz]

Same here, I could buy all I want for $15. Not dairy quality but plenty good enough for beef cows.

Same here. Advertised some at what I thought was a fair price for decent hay. Enough to only cover costs and make a little room for this year's. It's not moving.

fitz

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I genrally feed 1000 to 1200 4x6 bales a year, now of course that doesn't figure feeding any in the summer in case there's a drought.

 

[Caustic Burno]

AC as far as volume per acre I was doing as good or better than ya'll.
I had one leased 7 ac field it was no problem to get 8 to 10 4 X 5's to the acre and I have done better.
That was fertilized Coastal it would be so thick you would have to pick up one side of the V rake and single row it.
If you didn't you had to bale in low 1st or 2nd gear to keep from clogging the baler. Never seen another field produce like that one there was something magic about that ground. The rest of my fields on average produced 4 rolls per acre.
We would have to move hay out of the way there would be some many round bales.
The worst field I cut would yield 3000 pounds per acre that was 3 to 4 bales per acre, that was a 10 acre field it routinely
rolled out 38 to 40 bales. I had one little field that was only 4 acres in the fork of two creeks that would roll out 20 every time 15 in a drought.
The big difference I see in my cost was moving equipment and moving hay a 10 acre hay field here is an average field.
I had four fields away from the house within a 8 mile radius. I burnt a lot of fuel moving hay to the house.

 

[bigbull338]

now im not being mean when i say this.but do not take a dumb dumb pill an sell your equipment.because you will regret it.as what custom balers say an do or 2 differant things.we went back to baling our hay for 2 reasons.1 you could not get a custom baler in todo it in a timely manner.an they might slipp some1 in front of you.2 our baling cost got so high that we was better off doing it ourself an getting the equipment.but i see your 1 tractor short.right now we have 2 tractors an 1 tractor we can get running pretty quick.all have loaders.but in process of getting the 4th tractor now.that way when we buy the rest of hay equipment.we can jump from tractor to tractor.without hooking an unhooking equipment.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

now im not being mean when i say this.but do not take a dumb dumb pill an sell your equipment.because you will regret it.as what custom balers say an do or 2 differant things.we went back to baling our hay for 2 reasons.1 you could not get a custom baler in todo it in a timely manner.an they might slipp some1 in front of you.2 our baling cost got so high that we was better off doing it ourself an getting the equipment.but i see your 1 tractor short.right now we have 2 tractors an 1 tractor we can get running pretty quick.all have loaders.but in process of getting the 4th tractor now.that way when we buy the rest of hay equipment.we can jump from tractor to tractor.without hooking an unhooking equipment.

I've got 3 tractors now, but I'll keep 2 if I did sell my equipment. I agree that I wouldn't like relying on someone else, I don't like that in anything.

 

[M5farm]

If I were in your shoes I would hold on to my equipment and have enough hay ground that I could cut on my own to get thru the winter in worse case scenario. buy the bulk of your hay or have a small portion done by custom bailers. and see how it goes. you will have a backup plan and even if you didn't have to cut a field or 2 you could graze it and be money ahead. if you had a note on the equipment and were trying to reduce your exposure I could understand the "downsizing" . the equipment under your barn is only costing you space.