Making hay

[Caustic Burno]

Considering baling my own hay next year instead of buying, I'll have to buy a round baler, mower, tedder, and rake any options or features on the above equipment you all feel are must haves?

You need to go get medical help you had better put a real sharp pencil on this.
Hay equipment can make a preacher cuss.

 

[farmerjohn]

How many acres?

45-50 acres

You don't have enough acres to do,that it would pay to own your own equipment.Let someone else make the payments on the equipment.

I disagree. I typically bale 40 acres per year. Most years I get 3 cuttings. I have coastal bermuda and my protien content varies from 10-14%. With hay this good, you don't need to feed expensive range cubes or protien supplements. For quality hay, you need to cut it every 4-5 weeks. Try that with a custom operator. They never come when they are suppose to, or they want to wait until the grass is 3' tall and worthless (so they can have more hay to bale and make more money). They also want to scalp my ground (so as to make more money). I cut my coastal about 4" tall. It greens back up in a few days v.s. everyone else that cuts theirs dirt high.

If you are serious about quality hay, buy your own equipment. If you are going to bale garbage that is 8 weeks old, full of weeds and no fertilization or chemical program, you are just as well to buy someone's elses garbage hay.

 

[gertman]

http://www.machinefinder.com/ and http://www.newholland.com/h4/used_equip ... 0001316003
Open these two websites and shop and compare prices until your heart is content. Every equipment company has a website where the dealers can display thier used equipment. I have baled my own hay for the last twenty years. I will be using my new-used vermeer rebel. Up until now I have baled with a 330 john deere round baler, makes a 4 by 4 bale. In the twenty years I have replaced the tires, the pickup tines , the spider in the hay pickup and the packing in the cylinders. If the packing on the rams in the cylinders fail you can not pack the hay tight. Also at the start of this summer I had to replace a top roller for the belt. $600 for parts and I did my own labor. I would estimate the cost of maintenance on the equipment at around $1000 a year. The belts look like crap but they keep rolling the bale. Other expenses over the years have been belt lacings. The sand in this area wears them pretty fast. Do you already have a tractor what kind and Horsepower?

I have a Deere 2755 around 75 pto horsepower.

 

[Jogeephus]

Farmerjohn, I agree 100%. When I bought hay, I had to feed all kinds of supplements. Now I don't. They eat hay and stay at a good BCS.

 

[dun]

Good hay from a farmer that raises hay for a living generally turns out cheaper in the long run then the garbage that a lot of people sell. They plan on being around for the long haul and don;t (generally) sell junk hay. They also can grow and put up good quality hay for less then most people can grow it and cut it themsleves.

dun

 

[bgm]

I agree that you can buy it alot of times cheaper than you can grow it, pay for fuel and equipment. For instance, I talked with the guy I buy my hay from last year. He was selling the hay for $20.00 for a 1500 lb bale. He said that his costs to put it up counting leasing the hay field, fertilizer, fuel, etc. was $16.75 per bale. This year he was embarrassed to tell me he had to go up to $30.00 a bale because of high fuel prices. It's good quality brome, and I don't think I'd try to do it for what he's getting, especially if I was having to pay for the equipment on top of everything. You have to put up alot of hay to justify those costs.

Put a pencil to it before you make a decision.

 

[hurleyjd]

http://www.machinefinder.com/ and http://www.newholland.com/h4/used_equip ... 0001316003
Open these two websites and shop and compare prices until your heart is content. Every equipment company has a website where the dealers can display thier used equipment. I have baled my own hay for the last twenty years. I will be using my new-used vermeer rebel. Up until now I have baled with a 330 john deere round baler, makes a 4 by 4 bale. In the twenty years I have replaced the tires, the pickup tines , the spider in the hay pickup and the packing in the cylinders. If the packing on the rams in the cylinders fail you can not pack the hay tight. Also at the start of this summer I had to replace a top roller for the belt. $600 for parts and I did my own labor. I would estimate the cost of maintenance on the equipment at around $1000 a year. The belts look like crap but they keep rolling the bale. Other expenses over the years have been belt lacings. The sand in this area wears them pretty fast. Do you already have a tractor what kind and Horsepower?

I have a Deere 2755 around 75 pto horsepower.

The tractor you have is plenty big enough. You can get by with just one tractor. It is faster and easier on you if you have a smaller tractor for the rake. Look at the wheel rakes by vermeer. Only requirements is the hyd outlet for the rake, Tractor with 30 HP and up will work. If I were you I would shop for some used equipment and go for it. I bale 75 acres by myself it takes time but I get er done. I bought an old 16 foot utility trailer and welded pipes across it to move the hay. It will haul 14 of the bales that I bale. I have a ball hitch on the three point to pull the trailer. You will also need a front end loader. I take the tralier to the field and load the hay and then pull it back to my hay yard and unload. You can have 150 to 200 bales moved before you know it.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Don't forget about a series of drought years and your still buying hay.
Also remember to keep the checking account full if you buy used the lower the price the more used up it is. It really sucks when you start losing fields due to a baler or tractor that is broke down. I wouldn't even consider operation with one tractor big enough to run the cutter and baler.
You can always bet the tractor will have a major seizure when hay is on the ground or the bailer quits after about 10 rolls on the field and the part you need has to be ordered. Be here in a week.
Now lets see new baleing equipment easily drop 30 thousand.
The rolls are still going to cost you 15 to 20 dollars a roll with your own equipment.

It isn't cost effective to bale your own hay unless there is no way out. To make hay equipment pay it needs to be working everyday.

I bale my own hay and would have it done in a heartbeat, baled 400 rolls last summer and I hate hay. That was a many an hour with a butt glued to a tractor seat and just as many maintaining or repairing equipment.
We just don't have custom balers anymore all the old guys have died off or retired.

 

[alabama]

I roll my own hay because I just can't get hay in those dry years. I would much rather buy hay but in a dry year it is way too high if you can find it at all. I only do about 400 rolls a year on a fair year. And that is not enough volume to make money off of hay. This year I only made 198 rolls. This is enough hay for me but I did not have any to sell to help offset cost. Although, I did see a few to some customers that buy from me every year. In a good year I can sell enough to cover the cash cost of parts and fertilizer but in dry years I have to foot the bill but I have good hay to feed this winter.
So if you are planning to roll your own hay make sure that you do enough to supply yourself in the dry years and find a market for your excess hay in the good years. Also, you had better be a good mechanic.

 

[cowtrek]

Amen to what Jogeephus said... It's been my experience that bought hay is usually lower quality than what you can make yourself, sometimes A LOT lower! Oh, I'm sure there's a pencil neck aggie type who'll whip out a calculator and "prove" you can't afford to make hay unless you have a bazillion acres. We've always baled our own hay and done a little custom work on the side to help pay the bills and I can tell you we've come out WAY ahead over the long haul. Plus, as Jogeephus pointed out, I KNOW I can make WAY better hay than most of the stuff these guys are selling, because I've seen some of the stuff they bale! I just fed year old hay today and when I unrolled that bale it was as fresh and green and smelled like sweet tobacco! From my experience the bigger the custom guy the more likely you are to get screwed. I've seen em cut 8 foot high seeding out haygrazer, leave it in the field for the better part of a month, rained 5 inches on it, the regrowth over a foot high and he raked it up and baled it. Probably found a sucker to pay big $$$ for it too! I stay small, do my own and a little extra and do my best to do it right.

Now, that said, no you can't make it pencil out with new equipment. The aggie type would be dead on right with the bazillion acre estimate if you're trying to pay for new paint. New stuff is really not worth what it's priced at IMHO. Everything now is electronic bell and whistle overloaded automatic everything whiz-bang gadgets and all you need is a bottomless bank account. I'd put my hay baled up with a 18 year old drum mower, an auction special home-rebuilt NH rake, and a 26 year old Ford round baler against some of these new equipment haymaker's stuff anytime. The only good thing about the new balers is that they do make a tighter bale (if you're storing outside uncovered over 1 year you can tell) and the netwrap is kinda cool but more $$$ and hassle at feeding time. The older baler still has it beat $$$ wise because you can build a pole shed or carport to store the hay in and it's easy to see that a soft bale stored under cover on a pallet will be better than a tight bale stored uncovered on the ground.

Haymaking is all about how it's handled, not how new the equipment is.

The basics are a good mower, a rollabar rake, and a decent used baler. No way can a little guy afford new. I'd prefer a well kept used belt baler to the little M&W type 'soft-core' or fixed chamber balers. For a mower I'd look for a good used Kuhn or NH. Just check it out carefully because there are a LOT of junk mowers out there. Turn the gearbed by hand several turns, grab the disks and try to make them wobble side to side, etc. If it locks up, grinds, wobbles, etc. pass it by. Rebuilding disk mowers gets very pricey very quick.
I lean towards the rolabar rakes (NH, etc.) because of their versatility. Sure everybody brags on wheel rakes and there's a ton of them out there, some pretty cheap, but a rolabar rake can do a lot of things a wheel rake can't. It can, if properly set, pick up more hay than a wheel rake. If your windrows get rained on, you can set it up high and unroll the windrows so they can dry. No wheel rake can do that. Wheel rakes don't like curvy irregular little tree, barn, or other obstacle infested fields like a rolabar can handle. Wheel rakes like wide open rectangular flat or gently rolling fields and really shine there, but for everything else, the rolabar does a better job. Wheel rakes also don't like tall grasses like johnsongrass or haygrazer very well and usually end up balling up or making lumpy windrows where a rolabar rake just keeps flipping it over and laying it out straight. In REALLY short hay like dry common bermuda or fine thin bahia a wheel rake WILL get more hay than a rolabar, but again the versatility is lower. With a rolabar, in thin hay, you can just keep rolling those windrows over onto the next swath til you get it the size you need, something you can't do with a vee-rake.

Yes you do need to get some mechanical experience, but I've never met a really good farmer that wasn't (or didn't shortly become) a fair mechanic anyway. Oh, there's plenty of the "lease it- don't grease it" crowd around but I see them go broke all the time. With older equipment you will have more problems, that's true, but you can make a LOT of repairs for what new paint costs and it should be remembered that even new equipment isn't immune from breakdowns. In fact older equipment that is well maintained, simpler in design, and usually (but not always) built heavier CAN have fewer problems than newer stuff that is over-engineered but under-built. Yes, as someone pointed out, you can lose a cut or watch it get rained on or burn up for a week waiting for parts and repairs to the baler, but that's just part of farming. Again, you can afford an occassional lost cut or poor quality cut for what you save over bought hay. You can have a barn full of shiny brand new equipment and if the weather is against you or you don't know what you're doing still put up poor quality crap or lose a cut to 3 straight weeks of rain. It happens to everyone. That's just part of the fun of farming.

Good luck and take it easy! OL JR

 

[wbrowning]

I used to buy all my hay but I found I could not get the quality. So I started raising my own I started with used equipment. 8 years later I now have almost all new equipment. There can be nothing worse than having old equipment break down at the start of a field. I do more custom bailing now than I do of my own. I have a good deal my brother inlaws are teachers so they are off during the summer and bale hay for me as I have a regular job. If you do youre home work you can find some good used equipment find a partner if you can. Bailing hay is fun if everything is working right. I'm also kind of partial to John Deere it seems to work better for me.I just bought a net wrap 457 this summer it out performs my old 554xl vermeer hands down. The 2755 you have will handle any bailing chore you can ask of it. Its a working machine.

 

[gertman]

I used to buy all my hay but I found I could not get the quality. So I started raising my own I started with used equipment. 8 years later I now have almost all new equipment. There can be nothing worse than having old equipment break down at the start of a field. I do more custom bailing now than I do of my own. I have a good deal my brother inlaws are teachers so they are off during the summer and bale hay for me as I have a regular job. If you do youre home work you can find some good used equipment find a partner if you can. Bailing hay is fun if everything is working right. I'm also kind of partial to John Deere it seems to work better for me.I just bought a net wrap 457 this summer it out performs my old 554xl vermeer hands down. The 2755 you have will handle any bailing chore you can ask of it. Its a working machine.

What is it that you like better about the Deere baler vs. the Vermeer as I was strongly considering the Vermeer Rebel.

 

[farmerjohn]

I used to buy all my hay but I found I could not get the quality. So I started raising my own I started with used equipment. 8 years later I now have almost all new equipment. There can be nothing worse than having old equipment break down at the start of a field. I do more custom bailing now than I do of my own. I have a good deal my brother inlaws are teachers so they are off during the summer and bale hay for me as I have a regular job. If you do youre home work you can find some good used equipment find a partner if you can. Bailing hay is fun if everything is working right. I'm also kind of partial to John Deere it seems to work better for me.I just bought a net wrap 457 this summer it out performs my old 554xl vermeer hands down. The 2755 you have will handle any bailing chore you can ask of it. Its a working machine.

I have the same JD baler. It works great. Does the Rebel have net wrap and a computer to help you navigate down the windrows to make good bales?
What is it that you like better about the Deere baler vs. the Vermeer as I was strongly considering the Vermeer Rebel.

 

[HAY MAKER]

I used to buy all my hay but I found I could not get the quality. So I started raising my own I started with used equipment. 8 years later I now have almost all new equipment. There can be nothing worse than having old equipment break down at the start of a field. I do more custom bailing now than I do of my own. I have a good deal my brother inlaws are teachers so they are off during the summer and bale hay for me as I have a regular job. If you do youre home work you can find some good used equipment find a partner if you can. Bailing hay is fun if everything is working right. I'm also kind of partial to John Deere it seems to work better for me.I just bought a net wrap 457 this summer it out performs my old 554xl vermeer hands down. The 2755 you have will handle any bailing chore you can ask of it. Its a working machine.

wb,I believe you are right about the 2755,handling hay chores,but if gertman is round baling,I sure hope it is cabbed,I can square bale on an open stationed tractor,as a matter of fact I prefer it,but for round baling give me a cab .................good luck

 

[wbrowning]

First I agree with you that I dont like to round bale in an open station tractor. I use a 2750 and a 6310 both cab and air. I like the over the edge net wrap feature of the Deere that my 554xl did not have. Now the Vermeer did have some features that the deere doesn't have like the over fill on the computer. You could make the last bale on the vermeer 67 inches to finish the windrow if needed. The 457 Deere has a wider pickup the 71 inches compared to the 48 on the Vermeer.It baled just as fast as the 457 does. Net wraped bales are not anywhere as nice though.The 457 has more settings for string placement than the Vermeer like twine reextension it places twine back to the middle and a cinch wrap. My neighbor has a Rebel he likes it but it does not have drop and go. You have to disengage the pto on each bale. I don't believe the rebel will stand up to alot of bailing. We bale about 2500 rolls a year. I also get better service out of my Deere dealer. Over all I was satisfied with the Vermeer it did a good job. But I love the over the edge net wrap of the Deere it makes the bale look so much better and it looks better behind my 6310. Bet that will get some conversation going. GOTTA LOVE THEM DEERE'S

 

[GMN]

50 acres of hay land, on really good land, may put out 2-4 bales per acre, in a good year, about 150 round bales. Buying 150 round bales would cost $25-$30 a bale, totalling=$3750 to $4500 a year. Have to take the digits into consideration on how much hay the land will put out to justify buying equipment. If you could pick up cheaper equipment at auctions, could be feasible. I like putting up our own hay, we always have to buy hay, but my theory is every little bit helps of our own, to buy less (weather permitting)

GMN