Tractor / hay equip

[okmike]

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changing subject a bit now, like i mentioned before, we have good hay pasture. in the past our neighbors have processed it and we split the profits/hay. i now want to take care of all this myself so my question is how big a tractor am going to need to run a square and round baler. whats a ballpark figure that i am looking at spending, going through the fastline magazine the options seem endless. i am just looking for least expensive equipment that will get the job done. also whats the best way of finding this equipment. i've heard dealers are the last and most expensive

 

[frenchie]

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changing subject a bit now, like i mentioned before, we have good hay pasture. in the past our neighbors have processed it and we split the profits/hay. i now want to take care of all this myself so my question is how big a tractor am going to need to run a square and round baler. whats a ballpark figure that i am looking at spending, going through the fastline magazine the options seem endless. i am just looking for least expensive equipment that will get the job done. also whats the best way of finding this equipment. i've heard dealers are the last and most expensive

How many acres are we talking.

 

[okmike]

50 with a square and possible 200 more with a round if i can afford to buy a round baler

 

[jgn]

As far as how big of a tractor it depends on the size round baler you buy. We bale a 5x5 bale and use a 62 horse tractor it does a fine job if the ground is level but pulls it a bit hard on hilly ground. I would recommend a minimum of 75 horsepower if it was me. As far as money you could spend from $5000 to $25000 just depends on what you buy and how much you want to spend.

 

[Campground Cattle]

Lets see a new 5x5 baler and a good one 20 to 25 thousand at least an 8 foot cutter 6 thousand assorted rakes 5 thousand, new 60 to 75 hp tractor
25 to 35 thousand.
Trip to the doctors office for prozac 100 dollars.

Why in the world would you want to bale hay if you can get it customed baled.

A hay baler can make a preacher cuss, and after buying all this stuff you better be a jack of all trades, cause something is going to be breaking down all the time.

 

[dun]

Lets see a new 5x5 baler and a good one 20 to 25 thousand at least an 8 foot cutter 6 thousand assorted rakes 5 thousand, new 60 to 75 hp tractor
25 to 35 thousand.
Trip to the doctors office for prozac 100 dollars.

Why in the world would you want to bale hay if you can get it customed baled.

A hay baler can make a preacher cuss, and after buying all this stuff you better be a jack of all trades, cause something is going to be breaking down all the time.

I almost whole heartedly agree.
The only part that doesn't work well is getting a custom baler to do the job. Depending on the area, getting someone in when the hay is right to bale isn't alwasy a possibility. You end up with hay that's way past it's peak and isn't all that great nutritionally. Plus it tends to be stemmy whihc decreases papatibility. Our solution was to go shares with another local. He has the equipment, I do a lot/most of the labor. On our place I do it all then help him with the stuff at his place(s).

dun

 

[Tc]

you gone need a tractor anyway.if you pay someone to custum bail 200 acers of hay every year yuo gone end up shelling out a lot of money over a ten year period for hay.youd come out a lot cheaper to buy new eqipment now and take good care of it.dont buy some old wore out stuff youll be sorry in the long run
pluss you wont have the headace of trying to get someone to get your hay in on time every year.just my 2 cents.~~~~~~~~~Tc

 

[frenchie]

50 with a square and possible 200 more with a round if i can afford to buy a round baler

Personally I would buy the rd baler and hire the sq baling done.If you do buy a rd baler don,t buy a small width one.We did that when we 1st started. Then we went to a bigger window, we had to get a bigger baler.

Good luck

 

[cornstalk]

In my area, you can find a good John Deere 530 rd baler for around $5000,......and a 4010, 4020 JD diesel tractor for under $7000. For $12000 your in the hayin business. Rakes and transport equipment sell at local farm auctions for little to nothing this time of year. Then you own the equipment,.....no need to go out and spend $50,000 just to put up a couple of hundered round bales every year.

I wont argue that break downs will occur,.....but even new stuff breaks down. Thats just part of life,....I think everyone will agree. With good maintenance, common sence, and a little thriftyness, you'll get by just fine.

Good Luck

 

[okmike]

after hearing cornstalks optimism i feel that i really should have my own equipment. hearing everyone talk a fit about stuff breaking kinda makes me laugh now but im sure thats something i'll learn on my own. i see a lot of used equipment going for dirt cheap, square baler under 1000 etc, and i have to wonder if that seems to good to be true. another thing how often do you guys bale, we have only done once a year for as long as i can remember. when i asked why i was told that a cut in the early summer and early fall would cause the hay to thin out for next year. again there is no livestock on this pasture so is there any truth to that. i've also been told that you can cut up to 4 times a year and wouldnt hurt a thing. what do you guys think?

 

[ChrisB]

I agree with Cornstalk on this one. You can find alot of older model balers(15-20) years that have a lot of life in them pretty cheap ($2000-$5000). You are going to need a tractor and loader anyways if you are dealing with round bales. A regular 5-bar roll rake will be around $500 or a new v-rake is still only $2500. Lots of older used mowers around for $3000 or less. If the gearbox is sound and you keep sharp knives and drive at a moderate speed, the only thing you should have to replace are bearings/chains/sprockets and small things like that, and usually if you keep things maintained you can catch those problems before your in the field. With the exception of the tractor, they all are pretty simple machines to work on. I am not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination and have had my share of repairs on older machinery, but I haven't had any problems I couldn't handle yet.

I too tried having my hay put up by a custom baler, and it is alot more stressfull waiting on someone else than fixing machinery.

As far as cuttings per year, I'm in Minnesota and the standard is 3 cuttings per year with alfalfa. Some dairy farmers cut a little younger and put a lot of liquid manure on and they will get 4 cuttings. With grass hay I only take 2 cuttings, but I'm sure if I put the effort and money into fertilizing more than once a year I could get a third cutting.

Baling your own can be time consuming and stressful, and if it was indeed cheaper, I would buy all my hay, but there are worse things you could be doing. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Campground Cattle]

I agree you can get set up cheaper, but remember your buying someones junk that their tired of working on. New equipment breaks down enough, if your new to baling hay and you are dealing with old equipment you will be a frustrated young man at the end of baling season.
Go far it I say you will get one heck of education the first year in your baling journey.

 

[hillbilly]

There's a breakover point around 300 [5x5] bales per year.
If you need less than 300 you should buy your hay, If you feed more
than 300 bales per year you should own your own equiptment.

Thats in my area where hay is cheap, $15 to 18 per bale.

The quality/price of the equiptment you need is dependant on how good
of a mechanic you are...

Check the throat of the round baler you intend to buy, you don't want an
old baler with a narrow throat [JD510 suggested earlier]

I bought a JD 510 a few years ago. If conditions were perfect and had no problems I could bale 100 bales per day.
I traded it in on a JD silage baler...You could bale 8 ft cedar trees with this hog. I can now bale 100 before 11 am...my old start up time with the 510.


Hillbilly

 

[Tc]

In my area, you can find a good John Deere 530 rd baler for around $5000,......and a 4010, 4020 JD diesel tractor for under $7000. For $12000 your in the hayin business. Rakes and transport equipment sell at local farm auctions for little to nothing this time of year. Then you own the equipment,.....no need to go out and spend $50,000 just to put up a couple of hundered round bales every year.

I wont argue that break downs will occur,.....but even new stuff breaks down. Thats just part of life,....I think everyone will agree. With good maintenance, common sence, and a little thriftyness, you'll get by just fine.

Good Luck

he didnt say 200 rolls .he said 200 acers.around here that would be 600 to 900 rolls or more.per cutting!
at 1200lb rolls~~~~~~~~~~~Tc

 

[Campground Cattle]

after hearing cornstalks optimism i feel that i really should have my own equipment. hearing everyone talk a fit about stuff breaking kinda makes me laugh now but im sure thats something i'll learn on my own. i see a lot of used equipment going for dirt cheap, square baler under 1000 etc, and i have to wonder if that seems to good to be true. another thing how often do you guys bale, we have only done once a year for as long as i can remember. when i asked why i was told that a cut in the early summer and early fall would cause the hay to thin out for next year. again there is no livestock on this pasture so is there any truth to that. i've also been told that you can cut up to 4 times a year and wouldnt hurt a thing. what do you guys think?

You can laugh now just post next summer when you are crying cause some of the things that break down require a pretty thick checkbook.

Your a newbie find the gray hair in your area and seek advice and mentoring can save you a lot of stupid mistakes and save you money.

Remember if it sounds to good or looks to good to be true it probably isn't. To answer your question on cutting, cut mine every 21 to 28 days.

 

[SPRINGER FARMS MURRAY GRE]

Just my 2cents worth. It is true you can buy hay as cheap or cheaper than you can cut&bale your own. However, as others have pointed out,there is the task of getting someone to do it, at the time you need them to do it. I would say that if you have the land, ...buy the equipment. If you don't have the land, buy it first. Rome was not built in a day.Hay is plentiful this year,but there will be years that it turns off dry and the hay won't be available at any price. If you can buy the equipment and take it off on your taxes,it will be money well spent. Who knows,you may even be able to bale for someone else to help make the payments,or for extra hay that you could sell. Just a thought.

 

[Brad B]

Don't know if someone already mentioned this or not, kinda skimmed the posts, but the biggest plus that I can see from baling our own hay is that we get one more cutting of hay per year. Over the years we used two different guys to bale our hay and they always came about two weeks after we called them. Now we cut it when it's ready. That helps pay for the equipment. We bought a used JD baler when we started 5 years ago, and it's still working fine.

 

[dun]

Another option to buying all the equipment is to do like we have done. Find a neighbor that doesn't use his equipment steadily through the haying season. Swap off labor in helping him with his haying to get the use of his equipment. You'll still need a tractor to move the hay and maybe rake, but it's a lot cheaper then buying all the equipment yourself.

dun

 

[jcissell]

I bought my hay equipment this summer and spent $12,000 but we already had a baler. Our baler is pretty old so it wouldn't cost much if you bought it. So Campground must just have alot of money to throw around if he is spending that much on hay equipment. It took us a little longer but one reason was b/c we had never baled before and we learned the hard way. Really the only equipment problem that slowed us down was with baler belts. Make sure you have good belts on the baler or you will spend all day fixing them. He says talk to the old timers, but the old timers will tell you.... the less you can spend the more you make. For us, it isn't worth over $30,000 to bale hay. We only bale at the most 250 bales a year. But we have to do it ourselves b/c we have to bale it before a certain time. This year we lost about 100 bales b/c we had to brush hog it so we didn't loose our lease. We couldn't get anyone to bale it. They were all too busy. Don't get so discouraged. If you have to spend that much money to get your equipment I wouldn't bale my own hay.

One more thing, I would get atleast 100hp tractor. You are pushing it with 65 to 75 hp. I have a friend here that had a 75 hp tractor and wore it out in 2 years. He said it would do the job but it was really just too much for the tractor. My tractor is a 1974 IH 1466 w/o a cab. It got a new motor 12 years ago and is now rated about 170 hp. It's alot of tractor but I will never have to worry about not having enough power. I paid $8000 and this tractor was in excellent shape. As stated before a john deere 4010 or 4020 would be a great tractor to have, but around here you can't really find one for less that $10,000 and alot of those aren't in very good shape. If you get a 4010 or 4020 make sure it is diesel and not propane.

If you can get a neighbor to bale your hay I would probably do that b/c it is really too much trouble to fool with if you can avoid it.

Josh

 

[Campground Cattle]

I bought my hay equipment this summer and spent $12,000 but we already had a baler. Our baler is pretty old so it wouldn't cost much if you bought it. So Campground must just have alot of money to throw around if he is spending that much on hay equipment. It took us a little longer but one reason was b/c we had never baled before and we learned the hard way. Really the only equipment problem that slowed us down was with baler belts. Make sure you have good belts on the baler or you will spend all day fixing them. He says talk to the old timers, but the old timers will tell you.... the less you can spend the more you make. For us, it isn't worth over $30,000 to bale hay. We only bale at the most 250 bales a year. But we have to do it ourselves b/c we have to bale it before a certain time. This year we lost about 100 bales b/c we had to brush hog it so we didn't loose our lease. We couldn't get anyone to bale it. They were all too busy. Don't get so discouraged. If you have to spend that much money to get your equipment I wouldn't bale my own hay.

One more thing, I would get atleast 100hp tractor. You are pushing it with 65 to 75 hp. I have a friend here that had a 75 hp tractor and wore it out in 2 years. He said it would do the job but it was really just too much for the tractor. My tractor is a 1974 IH 1466 w/o a cab. It got a new motor 12 years ago and is now rated about 170 hp. It's alot of tractor but I will never have to worry about not having enough power. I paid $8000 and this tractor was in excellent shape. As stated before a john deere 4010 or 4020 would be a great tractor to have, but around here you can't really find one for less that $10,000 and alot of those aren't in very good shape. If you get a 4010 or 4020 make sure it is diesel and not propane.

If you can get a neighbor to bale your hay I would probably do that b/c it is really too much trouble to fool with if you can avoid it.

Josh

I just don't buy cheap equipment or other peoples junk and I don't finance. When I buy equipment I buy new the best available that has service available in my area and we use till it falls apart. I am still running one old 65 hp Massey just had its 25th birthday. Buying junk equipment, financing equipment, feeding cows out a sack is like a second mortgage on your house. If your smart enough to stay in the cattle business for thirty years you might be able to afford good equipment. ESABM.