What's a fair deal on neighbor haying my farm?

[Rafter S]

I'm in an area where the large places have mostly been broken up into smaller ones, and bought up by people moving from the city. It's not uncommon for them to not want animals on the place but they do want to keep the ag exemption. The area generally has plenty of hay, and the large commercial folks don't want to bother with small places. That all affects what kind of deal you can get.

I know one guy that will cut small places. He takes all the hay, and has all the business he wants.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I only do two fields that the customers want a piece of the pie as they both have a few horses. Do 400+ acres of "free" hay that is done because people don't want their fields growing into weeds and brush.

 

[Ky cowboy]

We cut a few places that people just let us have so they dont have to mow it. That being said I have a buddy coming over later this week to bale 1 field then cut and bale another for half of the rolls. Our discbine went down, and pto went out on my tractor. I've got plenty of hay so it worked for me

 

[504RP]

I agree with Little Joe. You can't continue to take away from land and not put back the nutrients that was taken from it.

You won't have no problem finding someone to cut it. Probably for almost any deal you offer them.

You need to keep in mind though. Every ton of forage per acre that leaves your pasture wether it be through grazing, cutting for hay etc...., is changing the ph on that land.

And it will cost you alot of money to get that ph level back to where it has to be to grow good quality hay again on it. Some of the things that might have to be added varies depending on what your soil sample will call for. That could be lime, pot ash things like that.

Alot of people seem to think fertilizer is going to fix ph of the soil. All fertilizer is going to do is make whatever is growing grow more of. If your ph is way off, the land had already been stripped of its nutrients etc...., and is to the point of growing stuff that will grow in poor soil like broomsedge, rag weed, and other weeds. All adding fertlizer is going to do is make it grow more of worthless weeds.

Yes letting someone cut and bale it will make it look good and you won't have any trouble finding someone to cut it for hay or run cattle on it to graze. Until you have nothing but a field full of brooms edge and weeds. Then if you still keep it looking clean your going to be looking at 65 to $85 an hour to get it brush hogged.

50 years ago you didn't have worry as much with depleting pastures of their nutrients because the average farmers couldn't remove the tonnage of hay from hay fields that they do this day and time. Because nobody had round balers to put up the stock piles of hay for winter that they can this day and time. So they couldn't keep as many cattle on average either as we do today.

So they in general didn't deplete the soil of its nutrients no where near as fast as we do today.

So letting people cut your hay on the shares is probably going to benifit the person cutting it on the shares more in the long run than it is you as the land owner.

You want to make it fair for the both of you. Get your soil samples done every year. See what has to be added. Split the cost on adding what the land needs to keep it in shape and go from there as to how the two of you should split any profit off of the hay.

 

[herofan]

We cut a few places that people just let us have so they dont have to mow it.

That's how we do in the fall. I guess we're too generous. We always have more than enough hay from the first cutting, so we just let our friend have the fall as long as he does all the work. He didn't ask for that deal, we just offered it to him.

 

[farmerjan]

We make hay on several places. The ones that are good hay, we fertilize and normally do a 1/3 - 2/3 split if they need hay... or will keep all the first cutting which we roll, and then do sq bales the 2nd cutting so they can put hay in the barn... They get up to 1/2 the sq bales. Or they get it all and pay us for half... sometimes some only get like 50-60 square bales out of a couple hundred. It all depends.
We do soil samples for every place at least every other year and mostly all get done every year. We will split the lime with the landowner, as it is improving the over all condition of the land. We do the fertilizer. We use alot of poultry litter so that it is also adding organic matter to the soil. Get some weeds with it, but the condition of the soil makes it worth it, as it gets more friable and less dense and compacted. Then it has more earthworms and such.
We mow off several of the "country estates" where people have built these big houses in the middle of 10-25 acre places. We will fertilize if the grass is halfway decent. But we have to have a guarantee for the place for the year when we sign the land use tax forms. That way we don't lose the value of the fertilizer, to someone undercutting us by offering the landowner money on top of the land use tax forms. Most we do not pay them, but it keeps them from having to pay to have it bush hogged.
It pays to fertilize so that you get a decent return, even on the "free places. It is time and money to run the tractor across the land several times....may as well get a decent return in hay. If it is crappy, we don't make it into hay, we will bush hog it and they pay. There aren't too many around here that will do any bushogging and some of the places are rough and ledges...
We have all we want to do most of the time. Have lost a few places over the years to being under bid.... then the owners have come back and asked us to come back as the place isn't kept up or fertilized and they get let down or the people will just not go back after a few years because the return isn't enough. Mostly they won't fertilize right... just nitrogen to get growth, and the land suffers. We had a place for over 25 years, and it went from making about 25 rolls 5x5, total 2 cuttings in the beginning, to making 84 this year for just first cutting... about 18 of the 25 acres can be cut. We used to rotate cattle there from another place across the road... that place was sold, then this place got sold and we had it 3 years then the guy across the road came in and offered more so the owners finally offered our rent money back and we could get first cutting for the fertilizer as they didn't want to pay us back for that. We finally agreed and it is now history. The neighbor up the road farms about 400 acres, they are friends, and he refused to go talk to the guy when he called them knowing it had been our rental forever. He said you watch... the guy who got it, and the guy he has to do the hay, is known to not fertilize anything he can get away without doing.... so in a few years it will go down hill. Since we no longer have the place across the road from it, (another friend sold it after his wife passed away), we have no interest in going back there. But the point is that we put into that place alot of money over the years, used the ground wisely, and it really started to produce bumper crops.
It pays if you can get a place long term and are willing to do some extras.
Yes , we are like bigfoot, we bushhog around several places too to keep the trash from coming out into the field and neaten it up a little too.