Joe T

Great, gives me an excuse to go to college station.
Glad to see all the aggies on here.

loch

Most common seed here is Sun Grazer, its a mix of common , giant and one other i cant remember. The other popular choice is coastal, but it has to be sprigged since it has no seeds.

Last year hay was selling for 90 bucks a bale, but its a market driven commodity. We are selling rye grass now for 50 a bale.

AggieJustin

You should either lease to someone to make the money off the land, or find someone to cut/rake/bale for you. By the time you get everything planted and fertilized, buying hay equipment will probably take all the profit right out of your plan. Especially considering for now you're just on small acreage, so you wouldn't get much use out of your equipment.

Muddin_dude06

Find someone to cut rake and bale for you (such as me lol) hay equipment is expensive, unless you are going to make a full-on business out of hay-ing it wouldn't be worth it. 5 roles per acre at 5x5 is not a great hay field that is an AMAZING hay field that is irrigated, fertilized and practically to thick to walk through lol. Most fields that are fertilized and use mother nature to water them will be 2-3 bales an acre, depending on how thick it is before being cut...

Joe T

How much would I make off someone else leasing to them?

Chrisreyn

thats an average feild up here ( except for the last few drought years)....
an average fertilized Brome feild up here SHOULD yeild between 10-12 tons...
that should be 12-16 "big bales" @1200-1400lbs each...
thats what we have always averaged( until the drought started)...

We have someone cut ours on shares and then buy back whatever we need to fill out our hay requirements for the year..they weed-kill nad fertilize, cut and bale, in exchange they get 60% of the hay off the field, we keep 40%.

Muddin_dude06

So your saying you guys would get 12-16 roles off of 1 acre? Hmmm... ??? That is crazy lol. Today I baled a place that was maybe 8-10 acres and got 20 roles and it was crazy thick, I could only bale at like 3mph (B1 in a JD5525)or it would clog the baler lol.


One thing that I didn't think about is to make things easier (if you don't have a front-end loader) is to square bale it, then when people buy hay you can just toss it around and not have to call a neighbor to borrow a tractor. If the hay is thick and weed-free you can make more money off of square bales anyway...

Chrisreyn

Muddin, yer right, i am way off... I sholdnt psot anyting mathematical when I havent slept...
off a 10 acre pasture, we average 72 1000lb bales, so that is what, 7-8 bales per acre?
3-4 tons per acer is what is average, 5-6 is a realy good year..

Luke S

To the original poster, get somebody to do it for you or better yet don't mess with it at all. Haymaking is something that takes years and years to get good at and then it is still hard. Also the equipment is very expensive if you want to run good stuff that doesn't break every time you turn around. I consider quiting the hay business at least three or four times a year but I am just to stupid.

D2 Cat

Luke, you are right on! I think about quiting each time I'm kicking out a bale and the wind is blowing towards me!

Luke S

I hear ya there. Just as soon as I get a few other pieces of equipment updated I am gonna buy a brand new cab tractor, that will make it much more bearable!

expressfish

Funny I ran across this, I was talking to my dad about this the other day. I was driving back from port lavaca the other day up hwy 87 and saw lots of fresh bales. Got to thinking since were looking to purchase 10 plus acres somewhere in wilson county that I could probably make a few extra bucks a year ? So what kind of equipment does it take to make square bales ? Is it a rentable machine that I can pull with the ol' cummins ?

Luke S

Again, not feasable on 10 acres, too much investment in equipment, not enough acres to spread it over. Also, hay making is an art, takes years and years to get good at it, not something you can just start doing one day without any experience. I don't know of anybody that rents hay equipment? You'd need a tractor, at least 40-50hp, a haybine or disc mower to cut, a tedder to help reduce dry down time, a rake to put it in windrows, and a good square baler.

Joe T

I've talked to a few people and it sounds like it is best to just split it with someone who does it for a living. Equipment could run 50K to 100K if you really get nice stuff.

D2 Cat

Joe T, if you don't have someone in mind to do the haying you can put an ad in your local paper. You'll probably get plenty of calls with shortages of grass all thur the midwest. You can usually split and get 1/3 of the crop for yourself. If you don't need the hay the person putting it up will usually purchase your share.