Growing Hay..pros and cons

[northgirl]

My DH has a strong desire to grow hay and I have never done it before. What is the good the bad and the ugly involved in growing hay? It will be grown on land thats good for hay and it will not be our primary source of income. Also if anyone has some good websites or book suggestions I would be grateful.Thanks

[sammyd]

bad side...if you plan on selling it you have to package it, haying equipment can be expensive. Initial investment large.
If mechanically inclined you can get cheaper older machinery, but even then you stand a chance of something breaking and not having parts available and selling hay requires it to be of the highest quality. Getting rained on is not an option.
What is the market like in your area, what grows well, what is the demand for, how much do you plan on making?
A lot of stuff to consider
Alfalfa can freeze out over winter leaving you with half the stuff you were hoping to have, clover can be a bear to get dry, horse people want different stuff than cow people. Just haying off an old grass field you have is a neat idea but will it pay? Good hay needs a little tending if you plan on selling it for top dollar. Fertilizer reseeding so forth. Then you need some more machinery to take care of that.

I'm sure you might be able to make a few bucks but at least in my area there are a bunch of guys with hay to sell so the hay has to be good or you're down to selling it for a buck and a half just to move it.

[sheepish]

Pros-for a crop, it only has to be planted once every 5 to 10 years, if you look after it.
- if you use hay, and have the equipment, you don't have to rely on someone with other priorities to harvest it for you.
-handling bales is good exercise, the older your eqipment, the more you will probably need to handle it.

cons-as above plus:
- you need have room to store it
- it can get unpredictably very expensive in the form of equipment repairs. Even good equipment needs repairs at exactly the time you will be using it.
- if you don't have equipment, you will probably have trouble getting someone to harvest it at exactly the same time as everyone else in the neighbourhood has their hay ready and it is not raining.

Figure out how much you can get in bales per acre. Multiply this by the price per bale. Then divide by 2 to account for problem years.

We do over 100 acres of our own hay, plus custom work on 3 large horse farms. Our hay doesn't pay a lot more than it costs to grow it, on average, because we take and assume all the risks. On the other hand, doing custom work pays well, because if we do the work, we get paid, no matter what happens to the field, even if the hay gets ruined, we get paid to remove the bad hay, so that it won't wreck the field.

[rambler]

Read this web site:

http://www.sheepscreek.com/rural/haying.html

The good part of raising & harvesting your own, is that you can get it done on time.

The bad part of growing your own hay is that you need to get it done on time, and no one else to blame when you don't.

Hay is a time sensitive crop, you gotta do it when it needs it, not wait until you have time. you lose a lot of the value if you put it off & it gets over ripe, or you get rain, or you wait 4 extra hours while it dries & the leaves fall off bcause it got too brittle.

The positive is that you can do it, feel like you are doing something, and you can get it done on time if you have a mind to, don't have to wait for a neighbor to get around to yours.

--->Paul

[Joshie]

If you don't have the equipment it's probably not worth it. You might check to see if there's a share farmer nearby who will take it in for a percentage of the crop.

[northgirl]

Is it relly that bad for equipment breakdown? Just about everyone I talk to complains about machinery??
As for type Timothy brome is best there and honestly we are only looking to break even moneywise, how realistic is that thinking?

[ErinP]

If you're not sure you're wanting to bail in 100%, my suggestion--

Get old haying equipment. The type of stuff that will be out in your neighbor's tree rows, retired for decades, frozen up with rust, ie, CHEAP! (Or even free, if you talk to the right people) You'll have to replace belts, etc, but it'll be cheaper in the long run than starting with something newer.

A sickle bar mower, a rake and an old square baler and you should be good to go. You'll have very little outlay, beyond time and can build from there. (I've had several friends over the years who started their haying business, or just ranch forage by doing this).

Yes, equipment breaks down. Old equipment, new equipment, in-between equipment. Breakdowns are part of the process. Expect them.

[plowjockey]

Originally Posted by northgirl

Is it relly that bad for equipment breakdown? Just about everyone I talk to complains about machinery??
As for type Timothy brome is best there and honestly we are only looking to break even moneywise, how realistic is that thinking?

Usually hay equipment is quite worn out (especially balers), when the owner finally gets rid of it. My neighbor tried it and all he ever did was hire welders, fight with the knotter and look everywhere for obsolete parts. Used hay equipment, even stuff best suited for scrap metal, is expensive here. Don't forget you will need hay wagons, elevators, etc.

Haying is very labor intensive, so you will either have a lot of work, or have to find someone to hire.

If I was still considering doing hay, my choice would be a mini round baler, and plastic wrap.

If you really want to do hay, you could consider finder an established hay maker and see if you could do your's on "halves". The startup costs are minimal and if the hay markets well, then you could consider goind it alone later.

Also local hay prices are down here, probably due to less animals or horses. Many hay farmers sell their hay in other areas of the country, where it may have ahigher demand.

Good luck.

[artificer]

Our tale of making hay:

Friends had a farm with sheep. Since I wanted to make haggis, I ended up with a sheep, and got involved with feeding them. They had a couple of small hay fields, and had problems getting them baled. (no equipment) One of their neighbors was getting a divorce, so everything had to go. For $1,000 (mid 1990's) we picked up a Cockshut 30 tractor, wheel rake, baler, and hay wagon. The equipment was old, and showing its age. I didn't put a lot into repairs, but I'm mechanically inclined, so I knew what I was doing... mostly. The baler was the most problematic. I should have gone through it and made sure everything was working right, greased up, and functional. The biggest problem we had was the knotters. Crank up the tension in the bales, and break the strings/knots. Loosen them up for a thicker part of the field, and the bales fall apart. Like I said... should have tuned up the baler before using it.

One of the last times we baled (friends sold the farm, and I had to get rid of everything) the baler stopped working. The flywheel kept spinning after the pto was off, and it wasn't cranking. Ann asked "is it supposed to do that," at which point the flywheel fell off, and spun on the ground for a half a minute. She laughed so hard, tears almost ran down her legs... Friends came out of the house to see what was going on, since they had heard her laughing. I wasn't a happy camper, however.

Once the flywheel stopped spinning, I picked it up, put it back on, found the nut/washer, and properly torqued it down. (don't try this at home unless you have a strong back/weak mind... those things are heavy) Then finished baling the field.

I guess the moral of the story is that if you get cheap equipment, you may be able to make a profit, but don't expect to at first. If you buy expensive well working equipment, it'll take a long time to pay it off. If you can get decent equipment cheap, and if you know how to repair it, and if you get lucky, its possible to make money, but thats a lot of ifs. I can see it going either way, depending you luck and chance.

As for "best hay" you need to know your market. Alfalfa hay for horses is bad, but grass hay for high production milking cows is also bad.

Michael

[ErinP]

Don't forget you will need hay wagons, elevators, etc.

For what?
As small as they're planning on starting out, everything can be done by hand, or the tractor they're using for haying...

[FarmboyBill]

You can make a hay rack with 2 pair of steel wheels. If the wood axle is bad, replace it with a 4in channel piece welded to plates on each end and they welded to the hub of the wheels. If the axles dont look so bad, run a 3 or 4in flat steel around 1/2in thick under the axles as support. The rack is easy to make, outta alot of different w0ods not necessarily good for much else. get 2 good 4in rails either wood or metal to lay the floor boards on. Run a 2X4 around the outsides to act as a curb to keep the hay from slideing off. A old steel wheeled rake will do the job easily as a new one if its in good shape. Replace the oil in the trans case and give it LOTS of grease. Grease is still way cheaper than parts. Get a GOOD sickle mower. Id rather have a pull type, but Ive got a simi mount IHC #27 that does a good job. Make sure youve got an extra sickle or 2 for it, DO NOT CUT INTO BUCK BRUSH, SHRUBS, ANYTHING ELSE BUT GRASS, OR YOULL BE SORRY. Have a couple of extra pitman rods for it. Sharpen the sickle, make sure the rock guards are on tight, and that the top flanges of the guards are O so lightly touching the sickle. Hammer them in to do this, or pry them out if they are too tight. Put your money in a GOOD bailer. As youve surly noticed from the above, the most problems are caused by the bailer, so get a good one. See it run if possible. Get a fairly good tractor if you dont have one, and your good to go. A home made hayrack, a cheap hay rake, a good sickle mower, a very good bailer, and a good to average tractor should do you for a good while, at least till you see if you want to stay with haying or not. I use a JD steel wheeled rake my dad gave me. The teeth, or a couple of them in the gear box had worn down and the rake teeth wouldnt reach down to the ground when the reel was on the bottom. I welded up 2, (I think) teeth with a stick welder, greased the heck outa it, and have used it for 20 or more years. I also have a Case steel wheeled rake when the JD goes out, or if my kids ever need a rake, and another Case rake for parts. I have a 1960 140W wire Case bailer. Needles for it are RARE, and they dont make the drive belt from the engine to the flywheel, But I finally got a belt built, and will be bailing with it I hope next year. I finally got a 48 H Farmall which will go nicely with the IHC sickle mower, as soon as I find a hyd cylendar for it. As for books, in Small Farmers Journal, they have a book (Haying with Horses). I suppose the concept is pretty much the same as with a tractor. When I first started haying here in Okla, I used a MH horse mower with a 7ft sickle bar, and used it for many years.

[plowjockey]

Originally Posted by ErinP

For what?
As small as they're planning on starting out, everything can be done by hand, or the tractor they're using for haying...

Well, OK!

Assuming that they will be making small hay bales and more than a dozen of them, how wil they get them in the top of an old barn, if they have one? By hand? I "hand haul" 75-100 bales up in my small barn every year. I don't wish it on my worst enemy (well, maybe I do) and I'm in good shape. Even stacking them on the gound by hand will get old, after the stack gets 12' or so high.

What good is a tractor to remove small bales from the field, without some kind of wagon? Sure they could use a pickup truck, but things may get a bit edgy, using this method, as storm clouds form overhead.

Starting a hay operation, without doings things right, is a sure path to disappointment. It can certainly end up being a waste of time and money, with the only result being a bunch of moldy hay.

[uncle Will in In.]

A good barbwire fence around the hay field won't cost any more than the amount you'd have to put into used machinery. It would last much longer without as much upkeep. Rent the pasture to a cowman, and spend the haymaking weeks on holiday at the lake. Eliminate headaches, backaches, blistered hands and disapointment. The rent won't make you rich, but it stands less chance of being a loss. <>Unk

[sammyd]

As much as I like cheap I would never tell anyone to buy hay equipment that has been sitting on a fence line. First there is a reason it's out there second it's probably been there a long time. Broken balers that are rusted tight are better off in the scrap pile.
As evil as folks make it sound haying machinery isn't all that bad, but since making hay is such an exact business the delays and mental strain caused by any breakdown are remembered a long time.
As a kid we baled for many years with a NH 270 baler and it only ever had 1 breakdown that stopped us for any amount of time, and we baled a lot of hay with it. We currently run a JD 24T that some folks would call small and unreliable. However I've found that I can make a 70 HP tractor snort with it and in the 3 years I've had it I've had only 1 breakdown that required anything more than a shear bolt.
We baled for 2 years and dropped them on the ground. Then we put a ball on our tractor hitch and drove around picking them up and stacking them on our 7x10 trailer. Still do it on a couple of really small patches. Wagons aren't needed but really nice to have. Save a lot of trips to the shed.
We stack ours in a shed so we don't need an elevator, or we've moved the hay off of our wagon onto the buyers trailer right on the field which really saved a lot of labor.
Before we started baling I bought hay "off the wagon" which basically means that while the guy was baling I would drag the wagons to my place to unload then take them back to be refilled, this is a real labor saver for the bale seller and usually got me a good discount on the hay.

Lots of ways to do this but it all starts with your hay fields and the market in your area.....research

[ErinP]

Originally Posted by sammyd

As much as I like cheap I would never tell anyone to buy hay equipment that has been sitting on a fence line.

Obviously you need to use a little common sense, but really an old dump rake that was parked because a better, fancier wheel rake came out? There's likely very little wrong with it...
A sickle bar mower? So long as the basics are still there, there's not much to go wrong on them. I've known a lot of people who dragged Grandpa's old bar mower out of the tree rows, and put it back to work.

[Beeman]

Have you any equipment and a tractor big enough? Do you have a barn for square bales? Do you have the labor for square bales? If you have no knowledge of equipment you better find someone you trust that does. Hay equipment usually works fine all year long while it sits idle, it only breaks during the few dry days when it's time to make hay. Then everyone's hay equipment breaks so getting someone to fix it or even getting parts can be an ordeal.

[carasel]

try http://www.haytalk.com. It talks from small operations to very big ones. this should help. keeping equipment clean, greased and adjusted will help against brakedowns. the bailer i have. no one could get it working right. i read the manual (lol) i cleaned it, greased and adjusted back to factory settings. works great now
dh has to have time to do the hay when it's ready. over ripe looses quailty. ask your local ag extension agent9who ever is comparable in canada) for advice.

[FarmerChick]

We bale about 80 acres
round baler and 2 square balers (big and small bales)

Con
HARD HARD WORK
Con
HARD WORK THAT HAS TO BE DONE ON TIME
Con
Mother Nature can reek havoc on the quality of hay

Storage
round bales you can leave out along the field etc. Cow quality is fine that way for us

horse, goat quality etc sure needs to be stored and it takes alot of bucks to make buildings big enough to handle it. luckily we have that also.

fertilizer prices have skyrocketed....WOW WOW

gotta have alot of hay wagons--which again we have

gotta have a tractor to cut and tether the hay etc


PRO
I have tons of hay on hand. Never have hay problems ever....YA HOO!


oh--did I say it is hard hard work...HAHA

[sheepish]

northgirl, I don't know where in BC you live, but you need to keep talking to the locals. Find out who makes hay, who needs hay. What is the market? Will buyers pick it up in the field, having paid you first or do they expect you to deliver it to them, having made prior arrangements to have someone there to unload it? If you have to deliver hay, and have only one tractor, you need to factor this into the time it takes to make the hay.

One of the best investments we made when making only small squares, was a King hay basket. It allowed us to load directly from the tractor, and then open a tailgate to drop the hay on a corner of the field for pickup or to back into a customers barn and drop a load, without having to unload it manually. This meant that with local customers and two tractors, hay baskets and drivers, we could keep baling as fast as our high capacity baler would go and the next basket was back in time for the next load.

Who are the bad payers, the ones who should never be given even one hour's credit? Whose word is good? If you are storing hay, are there people who can be trusted to pick it up in your barn?

Where is a good place to get equipment repaired? (Consider buying the brand they service.) What dealers should you avoid like the plague?

Who will buy the timothy hay you plan to make? Can you grow another hay grass that will ripen at a different time and give you a wider window of best quality hay? Will locals buy that?

Do locals buy large round bales, or only small squares? Even rounds need to be stored under cover for good quality.

It will take time to build up a client base. Eventually you can have clients who will understand that buying hay isn't just like buying from a supermarket of furniture store. Some years, they have to take what they can get, when they can get it, understanding that you do your best to offer them a quality product at a fair price.

This last year was the worst ever, in our area, following on a pretty bad one. We have actually increased our customer base because people recommend our hay, and our way of dealing with people, by word of mouth.

[wogglebug]

One of my old school friends has semi-retired as a farmer. He used to run sheep and cattle, and grow cereal crops. Now he no longer grows grain, and he's cut back on the livestock. Instead, he still grows cereal - cereal hay. He sows old-fashioned long-straw oats that grows higher than him, cuts it lush and green, dries and bales it, then he rests for half a year. He under-sows the oats with clover, and that along with endemic ryegrass and brome establishes pasture for next year. Then he cuts pasture hay the next year or maybe two, pasture for grazing for another year, then starts the cycle with oats again. The clover means he doesn't need fertiliser. Since it's animal feed he doesn't need herbicides, and growth is vigorous enough to out-compete weeds and insects. Hay machinery may not be cheap, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than grain harvesting plant. There's a big market for oaten hay, cut and baled at peak quality. Much of his oaten hay is pre-sold to a chaff cutter, and he knows what he'll earn before he even plants. Any excess, plus his pasture hay, is sold to local horse-owners and hobby-farmers (the same market as the chaff-cutter) at premium prices for a premium product.

He's making a very comfortable living while not stressing himself. It can be done. However, you have to remember he's got a lifetime of farming and mechanical experience, and he went into it already owning all the farming and workshop equipment he needed.