Growing hay at home

[snc12]

I have some questions about growing hay at home for horses.

I live in Maryland. We've been having record-breaking rainfall this year but usually rainfall is moderate. Temperatures in the spring usually range high 60s/low 70s and in the summer vary from low 80s to 100+. It's very humid. The field that the hay would be grown in is pretty open and exposed to sunlight with some trees lining the edges. We would be growing orchard grass hay.

So, under these conditions, how many square bales and how many round bales could one expect to get per acre of land? And how many cuttings could I expect to get each year?

I don't have any equipment, the means to purchase it or the time to do the work, so I would probably try to find a local farmer or possibly hire a custom farming company to do the work. Would this still ultimately be cheaper than buying baled hay from another party?

Thanks in advance!

[FarmboyBill]

How many acres of hay do you have. IF one, I doubt youll find anybody willing to haul their machinery in and out to do it. Just to guess, Id say 2 rounds, around under 2 doz squares, depending on things I don't know about.

[DaleK]

Anywhere from zero to hundreds of square bales per acre depending on fertility, soil type, weed control and a bunch of other factors. Same for whether it's cheaper than buying or not

[Bearfootfarm]

No matter how many bales your land will produce, chances are good you'd be better off financially to use your land as pasture and buy any hay you need

[rambler]

It can be satisfying to make your own hay.

For a couple of horses, it is better financially to buy hay.

You said a humid climate, so often one ends up with rained on, wettish, dampish hay. You won't have any use for that stuff, wasted effort.

Unless you have 10 acres of hay or more, the equipment and more so the time involved to make your own 2-4 acres of hay ends up pretty spendy per bale.

that doesn't mean you shouldn't go ahead and make your own, but dollar wise, you can buy more good hay bales than you can easily make dollar wise.

There are ways to harvest loose hay and not invest much in equipment, but this ends up manually harvesting it which is a ton of good hard work, certainly an option but that is not for everyone for sure. basically swing a scythe and swing a rake and pitch a fork.....

If you have a nice big field 10 acres or more and farmers nearby you might be able to rent the field out for hay; they will crop share and leave you between 1/4 and 1/2 of the crop (bales).

But to make hay you come and cut, you come and rake, you might come and rake again, you come and bale, then you take the bales home.

So for small fields or to get so,eone from far away, it ends up not worthwhile to the farmer, too much driving around for not much gain.

Paul

[Jennifer L.]

I know horse people are very fussy about hay, and you have to scratch around pretty good to find a hay dealer that gets you good stuff every year. If you do your own hay, you have control over everything to do with it, and that can be good, but it's a lot of fuss for a small amount of hay.

You don't say how many acres you have. I've got one field that has a hedgerow that grew up when part of it was fenced for a fall pasture, splitting off one 4 A chunk. It's a total PITA to do that piece every year, because you are cornering every few minutes. Listen to your PTO shaft chatter that often is something that's not fun! And you spend the time going around the field thinking "By golly, this fall I'm ripping that hedgerow out!" which never happens.

So getting someone to do these small fields is difficult, and you are going to have to throw money at them to get there and do it when the quality is good, because they are making more money doing a faster job on a larger field. Hay quality is MONEY, and most farmers don't want to mess with the small stuff because you aren't getting that much done for the time involved.

If however, you have a decent sized field and you approach someone well ahead of time and pay them a premium to do your hay when you want it done, then go for it.

I get about two tons to two and half tons of hay per acre here on the average. The fields aren't pushed to produce because I've never needed a lot of hay with the acreage I have. So in small squares, 45 pound bales I'd get in the neighborhood of 80-100 bales per acre.

That's here in Northern NYS, but I doubt you'd get any less where you are unless your soil is just bad.

In your case I would try and establish a good relationship with a good hay dealer. It probably would be less trouble for you in the end.

[Yvonne's hubby]

I have about seven acres in grass that usually produces about 350-400 square bales or 25 rolls per cutting, two cuttings per year.