baling rates

Not that anyone wants round bales made anymore! All the custom work is big square

__________________
Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

We charge $14.50 per acre to cut with our Mower condition. Raking is an additional $7/acre. Teh baling of 4x5 net wrapped bales is $9 per bale.

Our guy doesn't need the hay on halves, he has enough of his own. It's hard to find someone to come do your field when they have their own hay to get in. he has a field about 100 yards up the road, so he'll do ours. He charges $30 for a round bale when you buy from him, so he charges us $15 to cut, rake and bale our own field.

__________________
"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back..." Maya Angelou

I tend land around us and the problem I encounter with cutting other people's land is that they in most cases don't fertilize heavily neither do they reseed or reduce weed competition. What I mean is that I can cut and bale an acre of my own land and get perhaps 50 or 60 bales of good hay to the acre since I manage it properly, while I can go to the neighbor's place and get maybe 20 bales per acre, BUT the time, fuel, and equipment wear is the same because I am covering the same size ground but with reduced yield. I am not willing to cut other people's land on halves or for a price, but I will rent the land at the going rate per acre in this area, then I can reseed, pour on the fertilizer and triple the yields, with no extra rent on the land. Then I get 3x the yield and get good quality hay that I can sell for $4 or $5 a bale, instead of having to haggle over a price with a landowner who cannot understand that my costs are fixed based on land area, not yield. The lower the yield the higher the per bale cost.

Why is it that the commercial balers have gone to the big squares? Arent round bales faster to put up?

Transportation is the biggest factor in the move to round bales. The round bale is just not acceptable for transportation over long distance. Couple this with the inefficient use of storage space and the ability to continuously bale with out stopping for tying or dumping.

Jim

I am so blessed to have a wonderful neighbor who fertilizes our land, cuts, bales and net wraps it, sets enough of the bales on the flat end in our barn to feed our goats through the year, then pays us $8/bale for the rest. This year on the 30 acres or so of hay field, we got 123 bales, all put up last week when the weather was perfect for making hay. These are 5x6' bales, densely rolled. I stipulate that he set them on a flat end so I can unroll the bale as it stands to carry to the feeders. We only have a few goats so it's not that hard a task.

He and his wife are also good friends who will come to my aid when DH is traveling out of town. I reciprocate their kindness every chance I get.

I also use to cut,rake and bale hay for small farmsteads, they to had no idea what I had tied up in equipment, labor and fuel. Most would complain about the price, so I quit doing it. Most were small patchs and was not worth my time, couple acres here and a couple acres there. Spent more time on the road than baling, had one neighbor wanted me to just square bale some hay for them. Never asked ahead just cut and raked and called and said it`s ready. Man I was hot, when they wanted to know how much to bale I said a dollar a bale. I supplied tractor, baler, racks, fuel and my labor and they said that was to much. I baled for them two years, and that was it never called this year. If I had a good sized field, with good hay, I would probly round bale for half or a bit more. I have so much hay of my own I sure don`t miss baling for others at all.>Thanks Marc

__________________
Our Diversified Stock Portfolio: cows and calves, alpacas, horses, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep, cats ... and a couple of dogs...
http://springvalleyfarm.4mg.com

I think $15 a bale is a decent price. Twine is higher this year, diesel isn't cheap, and the cost of the equipment is considerable. And your time in the seat on the equipment isn't cheap. I baled a four acre piece last night. It was an hour and a half to get the equipment to the field and mow it, then a about the same to bale. Total of 21 bales.

$10 of twine, $20 of diesel, $25 an hour for labor, $50 an hour on all of the equipment works out to a little over $12 a bale. And someone else might charge more for the cost of the equipment or to run it. I used $50 an hour, but you could easily charge $100 for those three pieces of equipment and get up towards $20 per bale. It's what a contractor would charge you for the use of their heavy equipment, after all.

If someone bales hay cheap for you they are not paying themselves enough. There's a big difference between a neighbor doing you a favor and someone charging you their actual cost of business.

It's pretty easy to fall into the mindset of "they are just going by on the road, anyway, and it will only take them an hour" and translate that as "they shouldn't charge me very much", when the fact is, it's costly every time you pull out of the barn driveway with machinery.

Jennifer

__________________
-Northern NYS