Wondering how much money different people have tied up in hay making equipment and how many head of cattle they are feeding to support and pay for the equipment.With the price of cattle these days no way I could afford to buy some of this high dollar stuff.

I only have about 50 head and some goats and sell some hay usually cut around 150 acres for hay every year not that much.

I graze coastal on my place and not worth baling as only 25 acres, let alone buying the equipment to do it as plenty of folks sell hay. Round bales were running 38-50.00 up until drought of last year when they went over 100.00, now paying 50.00/bale for good 900-1000# bales from same guy I have bought from for years.

Buying out, you do have to watch for weeds as any junk you bring in gets spread throughout your own place and spraying costs for pastures go up.

Everyone seemed to know someone custom baling just a few years ago when 18-20.00/bale was the standard; mow/rake/bale including twine/net wrap and some charged more to bring em' in to where you wanted them stored in a row. Not always baled the tightest so they could charge for more bales or some land owners wanted them loose so as more to sell. Prices I've heard just this year were 25-28.00 to bale and even at that, many don't make enough to rebuild/replace equipment every 5 years.

Funny how "horse quality hay" always brings a premium here, usually 30-40% more than "cow hay" but during drought of last year everyone was buying anything they could get including 3 yo round bales that had saplings growing out of them.

Market dictates, just like anything else and I unrolled bales last year to stretch em'vs. free choice feeding out of my large feeder.

Charlie175 wrote: Sell the cows and just do hay!

The problem is I have a lot of land I run cows and goats on that'd be impossible to make hay on.

Farmall H-2,000

Farmall H- 1,700

Allis B with sickle bar -1,500

Allis D15-3,300

Ford 6600- 5,500

Ford 861-2,500

Heston Tedder- 2,000

New Holland 256 Rake-1,500

New Holland 275 Baler- 1,500

1 Steel Haywagon- 1,000

1 wood Haywagon- 500

 

all the haying equipment was purchased used 10-15 years ago and is in good shape shed kept so gets the job done, have had all the tractors except the 6600 and 684 for seems like forever, those came within the last 6 years. have all this stuff to do 2,000-2,500 bales to feed a few horses and cows. prob don't need that many tractors for what we do but then again you can never have too many tractors!... oh and we have the neighbor mow it with his new discbine.. sure beats the old b with a sicklebar!

LeonR2013 wrote: Kinda reminds me when I grew up and how Dad and I handled cattle. Dad wasn't big on feeding a lot of hay. You'd think I was lying if I told you. We grew quite a few acres of corn so when I got it picked in the fall we turned the cows in on the stalks and the cows would have them cleaned up by spring. In the mean time we had ear corn to grind, to feed the cows night and morning. Sounds like a lot of work doesn't it? Anyway when you called them in and they came over the hill in a dead run, bucking and jumping it made you feel good to see how well they were doing. And in the fall when we sold the calves off and they brought top dollar you felt good again. We never let the cows calve in the fall either. Dad said it was too hard on the cows to have a calf sucking in bad weather. Oh well, a different time and circumstance.      Leon

Pretty close to how we did things back when we grew corn we'd pick or before the picker hand shuck what corn we needed to grind for feed then after grass ran out we'd turn in the cows and hogs in the corn field for the Winter.With the price of cattle these days I think a lot of people will have to return to the low input,low dollar ways of doing things.I never gave it up,my cows never found out what they were missing eating hay from a $500 baler rather than eating hay from a $20,000 baler(LOL)

  New Holland 290 wire baler $7500  30 years ago 3 tie 16 x 23 x 44 bales 120 lbs

  hire bales hauled @ 1/bale 

 Any old tractor that is running,baler has a V4 Wisc so on flat ground any 30 hp tractor.

 Hay sells for $8- $20 per bale

With the years of drought I have bought some $12/bale alfalfa. This year I sold $14/bale oat hay. Cows have been 40 to 80 head all depending how much grass there is from about 3000 acres to graze. The good is no snow the bad is brush and more brush. Grass is only green and growing for 3 months in spring.

New Holland side delivery rake                                   $400

Vermeer 604 J baler                                                    $2500 

IH 485  runs the mower

What ever old Allis I like to rake with

And a 2006 tractor and cab for running the baler,  tractors are used for many jobs not just dedicated to haying.   I run low cost operation as far as equipment goes.

TimCNY wrote: AC7060IL, I almost pulled the trigger on a New Idea Cutditioner for $600 but then pretty much everything I read or was told is that it would be something I'd regret buying. Growing up, at least 2 neighbors used them, it left a mess of the stubble but wow did the hay dry faster than me using a New Holland or JD haybine and then tedding. I just found out the cutditioner is still for sale, price dropped to $500; what can you tell me? I'd rather hear real testimonies than hearsay and opinions. Same goes for anyone else, and I hope this isn't hijacking the thread. Thanks!

I have one and a similar machine a M-C Rotary Scythe,they are both flail type cutters.

Both take a lot of HP to run and cut slow.The M-C Rotary scythe is the better machine in my opinion but I rarely use either one.I had some expasture land on a place I rented that had some small Cedar stumps that had been cut with a bush hog and left for several years .That Rotary Scythe knocked the stumps out and cut the hay took awhile but it beat tearing up my NH mower on it.Other than situations like that I'd much rather use my NH 456 trailer mower.

Why not feed them out in the field and get the sheep out of the mud?

I first bought an old Hesston 1090 and it imploded after a year.  The reel shaft broke and some of the reel got caught in the conditioning rollers.  Total loss.  I bought an old ford hay rake and it fell apart after one season.  I bought an old Allis rake and it broke after 20 acres.   I basically have not had much luck buying cheap hay equipment.  I was lucky that I could borrow some equipment after these breakdowns to finish the job.  So, I gave up and went after better equipment. 

I bought a New Holland 256 dolly wheel rake for $1,500.  Nice rake although, I need a v-rake to go faster.  Purchased a Kuhn 28GMD disc mower (does not have conditioning rollers).  I felt like the conditioning was not cutting down much on the drying time and the cost of the disk mower versus the disc mower conditioner was substantial.  I like the disc mower, simple, easy to transport, but it is a pain to hookup.  I think I paid around $6,000 for a 2013 model.  It is the newest thing I own.  I have an cherry JD 1950s 24T for small squares that cost $2,000.00.  It still has the original decals on it, so I probably paid a lot for a 24T.  However, in 3 years, it has probably missed about 20 bales, and it was mostly because the hay was just too wet.  I went 1,000 bales over 2 days and never missed a bale.  I bought an M&W 4590 round baler at first, but it was not fast enough and very hard to get a bale started in dry hay, so I sold it and moved to a JD 467 due to a forum member recommendation.  Love that baler and I can bale a 4x5 round every 4 minutes.  Paid $8,500. 

I only have 4 cows now, so you might think all of this equipment is ridiculous, but my son and I did custom baling for about 10 customers and made good money to cost justify the better equipment.  Couldn't have done it with the old stuff.  Hay has skyrocketed here in Indiana and since I don't have many cows, I am selling my excess.

My take on your hay equipment topic based upon my experience, if you are only doing your hay, then you can buy some cheap stuff and hope it hangs together for a few years.  It will break and you can buy more cheap stuff every few years.  If you buy better equipment, then you can cost justify the higher expense by custom baling or selling your excess hay (sell some of your cows so you have excess) but you may not want to do that.  I couldn't take anymore breakdowns so I went with better equipment.

I am happy I sold most of the cows.  I made a lot more money off of hay this year than anything else and a lot less stress in the winter time.   Hay profit is far better than cattle profits right now.  You have gotten a lot of responses on this topic.  Good luck in whatever you do and if you go the old stuff route, hope you have better luck than me.