# Pricing machine costs per hour



## Hogleg

A good friend and neighbor asked me to bush hog and disc some CRP ground for him. How do I go about estimating a reasonable rate per hour to run the equipment and my time. I have a JD 2550 65hp Diesel tractor and a 5 foot bush hog. He has specific directions from USDA on how to strip cut the field. Field is 5 ac in size. I estimate fuel consumption to be on the order of 2.5-3 gal per hour, so at $3.00/gal the fuel will cost $8-9. He wants to pay for my labor also, and I think $10 is reasonable, since I am not in the business of baling just yet. Thinking around $25/hr total rate. Seam reasonable? Since I have to strip cut the field, I am guessing maybe 2-3 hours, although it is pretty thick.

Any help is appreciated.


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## sedurbin

http://extension.missouri.edu/explorepdf/agguides/agecon/g00302.pdf

This should give you some idea of what farm labor rates are being charged. There are other states that publish this information, just search for "custom farm labor rates"

BTW 2.5 - 3 gal per hour sounds like a lot for a 65 HP tractor.


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## Hogleg

"BTW 2.5 - 3 gal per hour sounds like a lot for a 65 HP tractor"

sounded like a lot to me also. Got that from the Nebraska test info. Have not really owned the tractor long enough to know how much per hour of fuel to run the bush hog. I found the Kentucky farm labor guide on another thread that says 14.50 per acre for hogging CRP land. Think that is what I will charge.

Thanks for the reply.

John


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## David in Georgia

I get $35.00 a hour for bush hogging with a 2 hour minimum if it's close or 3 hour minimum if I have to trailer. This is with a Mahindra 6000 2wd and a 6ft Woods brush bull mower.


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## rob_cook2001

Dang, around here a 40-60 hp tractor and mower is bringing at least $50 if not $60.
Nothing wrong with helping a friend but make some money. Equipment and Breakdowns are not cheep.
Robert


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## David in Georgia

$35 is the max here in my area. It's worth a lot more than that but no one will pay that when they can get Billy Bob to come do it for $20 and a 6 pack.


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## saltwater

You might also want to check into some liability ins. It will be like any other business sooner or later something will come up. A small job can turn into a huge deal if something goes wrong.


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## NCSteveH

If you want an eye opener, go to your local community college and take a construction estimating course. After that you will see what the true cost of your machine is per hour, they you will understand why your cost's are higher than you think they should be. Most owners think fuel and labor but it goes much deeper than that, think tires, oil, maint cost, emergency repairs, insurance, transportation, loan interest, and don't forget Profit. It is not a bad word. Remember, charity starts at home.


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## farmer2

I guarantee that you are not making any money if you charge 25/hour. Irregardless of what the prevailing wage is, I wouldn't run a tractor and a mower for under 50/hour. I am on my 16th year farming and I know that I wouldn't come out for any less.

farmer2


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## rherington

I charge $25 an acre for shredding. You figure 2 acres an hour that is $50 an hour.


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## rherington

I just went and looked at the Missouri rates chart. That is CHEAP!!! Around here cut, rake, and bale is at least $25 a bale for large rounds.


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## Farmer Bob

In Texas we try to charge around $400 a day for tractor work.


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## geiselbreth

i run a 6715 jd and 15 foot bush hog when i do custom work i take the price of the machine and double itwherer it be bushog dozer or track ho work 65000 on tractoe 12500 on hog155 per hour


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## OneManShow

I am in the hay business, and the construction business also. I would bet you that you're not even going to cover your costs at 25/hr. Don't be afraid to charge a rate that will make you some money. It is still legal to be a capitalist in this country- I think.


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## hay wilson in TX

In the days of DOS TAMU had some disk with templates for the old Lotus 123 A1 that used the equations and assumptions by Doan's. Later Oklahoma came up with a Windows program that use much the same assumptions. 
None of them caught on. 
Most people use the "Your Guess is as Good as Mine" system to estimate cost of operation.


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## MikeC

Hogleg said:


> A good friend and neighbor asked me to bush hog and disc some CRP ground for him. How do I go about estimating a reasonable rate per hour to run the equipment and my time. I have a JD 2550 65hp Diesel tractor and a 5 foot bush hog. He has specific directions from USDA on how to strip cut the field. Field is 5 ac in size. I estimate fuel consumption to be on the order of 2.5-3 gal per hour, so at $3.00/gal the fuel will cost $8-9. He wants to pay for my labor also, and I think $10 is reasonable, since I am not in the business of baling just yet. Thinking around $25/hr total rate. Seam reasonable? Since I have to strip cut the field, I am guessing maybe 2-3 hours, although it is pretty thick.
> 
> Any help is appreciated.


This what I use as a guideline:

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a3-10.pdf


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## hay wilson in TX

There is a reason the records for plowing is done on a circle. No wasted effort. 
Looking at what I understand, long straight hay fields are more efficient to harvest than odd shaped fields with lots of dead head time involved. A real pain is an odd shaped field with 8 or more turns and at least two point rows.

The operator of a machine is paid by the hour. The equipment burns fuel by the hour. Maintance is usually accomplished on an hourly basis. Time involved in making turns are not by the acre or by the bale, it is wasted effort.

I have taken 3 hours to mow. Taken 3 hours raking. Only 30 minutes baling that involved constantly changing gears to compensate for different hay densities. Actually spent more time traveling in route than baling hay. At that time most baling was for $1.00 / bale to cut, rake, and bale. Their cost was in the $2.75 /bale range. On my own fields I can at that time I was able to price my harvest cost at $0.65 / bale. Using the same formula. Don't ask what the formula is because it is now built into my hay harvesting spreadsheet.

For some reason most academics like to set cost of operation as a cost per acre. Here most custom hay harvesting is done by the bale.

Lets say the cost of running a round baler is roughly $200 / hour. With net wrap and a good yield 40 bale and hour is reasonable. String tie and less than optimum conditions and 10 bales an hour is possible.

Yield can be as little as <1 RB / Acre up better than 5 bales an acre. In one case the harvest cost per bale can be in the $40 range while in the other it can be in the $8 per bale range.

This is how I see the pricing of my work.


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## Chris Kin

You MUST figure in the DIRTI-5. Depreciation,intrest (or intrest lost if your money was invested elsewere), repairs, taxes, and insurance.


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## somedevildawg

I've come to the conclusion that the hay market is so whored up that any common sense approach that actually puts a profit in the operators pocket is out of the question. Case in point, had a cattle farmer that wanted me to bale a field of his, having never done this for anyone other than myself and being fairly new to the business, I thought from a business standpoint, I have to charge by the hour, I figured I would charge 75.00 an hour for cutting, rakin, baling, that was just off the top of my head type figure. Well the farmer says when I get there that the "other fellar" was charging $15. Per bale, I thought, damn that sounds too cheap, so I told farmer brown I would help him out this time and see how it goes, mistake! You are relying on farmer brown to put the proper nutrients into the ground, in this case, I cut a 35ac field and yield was less than a bale p acre, so for 3days my equipment and a hand was tied up for 400.00, back out fossil fuels and labor and it literally cost me money to bale this mans hay! Never again, by the hour only to cut their field, by my figure at 65per hour it would have been about 960.00 at that rate I would have put a small amount of money in my pocket, better than taking it out of my pocket! Live and learn, if they don't like it they can call the "other fellar" whose tractor is broke and he has no money to fix it, wonder why? On the other hand, how do you guys do cutting on halves? I told another farmer that wanted to cut on halves that I would only cut on halves at a 60/40 percent and I would pay for fert. At 50/50, that covers my fuel cost for equipment and transport, what about you guys, that sound about right? At a cost of $110 pa to fert, hay gets expensive to grow real quick, need to yield 4bpa to even begin to make money, and that's if you sell 1000lb bales for $60-75 per, not many times you will get 4pa most of he time 2-3 per acre. Your thoughts, John Deere 6420 frontier rake, Deere 9' disc, new holland br7060.


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## Dolphin

$35/HR is the good neighbor give-away rate I charged this summer. If I didn't know them I wouldn't do it, or charge a lot more to CYA.


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## haybaler101

13 ft. disk mower conditioner runs $100/hr. 14 wheel rake runs at $50/hr. Round baler 6x5 net wrap and 3x3 square baler I charge by the bale but expect a mininum of $250/hr.


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## hay wilson in TX

I believe it is time for me to up date my personal hourly rates for harvesting hay, &c.

I plan to look at my personal times required to do each function on my best most efficient fields and convert the Iowa data to cost per hour, really cost per the nearest tenth of an hour. 
I will continue to add the cost of baling wire, string, or net to hourly cost.

I will also look at my cost to store a bale of hay, seeing that I now have a new larger and considerably more expensive hay barn.

I believe the old formula's that I have been using may be too conservative resulting in a lower than actual break even cost for my hay. THEN for the rare occasion that I venture out for custom work I will add 20% to insure I will avoid providing charity.

Regardless *I believe the most efficient value for each function is to assign a cost by the hour.* It rewards the easy and efficient fields and keeps the odd shaped low yielding fields from costing me.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agd.../pdf/a3-10.pdf


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## Teslan

In my area cutting hay is by the acre and raking, baling and stacking is by the bale. I don't do much custom work. Just cut some hay for my cousin at the end of the summer. I don't feel exactly that raking baling should be per bale. Especially with the differences in the amounts of bales per cutting. You still have to go over the same ground for less bales as you do more bales although maybe faster. I guess one could charge more per bale if the quantity is less. I'm not sure how to covert it to a time thing. I think per acre is fine for cutting hay, and tillage work. I do believe though that if I do any custom large baling for anyone next summer I would like to be paid in hay not in money. Especially from many of my neighbors that are known not to pay. That's how my cousin has done it and it's worked good for him.


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## hay wilson in TX

As a rough first look I probably will cost my efforts at:

2012 2011 & earlier 
diskbine $118.8 /HR NH 411 $108.00 
cut alf $61.77 /HR NH 462 $56.15 
cut bur $71.60 /HR NH 462 $65.09 
ted $60.88 /HR NH 254 $57.98 
rake/t $60.88 /HR NH 254 $57.98 
rake $51.70 /HR NH 57 $47.00 
bale $108.0 /HR NH 315 $77.74 
baleing $0.20 /bale (wire) $0.17 
haul $80.53/HR NH 1003 $73.24 
treat /bale 
wire $70.00 Wire/roll $58.00

Storing hay in the old pole barn I used $0.11/bale but with the new larger pole barn I figure to charge $0.37/bale for storage. 
I have not used a preservative on any hay for over 15 years now and have no figures to work with. 
This all is copied from the portion of my spread sheet that puts my cost to the breakeven on the hay.
For custom work I use 150% to price my work. For neighbors I usually round down my fee but never go below breakeven. For charity work I will round down to what I believe will maintain that individulas sence of pride and still not put them in a bind.

Sorry about the chart but the Lotus 123 does not like Hay Talk.


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## somedevildawg

Just baled a farmers fields last week, these are hay fields not grass fields, 4acre-22 bales, 20 acres-110 bales, 2 acres-5 bales, 3 acres-8 bales, he cut, I tedded, he raked, I baled, worked out good either way I figured it, difference was yield. Not many fields that will yield like that unless they have the $ spent on fert, $110 per acre here in south ga. Baling tift 85 hybrid Bermuda. The cost has to work for the farmer and the baler, if the money was not spent on fert. The farmer would have a bad outcome by the hour, the baler would have a bad outcome any other way.


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