# Hay Questions



## Farmhand84 (Aug 25, 2009)

Hello yall! I want to get started hay'n and I need some direction.

I am about to purchase a field with 300 acres grass 3 feet tall and green as can be. These are natural grasses to Colorado.

Before I mortgage everything I have for this purchase I want to make sure my math is right and also some other things.

The field should yield about 2 tons per acre, I think. 5 tons = 150 bales

So my math is:

600 (2tons per acre so 2*300) /5 (tons per 150 bales) * 150 (bales) = 18,000 bales of hay.

That seems like A LOT!

I am going into the business mortgaged to the gills land cost + equipment. I will only have about 50,000 for equipment, is this doable?

The field/farm house is about 60 miles from the city, will this kill profits? I know most of you were born into farming and I was not but I would appreciate any advice I could get.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

I think anything is doable if God willing, you set your mind to it, and you have a little luck. I don't know what Colorado ground yields per acre. Your figure for 5 tons = 150 bales means a 67 lb bale. That is reasonable.

My best advice is to identify and have a potential market before you jump in head first. Are you selling to beef, dairy, horses, or other species? Are there many customers in your area? Being near a city may be an advantage if it has a customer base for the type of animal you want to sell to.

Farming is a tough business and very risky whether just starting out or having been in it for years. I wish you luck with your decision and possible venture.

As for hay advice, you couldn't have come to a better site.


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## Farmhand84 (Aug 25, 2009)

Over the past few years with the farmers switching to corn Colorado hay supplies are nearly always used according to my reading.

I do not have any livestock of my own, this will be a hay only operation until I can get the loans paid down.

I am not sure exactly who is going to end up with the hay, the grass is very healthy and I think I can make a lot of good green bales. I appreciate your advice and will take anymore that you can give!

As for operation this would be a one man show aside from the bit of weekend help from my wife. I am assuming I will need to construct a pole barn, get a front loader, tractor with mower and of course a baler.

Any other equipment ideas in order to keep cost down and enable one man to work 300 acres? I work sun up to sun down working the gold mines so I am no stranger to work.

Ah one more while I am at it, do yall usually deliver the hay or is it picked up? Also can you contract hay (natural grass) to feed lots? Have three or so of em with in 30 miles.

Thanks again!


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

Go to Daveramsey.com - read everything you can on his website! Think very hard about what you are doing!
We built a lot of our buisness with debt. Expansion after expansion after expansion! It is a good buisness, With the current economy and the current livestock situation, hay demand has softened tremendously! Servicing that debt is no longer fun! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and some of our payments are starting to payoff, but now that I have read some of what Dave Ramsey has to say, I will never finiance another piece of equipment - land maybe, but another truck - absolutly not! Another rake, never! 
We absolutly love the hay buisness, but the words "mortaged to the hilt" are not words to live by!


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## Farmhand84 (Aug 25, 2009)

Thanks for the reference. The entire operation including the $50,000 + 300 acres and the farm house are going to run me about $200,000 combined. I would never be able to save this kind of money in my lifetime so the bank is my only option. I am trying to keep cost down as much as possible and I think 200k on 300 acres + some used equipment could pay for itself in a year or two?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

A few questions first,

1: I take it you still will be working full time? 300 acres of hay is a lot for anybody to make by themselves, I'm making almost 200 hundred now by myself and don't work off farm. I'm not sure about your weather there, but sometimes when fighting the weather all the help in the world won't help a lot. Basically if doing it by yourself you need to figure on not having all the hay being able to be made in its prime.

2: Have you ever made hay on your own? Might want to consider renting part of it out to someone else until you get the hang of making it yourself, Then once you get comfortable with all the things that go into making a successful crop of hay, gradually make more of it yourself.

3: Around my area at least, I couldn't begin to get enough equipment for $50,000. It could be done I'm sure, but you might have to settle for smaller or older equipment than would be desirable to cover three hundred acres in a timely manner without breakdowns. How good are your mechanical skills? Paying our local shop rate of $80 an hour cuts into your profits in a hurry around here, if the 80 bucks an hour isn't bad enough, it may also take the shop better than a week to get your stuff back to you depending on how busy they are. I do all repairs on farm here except for injection pumps, anything electronic, and major hydrostat repairs.

4: Given the fact that you will be making small squares, I'd check into the horse hay market. I'm not sure about you're area, but around here only a few people actually want straight grass hay for their nags, they all think they need at least some alfalfa in it. Far as the feedlots go, in my area at least, anybody that's feeding any large amount of animals, all want either large squares or rounds as feeding a large volume of hay with small squares is too labor intensive. I even have a horse customer that only feeds rounds as feeding 40 horse nothing but small squares is too labor intensive.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade here or anything, but I'm just trying to point out a few things that will have to be considered before taking the plunge. Personally if it was me and I was just starting out, I'd find somebody to either rent or do the hay on shares and even see if they would allow you to help out when possible. You might find that making hay isn't your cup of tea. If that's the case, then at least you won't be out the cost of the equipment and can always continue to rent it out. If you do enjoy it, you can always use the rent or your share of the hay to supplement the money you allowed for equipment in the first place and be able to afford a little better line of hay equipment that will be more reliable. Nothing is more frustrating than having alot of hay down, only to have something break an hour after the dealer is closed for the weekend.


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## JD4430 (May 27, 2009)

I just got into the hay business myself. After renting equipment from my neighbor and getting the hang of it I decided to do it part time this year and eventually go full time and pick up more acreage and good customers. I started with $10,000 of my own money and got a $50,000 loan this bought good equipment currently I do 125 acres. It is a tough long process that can be very expensive .I agree alot with Mlappin. There are alot of things to factor. Haymaking can be difficult enough, throw in the weather this year and it can be alot worse. Start slow and don't mortgage everything. See if you can rent some land first and try it. Making good hay is like an art and very few can master it. Selling it may be hard this year for sure as well. Think things through. By the way that is a good deal for the amount of acreage.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

As others said you need to check out your market.To sell 18,000 sm sqs your first yr of haying would be awsome but not probable.It takes yrs to build customer base.If you are 60 miles from your horsey market you will have to deliver most of it.

What type of hay is it?Is it what the market wants?

And with 300 acre one man show you will not get it all put up as horse hay so you will need a market for your lesser quality hay.Which you prly should rd or lg sq bale.Feedlots don't want sm sq bales.And they prly want it delivered.You could maybe have that custom baled.

You will also have operating costs.Fuel,twine,repairs.Maybe some part time help.Advertising.Fertilizer.Delivery.Intrest.

50K for equipment seems a little low.Going to use accumalator or stackwagon?Loaders/grapple? It's going to take a few tractors or you are going to be constantly hooking up.

To get this pd off in 2-3 yrs is not likely.I think your costs will be higher than you think.And the hay value maybe to high.Yes I think it could work but prly not get pd off as fast as you think.JMHO.Are you going to take your living exspence out of the operation also?

Good Luck,Cy


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## OneManShow (Mar 17, 2009)

Best advice I can shoot at you is to read mlappin's reply-then read it again. We farm about 200 acres. We make hay on about 140 acres- when I say we, I really mean that I make hay by myself on 140 acres-sometimes its we, but not often. -that said-even with good quality, well maintained equipment ( which means expensive) It is a struggle to get our hay in before it starts getting rank. I could not make hay on 300 acres without hiring fulltime help and buying more equipment-which right now with hay prices down a bit, and fuel, fertilizer, potash, lime etc still pretty high I don't think it would pencil for us unless we took it really slow.

If you decide to give it a go, manage your risk carefully, figure out your break even point and figure out if what you think will make you money really will make you money-if it won't thin of something else. -good luck and read mlappin's response one more time.


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

You haven't got a snowball's chance in H E double hockey stick of pulling this off by yourself I'm afraid. Have you ever lifted a 67 lb bale? You will soon be making 40 lb bales....now you're looking at 40,000 bales based on your yield estimates.

Let's run through how this might work.

Monday: Cut 20 acres.
Tuesday: Tedd 20 acres.
Wednesday: Cut 20 acres.
Thursday morning: Tedd Wednesday's 20 acres.
Thursday afternoon: Bale Monday's 20 acres (~100 bales) and pick them up with a $$bale handler$$ of some sort and put them in the barn *somehow*. That's a *big *day.

20 acres has taken 5 days. Now repeat process 15 times for a total of 75 days to finish your 1st cut. You need to be more like 30 days.

*This doesn't allow for rain, breakdowns, you family or your real job.*

IMO you're better off rotating 3 crops at 100 acres each. Or renting some of the land out. Or letting someone bale the 300 cares for you on a share crop basis.


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

I will give you a perfect example of why you need to get your feet wet somehow without taking this plunge head over heels!
Neighbor called yesterday with over 100 rd bales 4x5 for sale - nice green 2nd cutting grass hay. He works a day job and had his hired hand bale part of the hay and he baled the rest of it when he got home. The hired boy is a dyed in the wool Okal. cowboy type - late 20's - looks like good worker, just needs guidance. 
The hay looks good; BUT, that is where it stops - not nearly enough string on the bales, bales look like pyramids, not cylinders, string falling off bales, etc. This is fine for feeding the hay at home, but he was banking on selling the hay to me to make a payment! The hay is not transportable! There is no way it can be loaded and unloaded several times! He had to put the hay in his barn and feed it to his cows this winter! He is probably going to be very late on his baler payment!


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## UpNorth (Jun 15, 2009)

Couldn't agree more with the advice already on here. Definitely figure out what kind of grass is in there-natural grass hay sounds pretty, but it doesn't mean anything as far as seriously managing a crop is concerned. The land price you have is a steal compare to the prices here in dairy country, then again you get a lot less rain out west.

If I were you I'd seriously look into renting the land to someone who has the experience of growing crops, have someone else come in and custom round bale or make big squares to get the grass off this year, put 200 of those 300 acres into other crops next spring, and learn as much as you can from the guy who you rent the land to. It might take bit of searching to find someone to mentor you into the art and science of growing crops, but it will be worth it. Your wife will probably sleep better at night as well if you're learning from someone whose farmed for a bit--can't put a $ value on that!

I wish you the best of luck, but take the working the land slow and don't forget about the other things that mean a lot to you.


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## Cannon (Aug 18, 2009)

Farmhand 84 what area in Colorado are you from? Western Slope or the Eastern plains? I am from the Northeastern Plains in Colorado. Is this grass hay Irrigated or mountain meadow hay?


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## Heyhay..eh (Aug 7, 2009)

You have already received a lot of excellent advice from knowledgeable folks and perhaps I can add to it a little.

Mining is hard and fast paced work like a sprint. In 8 hours you have busted your but, lit the fuse and returned to the surface. Farming is like running a marathon, you may not work as hard but over a long period you keep plugging away at making hay, sheltering it and repairing/maintaining equipment. If you are about to keep your off farm job as well as pursue this 300 acre hay business you will orphan your children.

This endeavor looks like it might be a pure business venture for you and not "a move to the country, new life style and make hay on the side venture. Given that you should set out a business plan as you would for any business. That plan should explore the optimal capacity (which you have done with your calculations), the poorest capacity and the most realistic. The posts above will give you some idea as to what to expect in the production process from cutting to baling to moving and then the marketing.

For 50,000 you would be able to get some reasonable equipment for haying, but it would not be the type necessary to tackle 300 acres/year. It may hold you for the first few years but then it would start to show its age. In my neck of the woods you would probably spend:
90-100 hp tractor 25,000 (25 years old)
Mower $10,000 (20 years old)
sq baler 6,000 (15 years old)
round baler 12,000 (15 years old)
utility tractor 15,000 (60 -70 hp 20 years old)
NH bale wagon 5,000 (old?)

There is 73-75,000 and you might push this line up to take on 100-150 acres if it was in premium shape ... and some times you get lucky and get some good equipment other times you get something home and it's like a British motor cycle, ride an hour and fix for two.

If this is a new venture to you and you know nothing about farming and making hay you need a mentor or partner who does know. If you don't have one and don't find one you will not get off the ground.

Not to dissuade you, as I imagine each of us posting has made some kind of leap getting in or expanding our haying operations, which made us hold our breath.

So what you need, more than anything, is a hay education which gets you back to the mentor. Others have already advised you to team up with someone and get into it gradually. That might be the best advice you get.

Set aside 50a for your self and rent out/crop share the other 250 (that generates income).
Help the renter get his crop off as a learning method.
Play on your 50a and you will learn about your equipment, the haying process, the marathon that making hay is. And you will not have a lot at risk. If you can pay your mortgage & taxes for the first few years you might consider yourself on the right side of the ledger for a start up business ... of any type.

Good luck


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