# Price for hay field lease



## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

Looking at leasing a few fields. Nothing special just mixed grass, it will need sprayed and fertilized. What are you guys paying per acre if you don't mind me asking. I am meeting with the guy next week.

Thanks


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

The going rate here for pasture or hay fields is $20 per acre, per year. Having said that, all my hay fields are free lease. I lime, spray and fertilize. Hay in my area does not pay enough to invest much in another person's property.

I have one 30 acre place I do 50/50. The land owner pays for lime and fertilizer.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

We usually have free leases just to use the ground and keep it producing. Some places we help the landlords with little tasks if needed or if something needs hauled or such another we trade some hay. Most are neighbors so we are always helping each other out so it all works out. Last hay ground we leased we paid 20 an acre not the best hay or ground. Did some improvements to it just to get kicked out and screwed over (we weren't the first ones and were warned before leasing) the guy broke the contract we made an signed agreement on also

Depends on the existing stands and ground and how much needed to make it produce well. 50 an acre is about the max here.

Just make sure you have a long term lease signed by both parties not just a handshake deal.


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## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

You guys have it easy. Our hay ground is in direct competition with corn ground. Anything too bad to be in corn isn't fit for anything else but strictly pasture. My hay ground is $260/acre cash rent, and I established the alfalfa.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I have one that's "free", hilly enough everyone else is afraid of it I guess as I've seen other people make it one year and not again. I've got a good stand of alfalfa established since taking over by no tilling it in. The guy that owns it refuses any rent on it as if I wasn't making it he'd just have to bushhog like he used to. I just sneak the rent in for the hay field into the other fifty acres of row crop ground I rent from him.

The rest I pay 80-130 an acre. Those either are too light for raising row crops and don't have irrigation, too odd shaped to mess with irrigation or the landlord specifically wants hay on it because they don't want the view messed up by row crops or don't want the amount of herbicides/pesticides used to grow a row crop.


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## Chessiedog (Jul 24, 2009)

Mine range from 90 to 160 that's bare ground and on the bottom end of prices ,that could be role cropped . I was just lucky enough to get it . No such thing as free ground around here ! That I know of any way .


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

No row crop competition for hay ground around here. If no one bales it then they have to pay to have it kept looking nice. The hay fields I have are on the homestead where the owners live, pretty much their back yard view. Grass hay here is lucky to bring $80 per ton. If we had to pay rent then we would be backing up. Can't make money going in reverse.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Free lease with most of our hay land here. The land owners see it as free maintence of their fields. I make sure to go the extra mile and clean up drive ways, don't leave hay on the abutting lawns and will go back bush hog the wood lines if need be. If they end up off the side of the road in winter I'm there to pull them out. A few of them ask for a bucket of manure for their gardens.


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

Up here farmers get a property tax discount and the owners of land you farm do to if you sign their form. Thats what we do. They get half price taxes we get free land.


Bgriffin856 said:


> We usually have free leases just to use the ground and keep it producing. Some places we help the landlords with little tasks if needed or if something needs hauled or such another we trade some hay. Most are neighbors so we are always helping each other out so it all works out. Last hay ground we leased we paid 20 an acre not the best hay or ground. Did some improvements to it just to get kicked out and screwed over (we weren't the first ones and were warned before leasing) the guy broke the contract we made an signed agreement on also
> Depends on the existing stands and ground and how much needed to make it produce well. 50 an acre is about the max here.
> Just make sure you have a long term lease signed by both parties not just a handshake deal.


We got screwed like that one time. We bushed hogged a big field and plowed it. Went in the next spring and started discing and the broad come flying across the field saying some other guy rented it. He never showed and we didnt either. It looked good on her. Pretty sad when a handshake deal means squat now.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I also do little things on the free lease places to help out. My favorite free lease is an elderly widow lady. She had a tree fall in her yard. A guy stopped by and said he would remove the tree for $700. I took the BobCat/grapple and chainsaw and had it gone in no time. She kept trying to pay me. Her place has been cut, baled and depleted before she called me. I have spent a good bit getting the field back to producing good hay. She surprised me with a written lifetime lease.

I have another place I would like to let go of. The owner is nice until his "old timers" kicks in. Then he is constantly calling asking why I have not cut his place. I do not get enough hay off his place to really make it worth the effort. He was the first to offer free land when I began looking for hay ground. His is another one of those places that previous people baled and did not put anything back.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Tim/South said:


> I also do little things on the free lease places to help out. My favorite free lease is an elderly widow lady. She had a tree fall in her yard. A guy stopped by and said he would remove the tree for $700. I took the BobCat/grapple and chainsaw and had it gone in no time. She kept trying to pay me. Her place has been cut, baled and depleted before she called me. I have spent a good bit getting the field back to producing good hay. She surprised me with a written lifetime lease.
> I have another place I would like to let go of. The owner is nice until his "old timers" kicks in. Then he is constantly calling asking why I have not cut his place. I do not get enough hay off his place to really make it worth the effort. He was the first to offer free land when I began looking for hay ground. His is another one of those places that previous people baled and did not put anything back.


What comes around goes around. Treat people with respect and dignity, as you would want to be treated yourself, no matter what faith, political beliefs or ways you don't understand and the true human nature will come forth with kindness .


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

DSLinc1017 said:


> What comes around goes around. Treat people with respect and dignity, as you would want to be treated yourself, no matter what faith, political beliefs or ways you don't understand and the true human nature will come forth with kindness .


Very true.

I have been blessed in my lifetime and have sense enough to know it. Took my wife a few years of marriage to understand there are some things you do because they need doing, and not for money.

Most of us have no problem helping someone who is down on their luck. We also have no patience for freeloaders and we do know the difference.


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## Chessiedog (Jul 24, 2009)

I do a lot of the above also mowing around edges, trees, set out round bales for one land lord's horse , I supply the round bales , weed eating , spraying fence line a long road . Still have to pay. Just to much competition for any kind of farm ground in this area .


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

I do feel lucky and always take care of our landlords.

I have learned how to read people and can tell how they are if they are good and honest or just freeloaders. Some you treat like family others you have to have a sense of Im running a business not a charity. If someone needed help or money or food I'd help them if i could. Catch you stealing or poaching you better pray the good lord is looking out for you and that you leave the property alive. Wouldn't be a problem if you just ask


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

The widow lady I mentioned earlier asked if I could mow her dam while I had the tractor there cutting hay. No way would I try to put a big tractor on that slope. So I began cutting it with our zero turn. The look of gratitude and appreciation was worth more than money could buy. Takes about 10 minutes. She had been hiring it done twice a year with string trimmers.

We have become friends and she has shared how people took advantage of her after her husband died. Someone she trusted bought their tractor and implements for $1500. She did not know what it was worth until later. Newer 40 hp Ford.

Sears charged her $200 to come out and replace her lawnmower blades. I sharpen them for her now.

Some people become like family and are just fun to help. The smallest things, things we think nothing of, can mean more than we ever imagined.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I have a 24 acre hay field that I rent that came about in a strange way.One day a guy pulls in yard who I didn't know from Adam and he tells me he is having trouble with his baler that he had bought at a consignment auction a hr away from here.He had called the auctioneer that also knows me from the hay auction (Rock Valley).Well the auctioneer has him get ahold of me knowing I also ran a Vermeer baler.So I go over to this guys place and start checking and find that the electrical connections were corroded so I got them cleaned up and got his monitor to work.Got that done and had some coffee and cookies under a tree and I refused any pay for it.

A year later he pulls on the yard again.I was working cattle in chute and couldn't chat much so asked him what I could do for him.He says he had had baler trouble again so why not just rent the farm from him.So I go over to his place that evening and find he had broken a roller in the baler the fall before and he had been tryig to fix it himself.He was about 83 at the time.So anyway I have been renting it now for 10 yrs.He passed away a few yrs ago but I still rent it from her.

He did tell me before he bought the baler he had 2 other renters that screwed him over.One of them agreed to pay 1/3 the rent after each cutting and he cut and baled the first cutting and never came back.1st cut here is about 1/2 your annual production.

It's a odd shaped farm with road going threw it.A tree patch in the middle of it,a couple wet spots that can have water standing in till July 4 and RR tracks on 2 sides and the farm place in another corner.So the BTO's stay away. 

It's a long ways from free but not $300 an acre either.18 miles from home so at times it sucks moveing eq,but it seems like that is all we do anyway is move eq.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Mines all free and if they ask for money, I might offer a little mowing. Anything more than that a I'm down the road until the field is shaped like a 50+ acre football field.
My fields are all irregular, small, flood plain, etc. so all the big hay guys or corn guys drive right past them. They're too much of a hassle for the big $225,000 Deere's that steer themselves.....might scratch the paint or break a mirror. Lol
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have their equipment and 2,000 acres, but for now I don't really compete with them. So far, no rent is being paid and my customers tell me they're real happy just to have someone farming their land!


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

JD3430 said:


> Mines all free and if they ask for money, I might offer a little mowing. Anything more than that a I'm down the road.
> My fields are all irregular, small, flood plain, etc. so all the big hay guys or corn guys drive right past them. They're too much of a hassle for the big $225,000 Deere's that steer themselves.....might scratch the paint or break a mirror. Lol
> Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have their equipment and 2,000 acres, but for now I don't really compete with them. So far, no rent is being paid and my customers tell me they're real happy just to have someone farming their land!


A guy was telling me a BTO in his area wasn't just satisfied going after the big fields so he bought another smaller line of eq too farm the small fields.So you never know what can happen.$4 corn will probably slow down these types of guys hopefully!!


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## Chessiedog (Jul 24, 2009)

Tim/South said:


> The widow lady I mentioned earlier asked if I could mow her dam while I had the tractor there cutting hay. No way would I try to put a big tractor on that slope. So I began cutting it with our zero turn. The look of gratitude and appreciation was worth more than money could buy. Takes about 10 minutes. She had been hiring it done twice a year with string trimmers.
> 
> We have become friends and she has shared how people took advantage of her after her husband died. Someone she trusted bought their tractor and implements for $1500. She did not know what it was worth until later. Newer 40 hp Ford.
> 
> ...


Yea Tim I got to bush hogging a spot for a widow women beside a small farm I rent . She came over when I was bush hogging the place I rent asked what I would charge for mowing it is like 4 or 5 acres maybe. Got some rocks sticking up creek or ditch running in the middle of that and trees growing up down the ditch . Said her husband use to keep it mowed and had a a few cows . She just wanted to watch the deer . So now I mow it couple of times through the summer for 50 dollars basically fuel money . I would bale it and not charge her at all but for what it is , it would cost me more than it's worth . Besides you have to go through her yard squeeze by a tree ,10 foot gate just not good

She's 83 and her kids do not live close by 2 or 3 hours away .Still mows her yard though and it's at least an acre or more . She has told me what a few people have charged her to do a couple things it's crazy .


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

A good friend of mines mom got ripped big time. You be surprised how holding a baseball bat when talking to the crooked snakes. Works like a charm.


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## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

The fields I am trying to get are from people that have known me my hole life. I used to haul square hay for there dads when I was growing up. The fields have been leased for 15 years or so but this past year we had a bumper hay crop. More than anyone could keep up with. So they let the fields go a little did not cut on time let the weeds go. Should have cut first of AUG and didn't cut last until end of SEP so I might be able to get them from here on out.


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

Go for it.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Keep us updated on how it works out. Good luck!


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

ontario hay man said:


> A good friend of mines mom got ripped big time. You be surprised how holding a baseball bat when talking to the crooked snakes. Works like a charm.


That's what i need to do sometimes. Good thing i haven't put a gun rack in the pickup...


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

Just put it there for decoration


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

My temper would get the best of me if someone sets me off. Though it might help be a warning lol


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