Starting up haying in PA?

Fatjay

Member
I've been tinkering with tractors and was thinking it might be fun to get into some actual production I do two acres of corn locally for fun/neighbors, but I was thinking of adding a cash crop in my spare time.

I have the opportunity to pick up 10 acres about an hour away for fairly cheap. $3500 an acre. If I were to plant it, I could have the land paid for itself in 3-5 years hopefully. The question is how much additional will I need to spend on equipment in addition to what I own.

I have a truck/trailer to haul machines. I have a Ferguson TO30 in excelent running condition that I figured could run the baler. I have a 6' finish mower, I don't suspect that will work as the mower though. I've seen local balers for $3500-5000 in working condition. Searching the local craigslist for mower isn't really yielding me the type of mower I'm after.

I don't suppose my kubota b8200 with turfs will be of any use in this application? maybe pull the hay cart?

The thought is 10 acres yielding 100 bales an acres at $3.5/bale is $3500/cut, cutting 3x/yr, so roughly $10k/yr yield. Minus fuel and bailing materials, budgeting for breakdowns. I can pay for the land with my main job so a year of learning or a bad/wet season wouldn't be to harsh.

The only complication I am thinking is time. This would be a weekend gig for me, cutting late friday or early saturday, hoping to bale sunday's, being at the weather's mercy I could be asking for trouble.

Anything else I should be taking into account?
 
I would save my money and look for something much closer.

I would not count on that 3.50 a bale if you can only get out on the weekends. Your window of opportunity is small enough as it is without that kind of restriction. Will make for a lot of rained on or old worthless hay. You don't stand much of a chance of actually making hay from Friday evening to Sun afternoon, at least an extra day will probably be needed. Guys might talk about tedding, but I don't think it'll gain you enough time especially if you are making some decent hay and not crappy old grass stuff.

How do you intend to handle the bales off the field? Are you going to bale onto hay wagons and try to haul those an hour back to your place and unload? Loaded hay wagons don't like doing 60 mph so that hour will be a lot longer.
Do you intend to bale on the ground and pick them up and stack on your trailer behind the truck? 10 acres is a lot of bucking bales. Plus you still have to get them back home and unloaded and back to get more....
At a minimum you will have to lay out the money for everything needed to make hay. Your little Ferguson might work but overall is a bad choice if you need to do stuff quickly and efficiently. Perhaps you could use it to rake or ted... You will need a decent tractor, a haybine, a rake, a tedder (if you want to try to shave some time off drying) and a baler.

I have done some long distance haying on the cheap. One year I made 40 acres 30 or so miles away with a Farmall 400 and an Allis WD. We stacked it on site and covered with plastic and hauled it home when we could. Didn't have an equipment trailer so I had to drive the tractors and equipment to the field and hauled hay wagons home behind a truck at 15 mph. Never again.
 
Another thing to think about..
You will not get 100 bales every cutting. You will get less for the second and even less for the third cutting.
 
Unless you're mowing dead hay you won't mow Saturday and bale Sunday . I make 3000 bales
or so a year at home , work full time . My longest haul is a mile to the barn . Couldn't
imagine an hour one way . I have at least 25k in equipment and still have time issues.
That being said if you enjoy it and it's your hobby have at it .
 
There is no where in PA that you will consistently produce quality hay by working weekends. Nature will beat you up with bad weather. Even in your backyard might be 50/50. My humble advise. do something else
 
Figure on 3 days to dry hay in PA in most areas. Maybe 2.5 days if you have good weather. Some years you will get $3.5 a bale. This year the neighbor cant sell his hay at the auction for anymore than $2/bale...
 
never had crop dry that fast my area, do you have account already lined up, otherwise you will be lucky get 2.oo and they will growl at that, want it delivered and stack at their location. i am glad to be out that. hobby only good luck cause if you get the 3.50,you are hardly getting your expense yet if you count your time.
 
I'd agree with the others. To put up good hay requires getting the various tasks done exactly
when they need to be done, not waiting for the coming weekend. If the ten acres was a mile or
two down the road it would be one thing but to make hay an hour away from home would be a real
challenge. And, unlike grain farming, it occurs multiple times per year which makes that hour
drive all the more of a factor. Putting up small square bales is typically a two-person job,
especially if time is limited, so if you're planning on this being a one-man endeavor then you're
in for a huge amount of physical effort. You could possibly hire someone with an automatic bale
wagon but this would cut into your profits and also put you at the mercy of someone who probably
has more lucrative work than a ten acre patch.

I also believe you're overestimating the net profit on this type of farming. If a person could
pay off the expense of buying ground in just a few years by farming it then ground would be a lot
more expensive. Once you pay for the land taxes, fertilizer, fuel, twine, repairs, many two-hour
round trips, storage, marketing, and all the other expenses that crop up you'd be looking at a
very modest profit at best. You would be competing against larger producers that offer the same
product but who have the ability to spread the cost of modern, efficiency-improving equipment
(like the auto bale wagon mentioned above) over much more land and are also available to get the
jobs done exactly when they need to be done.

Don't get me wrong, I have the same appeal of small-scale farming. I do it as well and I enjoy
being able to put my vintage equipment to work doing what it was designed to do. However, I can
view the small piece of ground I farm through my living room window and I am pleased if at the
end of the year it didn't cost me anything. To do the same thing with ground an hour away and
with an expectation of it turning a respectable profit would take much of the fun out of it for
me.
 
you'd probably be better off "as a weekend farmer" planting corn / bean rotation , low fertilizer cost because they produce what the other needs , also
first year corn in sod will do great with very low cost , a good 7000 conservation deere planter would plant both , return between the 2 would be about
the same depending on market & spray program , hay is alot of work & what do you do when it burns out? now you need a 2nd crop anyhow. also unless you
have a local buyer lined up to buy it all , you may end up giving it away , been there befor , corn cost about $200 ac. to plant- beans if i remember
right was about $150 ac. last year w/out spray , which needs to be chosen well, some will have residuals beans dont like ( round up is the choice if you
have no licence) i got around 150 bu./ac. of corn & around 70 bu/ac on beans , corn is selling at a low of 3.75 bu. , good news is it can only go up from
there i hope thats a profit of around $360 an ac. , not sure what beans are at this time, mine are still in the bin , but return is normally about the
same as corn or a little better. actually thats a better return with less work the your quoting for hay. just giving ya some info you'll have to deside ,
my numbers should be close, being that im in central Pa . good luck with whatever you decide, farming is a loosing proposition for the little guy anymore.
 
Thanks for all the feedback, it's very helpful. I know farming for the little guy is a losing battle and came to terms with that already. The idea was to buy the land, and farm to pay for the land over the course of 3-5 years, then one day build my retirement house on 2-3 acres of it, and retirement farm 5 acres or so.

Seems like hay isn't the way to go for the weekend farmer. Will the payout for corn/beans be anywhere near that of hay? Buying the land and doing nothing with it isn't a terrible option, but I like to save my nickles where I can.
 
It's alot more complicated than that, first of all
thinking the weather is gonna cooperate on the
weekend is wishful thinking, here in NY with a
Tedder I need 3 days most years, cut say Monday
morning, Ted Monday night, if I really have to again
Tuesday, then either Ted or just rake wedensday
and bale that afternoon. Then think about
breakdowns, your hay is ready to bale, then
something happens to you baler sunday,you can't
order a part until Monday and there saying storms
Sunday night into Monday? You also dident
mention were you were gonna store the baled hay?
You going to need to get it under cover after you
bale it, will you have help unloading it? The land I
bale belongs to the farm I board my horse at, I only
had to buy the equipment, I only make around 2000
+_ bales of 1st and if I'm lucky 2nd cut, enought for
my needs and some to sell to cover my expenses.
It's not as easy as it sounds.
 
One thing wrong with your calculations is assuming 100 bales/ acre per cutting. I am in Central NY- a little shorter season than you and rarely get any 3rd cutting, and in good hay (good stand of hay that is fertilized) 80-100 bales /acre of 1st cutting is reasonable . Second and 3rd tend to run 20-35 bales /acre. Last year due to the dry summer there was very little 2nd or 3rd in my area. Clear seeded alfalfa will yeild more 2nd and 3rd but is much more costly to establish and much harder to get dry for square bales and many people who buy square bales are buying for horses, goats, sheep etc and want grassier hay with no dust.
 
I baled 12,000 bales each year for commerical sales. 2 NH balers 1 NH bale wagon. If you have good sized pole building you can do the 10 acres in one cutting and put in a building without man hanlding each bale. At min you'll need 80 horse tractor, a conditioner, rake, moisture meter and if your planning to get near premium price the storage building must be kept closed to prevent light from bleeching the hay. Horse people light green coloring and will pay premium for that color. I made my bales 35" long and around 60lbs. (female size) Preferred to sell mine by the ton. That was fair for both buyer and me. If your going to store in a barn you'll need to hire labor. Never left my bales in field over night. All bales should be stored 2 weeks before long distance shipping to go through "the sweat" If you load directly from field into enclosed semi you customer will get wet rags when he opens the door. Lesson learned the hard way. I had rolling ground and applied fertilizer for 5 ton to the acre yield in slit spring and fall applications. Be prepared to loose entire cutting if it rains and rains after dropping it on ground. If you've raked it prior to that heavy rain you'll need an old forage chopper to blow it into the air for scatting to prevent smothering and killing the next cutting under the dense windrow. Good haying is an intense business.
 
First off that Ferguson would be no good on a baler unless it had its own engine. You have enough horsepower to pull it but not the gearing to handle the baler if on a PTO. Same with a 7' mower-conditioner combination, not enough power for a 9', and you absoulately need a mower-conditioner, not just a mower. And then you need a hay rake that will also ted or a seperate rake and tedder. Finding a good baler for around a thousand would be the easiest part of the machinery lineup. If your tractor was the TO35 then things would work as you would have a 6 speed tranny, not the 4 speed you now have and if you do have the Sherman option that cannot be used for PTO work. I used to own a TO30. I know knothing about your bota to know if it has a PTO or what horsepower it is, turf tires would not be a problem in most conditions but sise HP and PTO would be the question.
 

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