What's good for a firstime small hay job?

Thanks,
Andrew

To make really good alfalfa, you need a haybine or a crimper. Without hyd you would need to cut the hay with a sickle mower, & crimp with a crimper. Not nearly as much fun as a haybine. In fact, downright frustrating some somes. ;) Sounds like a few older haybines do not need hyd - going to be hard to find one with good rollers.

You can mow alfalfa with just a sickle mower, no crimping. However, it will take an extra day to dry, you will lose more leaves, and it will look like long stringy hay instead of fine fresh alfalfa bales. Depends on where you want to be.

Some areas of the country use tedding to help cure the hay, others do not. I'm not familiar with it; some people can't make hay without a tedder. Depends on where you are.

To rake, most any old siderake will work, good NH 256 units bring $1400 or double, while some old Case or NI units bring $50. If you scrimp money, scrimp on the rake.

To bale, I would want a good older NH or JD square baler. Do not scrimp money on the baler. Do not buy some off brand no one else has heard of (or can fix, or has parts available, or misses tying every 5th bale...).

To load bales, will you drop in the field & get later, hand load on a hayrack while baling, bale thrower & bale rack, or a bale basket?

Drop in the field is a _lot_ of work for 1 person on 10 acres.

Loading the hayrack requires 2 people, and alfalfa is very time sensitive - bale an hour too early & you have mold, bale 2 hours too late & you have a bale of stems with the leaves laying on the ground swome days. Do you have access to 2 people when needed?

Bale thrower will cost more, more maintenence. Bale baskets are pretty simple, but harder to find.

Storage - you need a shed or barn to hold your bales, or it will all be wasted anyhow.

Grass hay is really about the same, it will dry out better than alfalfa without crimping, but crimping helps save grass leaves, drying time, etc.

Soundsl like you had questions on haybine/ crimper? A haybine is just a combination of a sickle mower & a crimper with a reel on it, so it works much better. (Ignoring rotory cutters & discbines, as this is 10 acres...)

Below is a link to a Haying FAQ that has evolved over years on the internet, and answers a lot of questions on hay making from land to fertility to equipment to storage.

--->Paul

• Haying FAQ

Crimping crushes the stems every couple of inches, so they dry out in far less time - moisture only has to move 1.5", instead of 18" to exit the stem. It also makes corse alfalfa stems seem a little less corse. :)

For 10 acres, the sickle mower & the seperate crimper can work fine, if a bit more swearing & time. ;) Both machines can readily be found with no need for hydraulics, and are rather cheap - $500-700 would get you a set in good condition. It just requires cutting the hay, then going around agin wasting the time to crimp it all right away. Or finding a mower with a pass-through pto & crimper behind...

It would be possible to run a simple crimper with one of those turnbuckle cylinder eliminators - that's what many of them use to begin with - for adjustment. Couldn't reasonably run a haybine that way tho, as I see it.

Dad made 3-12 acres of alfalfa for 30 years with only a sickle mower - just likely a little less quality on average than if he had some type of crimper.

Your tractor does not have live pto (it's not a Super MTA is it?) so runnig the baler will be a little less fun. You have the power & size, so it will work fine, but baling (and cutting hay) is a bit easier with a live pto.

We shouldn't be telling you absolutly what does or does not work - just the odds of success or the probable quality. :) On 10 acres of hay that your livelyhood doesn't depend on, a lot of different things will work. Have fun, play safe. :)

--->Paul

55 HP tractor (Long 560) $3800
JD 7' haymower/cond $850
NI Rake $650
Decent baler (various) $650
18' flat wagon (decent flat) on gear $600

Looking at around $7000 (going to need to stock some parts and twine, too). Most of this stuff wont economically depreciate much (you do get to claim tax depreciation).

My establishment cost on alfalfa averages:

$60 per acre for seed
$30 per acre for fertilizer
$25 per acre for lime
$15 per acre for chemicals

You'll also have repair costs and fuel to consider. Naturally you cna spend a LOT more on equipment but for just 10 acres starting out that, to me, would be bare bones. I'd be prepared to be down $1000 an acre. Figure on being profitable in the 4th year (that's actually very good, most folks cant buy in all their hay equip and establish and do more than break even over 5. May not even do it until about half way through the reestablishment year 5 year cycle. I did custom work for 10 years and tried to invest everything I made back into equipment before I started doing my own exclusively. Then spent the next 10 years paying off the farm and upgrading/replacing equipment with new stuff. Been at it 25 years and, while I have had some very good years (3 yrs ago I hit the 8 ton per acre mark for the first time and sold hay for $120-$160 a ton) really dont expect consistant profitability until year after next (last 2 have been bad and next year doesn't promise to be a lot better).

I must be doing pretty well because I already have the "priceless" part. It's two of us doing this together. I just have to come up with the rest.

Thanks again,
Andrew