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Greg1959

Well-known Member
How can shipping big square bales be cost effective or a money making endeavor? or are they just trying to help out other farmers?

I know when I was cutting and baling small squares and lucky to get $2.00 per bale, I was not making a lot of money.
a256887.jpg
 
Those bales are probably western hay headed eastbound to a feed yard where they will be ground up. It’s a fairly common sight on highway 30 and highway 20 here in Iowa.
 

Must be GOOD profits to be had importing to Florida from points north that get lots of snow.
I know of one company just south of Ottawa Canada that has been doing so for more than 20 years.
They even rebale, add coloring before shipping directly to Florida.
 
How is there any money to be made in selling and then trucking the
hay half way across the country?
 
greg up here in alberta we see it all the time, if sourthern alberta has a dry summer and no hay there will be trucks heading south from northern alberta in the fall and vice versa. from central alberta north our problem is usually too much rain and can't get the hay off so trucks will be heading north. a few years ago Ontario had no hay crop and a lot of hay went east from alberta, sask, and Manitoba some even by train.
 
Neighbors will certainly assist a neighbor. But hay on the road is for profit. The profit is enough to make it operational. From hobby farmers with no ability to even think of making bales, to the bigger barn with 3 or 4 horses that find that 12 acres (including the house and orchard) is not enough to pasture them when grass grows, then it is winter!!. The market will drag hay in every direction. Jim
 
(quoted from post at 18:10:22 02/13/18)
Must be GOOD profits to be had importing to Florida from points north that get lots of snow.
I know of one company just south of Ottawa Canada that has been doing so for more than 20 years.
They even rebale, add coloring before shipping directly to Florida.
Click to expand...

A farm we used to harvest for in Idaho owns covered rail cars to ship hay to Florida. They have thousands of acres of irrigated hay in the Idaho desert and every cutting can be put up without rain or very little rain. This farm had a plant where they compressed big bales even farther to save space. It’s big business out there.
 
Most guys haul hay 1 way and pick up another load close by. Then continue on or haul back the way they came.
 
the hay is hauled on the return trip home for a little more than the cost of fuel. Some owner operators will not haul it on a back haul because if the truck isn't doing good on fuel it doesn't even pay for the fuel. they rather drive home empty. It's not a lot of money in it anymore. My neighbor spent the last 10+ years hauling from Manitoba to down in the states. this year and part of last has almost made him broke as the price they get down there has tanked. price of fuel went up and he started driving the truck himself as he couldn't afford a driver anymore. I think it's great as he was just a fat slob sitting at home making a huge living. Not no more.
 

It's all about finding the right customers. The dairy farm in northern NH where I used to hang out as a kid buys alfalfa hay out of Montana. Once, just outside of Washington DC I saw two loads, one right behind the other that were from Montana.
 
Depends on the type of operation. As a trucker? X amount per loaded mile plus lumper fees if any. YOu ain't making money you ain't charging enough. As far as a farming operation? If you gotta have hay, even if only for long enough to get rid of a herd you gotta have that hay. They there are operations that can grow it in ID and ship it to FL and make it pencil out. Heck who would have thought that someone could pencil out a 250K forage chopper in 1980. They do it today all the time.

Rick
 
first load's I ever hauled was hay (small bales). Hauled some out of Dillon Mont. to the Seattle area to equine farms. Good looking hay and they had bragging rights "Montana hay".
 
Lots of it gets hauled to the coast, loaded in freighters and shipped to Australia. Remember reading about that on another blog. Dock workers strike here killed a lot of horses down under.
 
Fixerupper Would that place you speak of be along I-15 near Dubois? If so the crew I worked for on wheat harvest we cut wheat there for a few years and at Walker Farms also.
 
It looks to me like hes is also hauling some sort of rolls of something. IF the rolls are his main load, and he is going in the same direction, he can haul the hay for a lower rate than what he normally charges, saving the customer money.
 

I know a guy that haul high quality small squares from central NY to a college in northern NJ. Then, they pay him to haul away the horse manure and bedding which he takes home and uses on his fields. Win-win.
 
There was a article n a Detroit paper years ago, that hay from the UP was shipped to England for the Queen?s horses.
 
This shot points out one of my curiosities: With an 80k# GVW and a tractor the size of that one, which are popular, how is there any room for cargo and still meet the max?
 
Ive wondered that before too.

I read an article in a local farming paper interviewing a bigger dairy near me. They said all their hay was trucked in from out west. I couldn't understand that at all. Asked my Uncle about it (He raises beef and works at the University of Maryland research farm). He told me those dairy guys want consistent, quality hay and a lot of it, to mix in their feed for a consistent, quality ration. The increased milk production made up for the trucking cost. He said all the hay that farm buys could have came from one big field out west. I guess that makes sense.
 
(quoted from post at 08:39:59 02/14/18) This shot points out one of my curiosities: With an 80k# GVW and a tractor the size of that one, which are popular, how is there any room for cargo and still meet the max?
Click to expand...

GCVW is gross combined vehicle weight which is the total of tractor trailer and load. Tare weight is truck and trailer with no load. The dump truck that I drive from time to time has a gross legal weight of 74,000 and a tare of 26,000 leaving room for 48,000 of load.
 
(quoted from post at 14:36:19 02/14/18) Ive wondered that before too.

I read an article in a local farming paper interviewing a bigger dairy near me. They said all their hay was trucked in from out west. I couldn't understand that at all. Asked my Uncle about it (He raises beef and works at the University of Maryland research farm). He told me those dairy guys want consistent, quality hay and a lot of it, to mix in their feed for a consistent, quality ration. The increased milk production made up for the trucking cost. He said all the hay that farm buys could have came from one big field out west. I guess that makes sense.
Click to expand...

JLG, though that dairy farm may very well buy a lot of hay in from the west, it is still probably a minor part of their TMR, (total mixed ration). Most dairy farm's TMR is made up mostly of corn silage and haylage. Dry hay, and concentrates and minerals make up a minor part by weight. The corn silage and haylage usually come from within just a few miles of the farm.
 

Alfalfa does not grow well in SC either. Too hot, or some other issues. One guy near me established a nice small field of alfalfa 3-4 years ago, It immediately stated thinning out, now no more stand there.

KEH
 
Interesting thing about our economy. people will do it if they're making money at it, and they'll stop if there's not any money. There might be a few oddballs, but pretty much you don't see it happening if they aren't making money. Does not explain dairy farming, though.
 
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