First Year Baling Hay. Overall Costs and What I Would Do Differently.
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- Опубликовано: 12 ноя 2020
- This year I started baling hay for the first time. I mostly purchased antique farm equipment that was in good shape and had recently been used. I repaired all the hay equipment, trying to get it working properly. Today I review all my equipment and repair costs. How many bales of hay we ended up with. And what I would do differently.
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We live in southeastern Illinois on a 41 acres homestead. We just finished building our log cabin overlooking our pond. We are trying to grow our own food and raise livestock. Follow us on our journey living the rural life and developing our property and becoming more self sufficient.
As a farmer that has been in the business for 25 years the best advice i can give you is find what works for YOU. What works for the neighbors down the road may not for you. Find your niche and make it work.
Awesome job, bud! As a retired farmer, my best advice is to sell your sickle mower and hay tedder. You can get enough from them to buy a good 9ft haybine. Aside from preventative maint, you got a good baler and rake. For the type animals you have on the farm, I'd recommend red clover for your next field. Goats and pigs love it. Anyway, Great job on your first year baling. You survived! lol
YES! Sickles worked fine 40 years ago, but now with the haybines you have much cleaner and better cuts.
I agree that selling tedder and sickle bar is probably the way to go. With a haybine, you also get the conditioner rolls that crimp the hay - which speeds up drying and eliminates need for the tedder. Don't get a haybine that is too old though, some of the early versions do not operate as smoothly.
@@gerrygebel3318 I'd say keep the tedder, because if it rains you're screwed if you cant ted up the hay again to help it dry
@@stubbi sure, but if it rains on the cut hay - then the hay is spoiling. Better to watch the weather forecast carefully :-)
@@gerrygebel3318 Nah, it wont spoil right away
You could spend your winter months painting the old machinery, so when summer comes round, you'll have 'brand new' kit.🧐
I'm a second-generation farmer, (my parents started farming back in the late 80s.) We've been baling hay for going on 40 years now. In that time we've learned quite a bit, and there are a few things I would recommend to you going forward. First, ditch the hay wagons, and buy some hay baskets. You go from having to have an extra person on the wagon, to just one person running the whole show. My dad bought a pair of used one's about twenty years ago and he wouldn't trade them for anything, and you can easily hold a hundred or so square bales in them. Yes, you will have some warped bales and broken ones from time to time as they will just fall into the basket willy nilly, but when it comes to labor-saving, hay baskets just can't be beaten in my opinion. Another thing to look out for is when you're going around corners with the hay basket while baling, my dad puts chains on between the baler and hay basket chute opening to help keep the bales from popping out in a turn.
Second thing, DON'T sell that tedder, my dad wishes he'd bought one years ago. It can easily shave a day off of the drying process, so instead of three days, you're done in two. Third, yes get rid of that sickle bar mower, haybines are better, but the discbine is obviously the best. The problem of course is cost, a used discbine will run you easily 7-8 thousand dollars, (that's what we paid for ours.) Plus, it requires more horsepower than a haybine, we have a 706 International, and it barely meets the horsepower requirements to run our discbine. But it cuts so much better than our old International 990 haybine. The main problem we had with our haybine was plugging, if you weren't careful, you'd plug it easily, especially if you ran over a previously cut windrow, the grass would collect under the skid plate as well, and then the machine wouldn't cut right. The conditioner was nice, but a haybine still uses a sickle bar to cut the grass, so you're not really getting too far from what you have right now if you go with a haybine. If you do buy one, make sure the wobble box is in good condition, that's what killed our 990, the wobble box just wore out, and it wasn't worth fixing it.
I'd also recommend getting some high calcium lime down on your fields, this helps open up the soil and increase bio-activity. In addition, it helps the plants grow stronger stems. A lot of times and this is especially true of alfalfa, the stems will be hollow inside, due to lack of calcium in the soil, this makes the planet susceptible to being knocked down in a windstorm. High calcium lime helps the plant grow stronger stems that can resist high winds, plus you get more hay volume per acre if your stems aren't hollow. My dad told me a story about how one year he put lime down and the following year he said that the field looked like a giant hand had pressed down on it as the places where he hadn't spread the lime were shorter than where he had. Remember, your soil is like a bank account, if you only take from it, and put nothing back, then eventually you'll run out of nutrients, and then nothing good will grow. In my area we could get high calcium lime for free from the local city filtration plant, (till they started charging for it anyway), and all we had to do was pay haulage. If you spread twenty tons to the acre, you're pretty much golden and don't really have to worry about it for a good long while, but even just one to five tons to the acre can really make a difference in a year or two.
My final piece of advice is to try and store your hay until winter prices set in, generally speaking, you can easily see a two to three dollar a bale increase in prices for 1st cutting going into November/December. I'd recommend keeping an eye on your local Craig's List and price it accordingly. This year was the worse year I've ever had for making hay, and the prices are already crazy, in my area, (North East Indiana,) 1st cutting is already 7-8 dollars a bale, and that's if you can find it. Last year it got upwards of 12-15 dollars a bale in late winter. It'll be worse this year and most likely next year as well. Keep that hay as long as you can, though try to make sure most of it is gone by February/March, as that's when hay prices tend to start dropping as farmers try to clear excess inventory ahead of spring.
Hope this helps you going forward.
@Timothy B You’re spot on regarding the high calcium limestone and solid stem alfalfa. It will also help with the longevity of an alfalfa stand.
Great advices, love it . Thanks
@Timothy B : Excellent advice.
I've been haying for nearly 40 yrs myself.
In the very near future, he'll definitely want to get a haybine (mower conditioner, technically). Cutting hay without crimping or stripping the stalks is a waste of time & money. A NH 479, or a JD 1209 are 2 excellent choices.
It's also in his best interest to start looking into purchasing a kicker (or thrower) baler, and a few basket wagons, for sure. Without extra hands for labor, you've gotta think & work smarter, not harder.
It's also worthwhile to eventually upgrade to a 4 star tedder instead of a 2 star.
Everything I mentioned will do a much better job, and save him A LOT of time and frustration. Remember, time is money too.
Mother Nature can also be very uncooperative, and getting the hay dry, baled up, and in the barn can sometimes be a helluva task to endure. Particularly when you're all alone.
Great work so far though. We all gotta start somewhere.
Well said sir
@MrFarmer110 that is a wealth of knowledge I would love to connect with you and talk about starting a hay farm and best practices.
This was an EXCELLENT presentation. I like how you incorporated drone footage to help explain things. I am glad your field bounced back after that accidental poisoning. I wish you would have included that recovery in your final tally. You are doing very good. Keep this up. By the way, it is admirable that you keep such precise records. I have been watching you awhile and you always do such a good job at record keeping. You did this when you harvested your pigs and had the meat packaged. This way, you will always know where the money is going. It inspires others to do the same. Your channel is doing good things for people. thanks.
I think you did great on all of those prices. When you upgrade to a haybine, don't sell the sickle bar. It's a great time saver around ponds, and ditches. I paid $400 for a Ford 501 with a 7 ft bar. The plan was my pond, and 300 feet of road ditch. It worked so well, now I do my pond, two different neighbor's ponds, and about 1000 feet of ditch. That's not counting our drive, and 1200 feet of gas well drive that slopes away. I love that thing.
I've got a d 17 and love it. One neighbor pulled a new holland chain round baler with his d 17 with no problems.Sickle mowers,haybines,disc mowers,they ALL have their problems .haybines can clog too. Any "used" piece of equipment is going to be wore just in different and more expensive parts. You got excellent deals on all of your hay equipment!! You already went through the fixing up stage on it,just learn to master what you've got.Everything in life has a trick to it. You've just got to learn the trick!! A wise old farmer told me that.
You made your experiences, you learned from it
and now it's time to improve...👍🏻😊
You know, I’m really glad to see you started out with older equipment not because I want you to hate doing hay but you really get an appreciation for better equipment. Growing up I was always throwing bales on the wagon and stacking in the barn. I haven’t had to deal with square nails for over 10yr now but it really brings an appreciation to growing and evolving your farm. Congrats on your first year, hope to see you back with some upgrades next season!
Well done, that's a big accomplishment. Thanks for bringing us along.
Evan, great job! Thank you for taking us along.
I always looked forward to the hay videos, thank you for always being so honest with prices it really helps us out that are trying to exit the city for country living
Enjoyed watching the whole process, thanks!
Great job Evan..... Have a great 2021..... We all are looking forward to it coming, bringing us some joy and the time to spend with friends and family again. Hugs from Minnesota
Great job Evan, you laid it out really well and it was a great presentation. Thanks for sharing with us and for the great videos you’ve shown on RUclips. They are appreciated. 👍👍👍👍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Good to have you Evan.
The hay cutting videos were amazing thank you for them.and this one man I really appreciate what you do!!! Stay safe and God bless you both!!!
I really enjoy your videos. You're very detailed and honest about what you're doing. Thank you for sharing all of your experiences with your property.
I, for one, am highly appreciated of all the work you put into your videos. Your editing is top-notch and well planed. I was so happy that the repairs were not overly expensive and within your talents and experiences. You did one hell of a job on the hay season and I congratulate you on a job well done. Thanks for all you do and allowing me on your journeys...Peace!!!
Bill
Enjoyed all the haying videos, brought back memories of driving the tractor as Dad and hired help stacked before storms.
Evan,glad to see a smiling face, You and Rebecca was blessed big time this passed year ,I’m sure you can expect to have another year just as good if not better. Thanks for a great video.God bless and be safe.
Incredible video! So much value and well presented! Thank you so much for breaking it all down!!
Excellent vid. Answered a lot of my newbie questions
Alway injoy your video Evan! I think you did very very well on your equipment cost! God-bless you and your family! Stay safe!
Great job for a newbie. Nice to see all that you accomplished.
This is a great video, As a landscape gardener and farmer this is a great piece of education for younger people wanting to go into farming/smallholding.. It shows you don't have to splash the cash to make it...
And farming is never easy.. Far from it, but it's the way of life that captures most people into staying with it... Great video. 👍👌
Thanks for all the details and info! Just moved to our own 40 acre farm this spring and traded hay to a guy to bale it for us...while I figure out what I need to do it myself. Keep up the youtubin!
I’ve been putting up hay for quite few years and found that every season is a new and different challenge from the weather. Sounds like you have your stuff together and I hope the best for you and your operation.
Nice job explaining the cost breakdown.
Nice summary Evan. I enjoyed the hay videos this year and look forward to the next chapter. Considering the issue you had with the fertilizer guy when you started this field, I'd say you did great.
Great video man. Very informative. Love to see you using the old equipment and your maintenance is top notch.
The sickle mower could be used for trimming ditches and get a mower conditioner
I also used mine to trim around the pond, saves a lot of trimming. also mid summer pasture, cutting bull thistles, burdock, etc.
Thanks for this video. I'm looking to start harvesting on my little ranch in Wyoming, and this told me exactly what I needed!
Very informative. Great down to earth manner. Love your presentation skills.
Roji
Great job 👍.
I learned a lot from you. Thank you for sharing.
You posted a awesome video, we would like to thank you for sharing your video... That's awesome 😎😎😎 we will be looking forward to see more videos in the future, thank you..
Good job documenting your efforts! I was basically in the same place you are 10 years ago. Farmall H, IH sickle bar, IH rake, Super 68 baler. I’m still doing hay with newer nicer equipment.
Rule # 1. ALWAYS protect yourself!! No bale of hay is worth any injury. BTW gave this same advice to a young guy starting haying this last year, during a in field Haybine troubleshooting event the PTO shaft caught his shirt a ripped if off his body, luckily he was not injured but was very lucky.
The worst part of making and selling hay is dealing with Customers, ( arriving on time, having money to pay for the amount of hay they want, wanting to return hay for various reasons or wanting $ discount) When you have a good Customer take very good care of them!
2nd worst part of baling hay, weather, as you know you need minimum 3 consecutive days of sunshine to get hay dry. It difficult to watch a perfect field of alfalfa hay $6 per bale get rained on and de valued to $3 after you rake it 2 more times to get it dry. DO NOT bale hay that you are not 100% sure it is dry. MUCH easier to tedd and re rake in field than to “in bale them” shake out in field or sell for a $1 bale because it is moldy bale.
3d, equipment failure, Specifically the baler. You will be never more stressed then when you have dry windrows ready to bale and you are unable to bale because of a broken baler, working on it/going to pick up parts. Rain forecasted (That is when rule #1 get into play) would highly suggest a second baler or a neighbor that you pay to bale the hay
It’s a wonderful profitable hobby when everything is working, but believe me I’ve seen a lot from $ 15 a bale hay in a drought to burning bales in a pile couldn’t give it away, snakes in bales to dead deer in the Haybine, AND I’m happily married to one of my former Customers and we have 5 year old son together!
It’s an adventure!, Work hard, Stay Humble!
You found some great deals on your equipment. Much of what you were using is what I learned on back in the 70s while working on dairy farms here in Maine. Anyone looking into doing their own hay can get an idea of cost of the equipment from this and also learn from trials and errors you shared.
Many blessings.
This was my first year in hay as well. Experienced many of the same things you did. Learned that there are so many variables in haying you can’t control, and you can’t rush it, so you do the best you can. “Perfect” is a rarity. Not too far away in Carlinville, IL. Thanks for sharing.
Great video ❤️👏👍 So happy you were able to accomplish all you did this year. Good job.
Evan.... Really Nice job! Enjoy the videos you and your wife are doing...my very Best to you and your Family this Holiday Season....
Looking forward to seeing your future videos!
Really enjoyed your informative film of your costs on your equipment, you proved a very sensible purchaser who loves a bargain , good job 👍
Thanks for sharing your experience with the sickle mower.
Thanks so much for this video. My wife and I are slowly going to take over the family farm, and we have no equipment on the farm to use, except for a tractor. This was incredibly informative for us, to plan our steps to working the family farm. God bless you in your farming, and as always, we look forward to more videos from you.
Yes it would be good to see all the old hay equipment fixed up and painted, red and yellow to match your tedder ! Need that tedder - it can save your crop from going moldy or drying unevenly if you get a shower or two.
So Fascinating, Impressive!
Great job God bless you and I hope everything continues to work so that you might be blessed in the future
Thank you for this video! I’m going to be a first generation farmer and I was very interested on how somebody on a small budget can still bail hay. I wish you good luck as the years go on!
First time cutting hay??!! Awesome! Thinking of buying 15 acres and feeling overwhelmed!! Thanks!
A perfect presentation.....thank you from Canada.
Thanks for the amazing video and the help
Truly love this walk through. I've been looking into it farming with old school equipment until I save/learn enough to upgrade... I just wasn't sure if it was still doable this day and age.
I really did enjoy watching the Hay series up to this point. The ups and downs and seeing how you handled / learned from all of the different issues allowed me the opportunity to be a small part of your adventure, thank you. As I live in a concrete jungle in Tokyo Japan, I will never be able to experience farm life. Thank you for sharing yours, it has been a blessing :)
Looking forward to continuing the series and all of your videos to see what the next year has to bring.
Never say never. 頑張って！！
Very good vidio, nice to see someone who doesn't think they have to take on a huge debt to start raising hay start small and work your way up to how ever much you want to do. I raised hay for many years with older equipment and it worked pretty well for me.
..GOOD ONE, STAY SAFE AND ENJOY..
A haybine still has a sickle bar, what you want is a disc bine look at wt farm girls utubes shes had nothing but problems with her haybine
Great video, Evan! Really enjoyed that! 🙂
My husband George said he liked a disc bind instead of cycle bind. You’ll be happy with this decision. We love your channel.
I'd love to see these old pcs of equipment refurbished. fun winter project
Had to start somewhere buddy you gave you more ideas with my sickle bar thank you
Hay videos are enjoyable to watch, thanks for the effort.
Your shopping skills are amazing! Equipment is so expensive. Great job!
Brilliant run-through - and good to see those machines still being used. If large scale farmers had no one to sell to, they'd be consigned to history! They're good machines to have around as they CAN be repaired - and easily understood (ish) - compared to the sophisticated, computer-run stuff now. Fine for a big set-up, not so good for smaller.
Looking forward to next year? I am!
It is enjoyable to watch you cutting hay with the sickle bar mower.
You are an inspiration!keep up the good work.God Bless
Evan the footage you’re getting from the drone is really getting better and better. Ive seen people with significantly more expensive gear not get that good of footage. I dunno if its the angles you’re filming at or the editing but keep it up whatever it is. Great job!
JudithB I think you did a great job!!! I am not mechanically inclined so watching you do repairs on the hay equipt was very interesting. I still have our old sickle mower and it ran well for us, but its been sitting for 25 years now. I learned to run the equipt from my ex and my father, and enjoyed doing the work. Our equipt was old too, and the tractor 1945 Allis Chalmers Wd was a great tractor for our 18.5 acres. I sold a lot of square bales and still had enough for 20 cow/calfs, 3 horses and had hay ground up, mixed with grains and mollasses for our Jersey cow. Why not do the whole 15 acre field to hay and also graze it for when you get cows???
Just purchase 100 acres and building up a farm trying to get into square baling for our livestock. Thanks for the video
I think you done very well. Even new equipment requires a little tweaking. I bought a new Frontier brand sickle bar mower in 2018 for $3600.00 and I had some isssues like you getting it properly adjusted to cut hay. Its a learning experience to acquire and takes a little time to master. But all in all I think you done a super job.
Great video! Nice to see old machines in use, in the UK, you could pick up for scrap price, and you don't see many still used.
Very well done,don’t remember seeing a video on spraying alfalfa for insects or weeds perhaps it’s 1st year crop but you may be as lucky next year . For leaf hopper and weevil I use warrior II cost is $380 a gallon but you only need about 1.5 oz acre and a license to buy check with county ag agent to get one. Good luck . Eric
I broke down this past summer and bought a haybine, I share your frustration with the ciclebar mower, mowed with it for years, but as you said the crop has to be perfect to get them to cut good... I paid 2500 for the haybine have put like 100 in it, but I will cut my acres in less than 1/2 the time and I'll have my hair left... it was worth every penny...
Back in the late forties my father city boy came to the country during the worldwar11
evacuees was the expression he did started small and did quarrying tractor contracting...to help finance his farm...I personnel finished farming in 1972 I regret that so it nice to see you farming...cheers from dave in UK👍👍
Enjoyed this one. Very interesting and educational. If you decide to keep one field in alfalfa, you may want to consider a disc mower or a rotary drum mower. They should be less expensive. Haybines have the conditioner rollers that crush the cut material to help dry it but at the same time squeeze out nutrients with the moisture. Also, the crusher rollers will cause the alfalfa leaves fall more easily off the stems. My dad had one but it was called a mower conditioner back in the 1980's. I remember when dad bailed his alfalfa field, plant leaves would just come pouring loose out the back of the bailer. Good luck.
Great job
Nice video enjoy your channel. Your hay wagon I believe can be extended the pipe going to rear axle may have holes in it. You just slide rear axle backwards to make it as long or as short as you like. I could be wrong take a look.
I planted orchard grass, ryegrass, and timothy, and added broom grass to the mix, I went through 2 haybines last year, wobble box problems, I now have a disc mower not a discbine that I like after getting it adjusted
Thank you for sharing.
Very informative. My cousins are all on farms and bale grass. The even collect tge seed from one patch. They drive through the paddock with a tarp over the front grill windscreen into the Ute tray. A round dryer in the shed. He said there is a demand for the seed too. Then they cut and bale the grass. Don't remember the variety. Other paddocks have mixed grasses to bale.
I have learned a lot from videos, keep up the great work man.
You've put a lot of work into the equipment, next year should be much easier and a lot less expensive. Keep up the good work and l love your channel.
Very well done video
U did excellent.if u ever get to small discbine.get the fingers instead of rolls. Faster dry. Haying has evolved so much past my old equipment.jd round baler 435. 315 square w/kicker0 1990 kuhn disc. 2016 4 basket tedder .10 wheel v rake. And im semi retired 70. U must be fair mechanic keepin all going
I may have missed it, but did you include the cost of seed and field supplements? How about things such as bailing wire?
For you , fixing the equipment is a better option than for most others since you can incorporate it into this channel. It would be nice to know how much time you spent on fixing the equipment. If you spent 10 hrs fixing something, thats another $120 minimum in time value versus if you didn't have to fix it, for a typical owner (again, for you, this value is different due to making videos for us). That info might help someone decide that buying the second cheapest piece of equipment is more optimal for them, since their time might be spent better elsewhere.
Nonetheless, very informative and very detailed.
You did great and got a good set up for starters, I'd get a drum mower over a hay bine or a disc
You can convert the lower arms on the case to the standard ball type arms. Also to stop the sway, install a stabiliser bracket and stabiliser bar. I had this issue with my international sickle mower in my Fordson Dexta. Swung to the right side and bound up with the rear tyre. Installed the bracket and bar and it stays solid in the centre now and doesn’t pivot either.
Cool video thank you 😊
7x14 ' is the standard wagon size.Guys used to put sides on them and pulled them behind corn pickers and especially mounted ones the wagon would fit behind them to go through the fields. Should get at least 100 bales on it if you stack high enough.
Great review and presentation. 👍👍
I enjoyed the video. The hay you were sitting in front of looks like good quality.
Thanks for sharing.
Just for reference we do the small squares and our 3 hay racks are 8 feet wide by 16 feet long. There are some farms around here that run 9 by 20 hay racks.
I think you should spring for a disc mower. It is a lifetime purchase for you and will make your haying much more efficient and enjoyable. Spread it out over the years it is well worth the extra investment. I started haying at the same time as you and have good luck with my sickle but I live in a dryer climate. Good luck, really enjoy the content.
You did a great job on the equipment and the hay. Sorry the sickle bar gave you so much trouble, but its fixed and fine now, wet grass sticks to everything anyway, so take that however you want from a RUclips watcher. I'd not change anything for a year or more. Myself, I would repaint everything if I had time, mainly to slow down the rust, but it could help resale value.
This was a great video especially for people out there wondering if farming is the way to go for them. Lets face it....farming isn't cheap. If you had to pay someone to do the repairs that you did on all your equipment it would have been astronomical. A lot of folks out there do not have those skills. Then there is the cost in the seed itself and you have weather you have no control over. All in all I would think it would be a very stressful career. I admire all our farmers out there that are willing to take such risks. God Bless you and yours.
Seems up here in the upper Midwest, farmers always used a crimper after sickle mowing and before raking to assist in drying the hay by crimping it and making it easier to bale. By the time I started working on farms in the Mid-70's every farmer had moved on to haybines, either pull type or self propelled. I only ran a sickle mower to mow road ditches or thistles in the pastures. Anyway, in time you will be purchasing a hay bine to save time and gas and will be glad that you did. Good Luck next year!
I think you have done well for the first year. 👍 👍
Nice video Evan! I really enjoy watching U learn this hay making business. I started @ a young age & have almost 50 yrs. of it under my belt. I will send U my contact info if U ever want to shoot the breeze a bit about hay & machinery. Farm safely my friend.
Good presentation and money analysis
on your hay wagon. I think the rear tailgate you built is definitely needed. we have exact same thing on ours except up each end we also have a 1x5, maybe 1x6 up each end to help stabilize it. it gets a lot of rocking back and forth in a hayfield and it will end up loosening over time and racking left or right on you. We did build our bed a bit wider. it is wide enough that we stack 1 long ways then 2x2 across. Then at second level, switch... 2x2 across and 1 long ways. our bales may hang over the edge a couple inches but we get 5 at each level. love your content because it reminds me of the same things we have done over the last 25 years.
Now it's kind of hard to tell, but you may not have to get a new wagon. You may still have a few holes left on your frame to extend the running gear out, then you just have to find some longer beams and build a new deck for it. You can also have the deck hang out a little on the back and front.