Making big bale hay

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lizziebell

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Further to my post a while back re: making hay or haylage, I think I've decided the most cost effective and profitable forage is big round bale hay.

I'll talk to local contractors, but in the meantime can anyone give advice on the following;

20acres - approx how many big bales per acre (I'm thinking 8-10 for a good year?)
Approx much are people paying to have big bales made?
I only need about 35 big bales for myself. I don't have enough storage to keep them all to sell to end users, therefore I'm thinking of asking if the contractor wants to buy the excess - does anyone else have this/ or a similar arrangement and if so how much a big bale should I be looking at asking (bearing in mind the contractor needs to make a profit too).

Thanks
 
Last year our contractor charged £3.60 to round bale wheat straw. Bear in mind with hay making there is also the cost of mowing, turning & raking. To give you an idea we were charges £7/acre for raking. Must have done our own mowing & raking as not on the invoice! I expect your contractor would give you a per bale price for the whole job. If you were successful in agreeing with him, to take what you don't need you would not get much more than it cost him to make it so don't expect to get a profit on it unless it is a very poor year for grass. There will be a lot left over from the 2014 season.
 
If you have a good crop you should get 10 bales per acre (each being equivalent to 10 small bales, so 100 small bales/acre). The first year I took on my 13 acres, it had barely been grazed since the new year and I got about 130 bales, was still using it 2 years later :). As Carlosmum says, you pay the same per acre for mowing, turning (x 2 or 3 depending on the weather) and rowing up. If you only get a handful of bales each one will be very expensive by the time that cast has been shared between them - my contractor had problems getting payment off one paddock owner who only got about 10 small bales because of the per acre costs.
Get some muck spread if you can to boost your crop, shut it off good and early and then PRAY for lots more than 5 or 6 hot sunny days at the end of June, so your contractor can get round all his clients old and new!! I usually end up with badly chewed finger nails and I have haylage which only takes 3 or 4 days.
I think I pay about £12 per acre for the preparatory functions, baling I don't know because mine is wrapped as well and the price is for both, I'm thinking of offering my contractor my surplus as well, big bales don't sell because of the transport costs.
 
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On average £7 bale if 10 to the acre but watch out as if I want to it is easy to make bales half the weight I would normally :-)

To the poster paying 3.65 for straw I really hope you are getting them moved for that as £2.20 is the going rate.
 
popsdosh said:
On average £7 bale if 10 to the acre but watch out as if I want to it is easy to make bales half the weight I would normally :-)

To the poster paying 3.65 for straw I really hope you are getting them moved for that as £2.20 is the going rate.
Click to expand...

The price of £3.60 was to bale each large round bale not a sale price!
 
Carlosmum said:
The price of £3.60 was to bale each large round bale not a sale price!
Click to expand...

My point was £2.20 is the going rate for baling big round bales and you can get it cheaper,mind you having said that wheat straw is about £4 bale around here at the moment so no money in it at all.
 
OH has a small paddock that he uses for haymaking when needed and he baled up 2.5 acres in 2013 (last time he made some hay) and he got 26 large rounds off it. Baled in July. We baled up one of them into small bales for someone and we got 12 good sized small bales out of it,....and there was 'plenty' in a small bale too! ;).

Can't help you with the costs as that's OH's department, sorry OP.

I'm still using this 2013 hay now as one large round bale last me quite a while. :)
 
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