The work that goes into making hay versus the cost!!!

[Ali27]

I finally got my 1 1/2 acre paddock cut for hay by a lovely young guy who has set up a paddock maintenance business! He has been brilliant, turning up on time etc but it has totally made me realise the amount of work and stress that is involved! It was cut on Sun am, tedded on Monday, flipping rained on Wednesday but tedded again on Thursday pm, rowed and baled on Friday. I now have 94 bales of pretty good meadow hay but it has worked out at about £3 odd per bale. I will never moan about the price of hay again after being on hand to see what is actually involved! How farmers can sell small bales for less than £4, I don’t know!

 

[Lintel]

That's why so many aren't doing it

So much easier to cut and bale silage and haylage!

 

[SEL]

Round here most won't work on less than 10 acres unless it's a favour / mate.

I know the family with a 9 acre field near my horses were getting very nervous because they were relying on it being cut between 'proper jobs' - so they waited and waited. Now selling their surplus for £4.50

 

[Sandstone1]

I finally got my 1 1/2 acre paddock cut for hay by a lovely young guy who has set up a paddock maintenance business! He has been brilliant, turning up on time etc but it has totally made me realise the amount of work and stress that is involved! It was cut on Sun am, tedded on Monday, flipping rained on Wednesday but tedded again on Thursday pm, rowed and baled on Friday. I now have 94 bales of pretty good meadow hay but it has worked out at about £3 odd per bale. I will never moan about the price of hay again after being on hand to see what is actually involved! How farmers can sell small bales for less than £4, I don’t know!

They are £5 here so not that cheap!

 

[JulesRules]

I agree. I'm on a working farm and one of the horse hay fields is accessed via my paddock so the past week I've had to work with the farmer for him to get in and out to cut, turn and bale it.
He has several acres that he does in small bales for the 7 horses on the farm but does big bales for his cows and he likes to have a little moan about doing the small ones for us, but I don't blame him. It is hard work!

 

[Tiddlypom]

Our neighbour’s grandson charged us £1.04 per bale for our 204 bales in early July. It was a good weather window so it was easy to make, and he keeps the machinery next door so access is simple, but I would have happily paid more.

I pay £6 per bale at the feed merchant if I run out.

 

[JennBags]

They are £5 here so not that cheap!

That's still pretty cheap considering the cost of the land that needs to be set aside, the preparation of the land to make it suitable for hay production, fertiliser and seed when needed, plus all the work that goes into cutting and baling it, not to mention the storage so you can do and pick it up when you want it, or even having it delivered. Beginning to sound cheap now?

 

[tda]

We have some rented land that we make haylage from for our own use, after rent, payng contractor to cut and bale and wrap it, my brother brought it home and stacked it for me works out about the same as buying it in, BUT I'm okay with that cos I know where it came from, good weed free grass
My dad used to love making small bales but the manpower needed to get it in is amazing, and must add significantly to the cost

 

[Ali27]

Luckily we managed to get our bales in ourselves by taking the top of my truck and about 12 loads! I keep walking into my hay store and smelling it😍 I will end up buying some in too but I’m fine about that!

 

[honetpot]

This is why farmers get so angry. You see posts on Facebook, can you deliver cheap hay at the weekend as I have run out, and I only need one bale, and they think £3.50 is expensive.
The more you have cut they cheaper it is. I have five acres of standing grass, I hoped that my neighbours contractor would have time to do it but they have hundreds of acres to do, so it got left and they have not had time to come back, they will be harvesting now. They will get it as foggage

 

[Chinchilla]

Ours is £2 I feel guilty about paying so little now but we didn't set the price!
That said, I've cut some of our own surplus grass by hand (Poldark style with a scythe) for my small animals, and it is back breaking work; I'd rather pay extra to have someone else do it with a tractor. 😂

 

[Sandstone1]

That's still pretty cheap considering the cost of the land that needs to be set aside, the preparation of the land to make it suitable for hay production, fertiliser and seed when needed, plus all the work that goes into cutting and baling it, not to mention the storage so you can do and pick it up when you want it, or even having it delivered. Beginning to sound cheap now?

£2 per bale profit is not that bad.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I have a ten-acre field and a few years ago toyed with the idea of making my own hay.

The first hurdle I experienced was actually in getting someone to do the work! Cutting, turning, and baling would all have needed separate visits over a time-span, and after asking around it was obvious that no-one wanted to be bothered as they were all busy with other stuff, and the one I DID manage to get hold of said OK yep he would (perhaps, not enthusiastic!) be able to do it, but it would cost a great deal, and quoted a price for the total job which would have been un-economic!

So we fenced it off, and strip-fed it to the horses as winter standing-hay!!

 

[JennBags]

£2 per bale profit is not that bad.

How do you get to £2/bale profit?

 

[minesadouble]

Apart from the land and man hours you must also factor in the cost of machinery and depreciation of the same.
A good tractor and baler bought new will cost more than the average persons mortgage in my area.

 

[Sandstone1]

How do you get to £2/bale profit?

The poster above says it costs £3 to produce so if they charge £5 a bale that's £2 profit.

 

[Mari]

I have 2 acres of good grass every year & cant find anyone to make hay for me. No one wants to do small acreage not even if I give it away free to anyone who’ll do the work - I just want it cut & taken away as I have far too much grass every year.

 

[spacefaer]

I had some round bale hay made a couple of years ago on a 10 acre field. It was very hot and sunny so cut Monday, baled and wrapped Thursday. Cost me £15.01/bale. Absolutely beautiful stuff - it smelt of summer. Equivalent of £1.50/small bale
I spoke to the contractor and if I had had it made into small bales, it would have cost me £3.50/bale to have it made, which is the equivalent of £35 per round bale. It's the economics of scale.

 

[frazzled]

We don’t use our hay anymore but cut it for land management, farmer comes and cuts it and takes hay as payment. Cutting about 9acres in all. We reckon it just about works out break even as access is a bit tricky.

 

[milliepops]

I have 2 acres of good grass every year & cant find anyone to make hay for me. No one wants to do small acreage not even if I give it away free to anyone who’ll do the work - I just want it cut & taken away as I have far too much grass every year.

OH does lots of small paddocks in between the bigger jobs but it's almost not worth bothering if he applies the standard rate for mowing/turning/etc. The time spent travelling there is greater than the time spent doing the work!
I've suggested a fee restructure like a standing charge per visit and then reduced cost per acre, dunno if that would work.

 

[maisie06]

I finally got my 1 1/2 acre paddock cut for hay by a lovely young guy who has set up a paddock maintenance business! He has been brilliant, turning up on time etc but it has totally made me realise the amount of work and stress that is involved! It was cut on Sun am, tedded on Monday, flipping rained on Wednesday but tedded again on Thursday pm, rowed and baled on Friday. I now have 94 bales of pretty good meadow hay but it has worked out at about £3 odd per bale. I will never moan about the price of hay again after being on hand to see what is actually involved! How farmers can sell small bales for less than £4, I don’t know!

Still so many horse owners out there who think farmers , farriers and feed merchants should subsidise their expensive pet/hobby, I bet these same people wouldn't work for less than minimum wage or free.....making good hay is an art and they should be prepared to pay the going price...

 

[maisie06]

I have 2 acres of good grass every year & cant find anyone to make hay for me. No one wants to do small acreage not even if I give it away free to anyone who’ll do the work - I just want it cut & taken away as I have far too much grass every year.

Could you rent it for grazing sheep??

 

[JennBags]

The poster above says it costs £3 to produce so if they charge £5 a bale that's £2 profit.

That was purely for the guy to cut and bale it. There's nothing taken into consideration for the cost of purchasing the land, for maintaining it, getting weeds out, fertiliser, grass seed when necessary. Or for storage over the long winter.

 

[Dubsie]

Lucky here as OH is into vintage tractors and equipment, so actually enjoys using his pride and joy tractor and bailer, we also do the neighbour's in return for the hay, and sell our surplus locally for £4-5 a bale (just under current local market price), there are a couple of ladies that collect. Access through the gates is narrow, and we're off the beaten track so cannot see any small contractor coming here without a remortgage.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Our neighbour’s venerable 1950’s International tractor stepped up to the mark this year when the more modern tractor broke down . As said upthread, the cost of baling is just part of it, there is the value of the hay crop itself to be factored in.

 

[southerncomfort]

This is only our 2nd summer here. Last we had very little grass growth due to heat and lack of rain.

This year I've got 2 acres of good grass. I decided early on to let it grow up and feed as standing hay but its literally up to my waist now!

Bumped in to our neighbouring farmer and he says he'd be quite happy to cut and bale it next year if we want. Only issue is we don't have a lot of storage space and farmers here only do round bales.

 

[pippixox]

my friend had hay made last year off maybe an acre. but land also needed to be weed killed and fertilised. the cost when divided between the small bales was £4.50 but that did not include the fertilising and weed killing. they were very light small bales too. where as I did 'standing hay', which missed a top so actually got a bit too long and some was just trampled. but it meant mine lived out with no hay until the new year except a token amount occasionally.

 

[ester]

We paid our contractor £1.20 a bale to make our 2.5ish acres this year. We've had 3 different people make it over the years and always charged about the same so £3 a bale seems a lot to me.

We don't spend anything more on the grazing and it made a ridiculous amount this year 330 bales off it.

Moving to wilts and paying £5 a bale was a bit of a shock and showed the regional differences quite starkly. growing grass on chalk/limestone is definitely harder than low lying clay.

 

[Lyle]

Hay prices here in aus are up around the $20-25 (11-14 pounds) mark for small squares. Rounds are $180+ (100 pounds+) for 5x4 rounds. It's been an awful few years...
Luckily this seems like a decent spring is apon us (at least where I live) and with large acerage and small stocking rates, we should be ok. I have just set up to grow my own barley fodder to keep costs down, so will be keen to see how it goes!!

 

[oldie48]

We have some rented land that we make haylage from for our own use, after rent, payng contractor to cut and bale and wrap it, my brother brought it home and stacked it for me works out about the same as buying it in, BUT I'm okay with that cos I know where it came from, good weed free grass
My dad used to love making small bales but the manpower needed to get it in is amazing, and must add significantly to the cost

This is my experience but I am almost at the point of not making any and just buying in what I need.