Buying a crop by the acre on the flat

lakill Farm

Little opportunity arose lately for me and I purchased a small square baler. More happened than planned. Anyway bought a sleigh for her and ready for action

Anyway how much an acre would I have to pay for

• hay ready to bale
• straw ready to bale.

Id only be using the bales for myself and maybe selling a few

Genghis Cant

lakill Farm wrote: »

Little opportunity arose lately for me and I purchased a small square baler. More happened than planned. Anyway bought a sleigh for her and ready for action

Anyway how much an acre would I have to pay for

• hay ready to bale
• straw ready to bale.

Id only be using the bales for myself and maybe selling a few

I see straw up and down around here for sale on the ledge but never hay.
I think when you've gone to the trouble of rearing hay that far you'd be inclined to bale it and then worry about selling it.

locha

What type of baler did you get? Welger/MF/Claas? Is it in tight order

Muckit

Be very hard to judge the return with hay on flat. If it was just ran over with haybob it'd look great but not so good if stuck to the ground with dew.

But to try answer your question. All guessing which is what you'd be at anyway.... 100 bales/acre @ €2... €200?

Lads at tillage might have a clue about straw.



Could you not buy by the bale? Make them good and long!!

Muckit

Genghis Cant wrote: »

I see straw up and down around here for sale on the ledge but never hay.

Never heard that expression 'on the ledge' before until yesterday. Was talking to a lad from Roscommon, he was reminiscing about 'taking out the back ledges' around by the ditch as a young lad.

lakill Farm

Muckit wrote: »

Be very hard to judge the return with hay on flat. If it was just ran over with haybob it'd look great but not so good if stuck to the ground with dew.

But to try answer your question. All guessing which is what you'd be at anyway.... 100 bales/acre @ €2... €200?

Lads at tillage might have a clue about straw.



Could you not buy by the bale? Make them good and long!!

I was thinking about price per bale alright

lakill Farm

Genghis Cant wrote: »

I see straw up and down around here for sale on the ledge but never hay.
I think when you've gone to the trouble of rearing hay that far you'd be inclined to bale it and then worry about selling it.

Problem there isn't anyone close to me baling square bales. And I find them very handy for the calves

lakill Farm

locha wrote: »

What type of baler did you get? Welger/MF/Claas? Is it in tight order

Jones Mark 12 circa 1976

One owner, came with manual and all. Owner always has it housed and seemed to take good care of it . I took Reggie down with me to look at it as I had no experience.

Picked up a straight enough tanco bale sleigh also. Ill make a rough dolly for it to carry on and ill be ready

_Brian

Straw is no easy thing to judge either, we used to trade in alot of straw. Buy it flat and bale..

You'll find if straw is cut to sell flat it is cut very high, less risk of damage to the combine, also helps keep it dry if the weather is moody. But cutting higher will affect the yield of bales significantly. Dont remember the numbers but you could loose 15-20% bales if its cut too high.

RightTurnClyde

lakill Farm wrote: »

Jones Mark 12 circa 1976

One owner, came with manual and all. Owner always has it housed and seemed to take good care of it . I took Reggie down with me to look at it as I had no experience.

Picked up a straight enough tanco bale sleigh also. Ill make a rough dolly for it to carry on and ill be ready

We had a Jones Mk10T here, when I was young. the Jones baler was known as a council baler around here, only works short days. (Doesn't like hay that's not 100% fit). Were the knotters changed to take nylon, or is it still on sisal twine.
By the end of the summer you're going to be an expert on Knotters and tensioners

lakill Farm

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

We had a Jones Mk10T here, when I was young. the Jones baler was known as a council baler around here, only works short days. (Doesn't like hay that's not 100% fit). Were the knotters changed to take nylon, or is it still on sisal twine.
By the end of the summer you're going to be an expert on Knotters and tensioners

operating on twine alright. and seller told me they are not fond of being drove on in heavy crops. But then again I will not be doing much and be my own boss

I looked at the knotters and tensioners and decised to unblock reggie on the phone .

He is gone from being a bol1x to the main man

4odh4n

we have an old small square baler at home (NH 65 I think!), no speed machine but will rattle out 800 - 1000 bales a day if kept at a steady pace. we do bits and pieces for other ppl and always charge by the bale not the acre, as some fields will manage 50 bales to the acre, the next could have 150! usually charge around the €1.50 mark
we also bale a few hundred small bales of straw from behind a contractors 20' class mega and pay him by the bale (we keep/sell what we bale... he doesn't want the torture of running a small baler at that time of year but there is still a demand for the small bales, so we fill that gap!) Straw price will vary with demand year on year so its hard to know, the last few years in this area its been steady enough so we have given about €1 - 1.20 per bale

Muckit

God didn't think it'd be that price to get square bales made. Twas in pence last time we got them made.

At 100bales/acre it's not a cheap crop.

lakill Farm

Muckit wrote: »

God didn't think it'd be that price to get square bales made. Twas in pence last time we got them made.

At 100bales/acre it's not a cheap crop.

I was told 50c a bale to bale it

Im going to charge 60c for baler and sleigh. or 50c for baler.

Minimum charge 100 bales

4odh4n

Muckit wrote: »

God didn't think it'd be that price to get square bales made. Twas in pence last time we got them made.

At 100bales/acre it's not a cheap crop.

our setup probably not a typical example to be fair, we would rarely see 100 bales in any of the "gardens" we bale up!, the biggest maybe about 2 acres! For 90% of what we do it is a way to clean up the bit of ground and score a few handy bales out of it, I'd say only one person purposely grows the grass for hay!, and that is just about an acre, and its kept for a few horses.

not hard to whittle away 2-3 hours making 50-60 bales for someone, maybe having to hook up, get there, get up and running and then home again, it would be hard to justify at 50c a bale!

visatorro

lakill Farm wrote: »

I was told 50c a bale to bale it

Im going to charge 60c for baler and sleigh. or 50c for baler.

Minimum charge 100 bales

your not charging enough. wouldnt be worth your while i think. i know your only gonna do abit but your gonna have to leave a few bob on the table. i would have thought a euro a bale was cheap