How's the silage ground traveling this year?
Grazed off? Slurry out? Fert spread?
Or is it like a bog at the moment, a good year for rewetting.
Mowed it and tedded it out there this evening,will ted the grass silage again tomorrow and bale it all Monday
Great looking stuff what be interested to see what yield you get from this? also will you ted it out?
Going to knock 2nd cut here today,mix of red clover and regular grass silage,Both were last cut on the 8th of May.Red clover is in its 3rd year and got 2500 gallons of cattle slurry and 1 bag of polysulphate per acre just after cutting.Grass silage got 2 bags of can+s and 2500 gallon of slurry per acre also
We try mow it dry with 10ft conditioner mower and wuffle it once before baling. All our own gear here except the wrapper. A local lad wraps for us. Would like to try using a single rotor rake to rake one 10ft row into another and then wuffle that 20ft of grass row a few hours before baling. But some say a single rotor rake are a cod. Wuffled a 24 ft row of wet grass before where a contractor raked the 3 8ft rows but was crawling in 1st low through it but didn't break any shear bolts. Our 578 John Deere baler wasn't able for those wet 24ft rows but I'd say it would manage dry 20ft rows OK.
They want it fresh in front of the baler = more bales😀
Tedding dries out the grass and means that you’ll get perfectly dry silage but only have to leave down for 24-30 hours. A lot of protein lost at 70 hours.
There’s no one I know that would leave silage down that length.
plenty of lads have proper Tedders too. Haven’t used a haybob in ten years
Main problem with theding out silage is lads are using haybobs, which if you are not using for hay are a great yolk to make knots and rope out of the silage. Contractor will love you for it when hes trying to unblock the baler!!
I seldom ted out silage. Last year for second cut was the first time in 5 years. I have no issue with letting grass down 70 hours.
Contractor rakes it I try to get him to rake it 6-12hours ahead of the baler as it really drys it out. It my crib about laying for raking unless it done 6-12 hours ahead of tge baler it's little benefit to tge farmer
I agree some contractors want to have all the shiny machinery but don't want to do the work and only want large jobs where their is hundreds of bales at the 1 time but then complain about all the money they are owed
Neighbour here has his own gear, bales straight off the stroke after mowing with conditioner, says tedding & raking brings up too much soil
I don't know whether the above is tongue in check. Communication and a bit of give and take from farmers is key as contractors are up to their oxters at the moment. Trying to line up jobs for balers and rakes to cut down on the time on road.
another simple answer is not to ring the contractor at all. Very unreasonable to be asking the contractor to do work for you (that you’re paying him for).
I feel your pain, I was that soldier for a long time. Simple answer to that is drop the knives and charge an extra €2 a bale. Very few can row properly with a haybobs.
Modern fusions are designed for 20-30ft of grass and anything less is dropping efficiency. The hassle contractors have to go through with lads chopping and changing plans, I want to leave it down, will you leave rowing it up until 3pm, I have an extra 10 acres there 4 mile down the road and will you bale that up as there is rain on the way. Its a tough gig
After just getting in home from over 3 painful hours of baling haybob rows then I’d go so far as to say not only should a contractor not be discounting for this but in fact should be charging double!! There’s no such thing as a silagebob, a haybob is for hay and should never be allowed near silage.
the only way I’d get to pay my lad going out the gate would be to lock the gate and not let him out til he gave me bill.
I’d be a month chasing him sometimes for a bill at the end of the year. But he’s 100% reliable when it comes to doing the work so I can live with the bill bit.
I'm going to charge him 1100 for the job works out at 7.50 a bale if I was waiting for money I'd be asking for more
I'm charging 12e to cut bale rake and wrap no wrap supplied I think it's a very fair price I haven't just raked and baled only and don't want to lose a new customer as he wanted to pay straight away going out the gate which doesn't happen often
Have a 200 hp case , youll mow 90 acres in a handy 10 hours with the doubles, repairs touchwood are minimial tractor less then a euro a hour and mowers bar replacement/wearing parts no issues, circa 1 euro a acre....
Contractor new I use doesnt charge for rake. He wants to rake to speed up the work. Like getting hung up on free delivery its cost is built into the bale I guess.
Still. Screw him. If he wants a uniform feed, he should cover raking costs himself. We'd a lad tried that one year. We were raking ourselves into 10ft rows. He turned up, didn't like it and wanted bigger rows. He went off and got his own rake down. Then tried charging for it. Sure that's madness. We weren't raking with a haybob and he'd done the job for years beforehand in the same fields with the same crops. Plenty other lads out there be glad of the work
What size tractors.
Most contractors are running tractors that are 150hp++. There is also the diesel and timevto get from one job to the other. Very bust at present with the new place. Have used 500L in a bit with 3 months. Travelling on the road at max throttle burns diesel. Ant farming cutting 200 acres of silage will be bringing it from a distance away, on top of diesel you have labour at probably 20/hour at present when you take holiday, bank holiday, employer prsi etc into account
What are you bringing the grass in with jf/wagon, in 2018 when he started he was 70 a acre all in mow yourself, then in 21 when diseal went mental, he put it up to 90 and up to 100 in 22…
Working out my own diseal costs mowing is 2 litres a acre and the loader is averaging 2 litres a acre, the new wagon lad is averaging 7 litres a acre and 1 litre for the raking tractor, 12 litres a acre for the complete job
With contractors up on 150 plus a acre for sfp, and 130 plus for a wagon, any farm thats cutting 200 plus acres of grass a year is running up some serious bills
Exactly this reason, uniform feed into the baler, no contractor here doesn't have a rake
Because He want to stop lads raking with haybobs, very few lads own there own rake
He needs a kick in the hole too. Why wouldn't he discount for not using his own machines, men and diesel at the raking?
Rake, net bale & wrap here is 9.50 per bale
Extra yoyo for film
Contractor won't discount if you raked it yourself
That's supplying your own plastic obviously
Ya he is having a good go at annoying people 😄😁
Mine is smaller than yours 👋👋👋
He’s not using contractors as he has all his own gear so I assume either just a bad guess at what charges should be or deliberately giving low figures to cause a bit of controversy and debate!
