We have a large side lot but overall I would consider it a “small plot” - maybe 2 1/3 acres??. It is flat and cleared and grows nice field grass. We used to mow it - took about 2 hours with a commercial mower. Then we hired a guy with a tractor mower to mow it every 5 weeks. Looking to save the money honestly. There are some farmers in town and I’ve wondered about asking them if they would like to hay it. In your opinion - How small is too small? And how far is too far for them to go through the bother of bringing their equipment over? My first inquiry is a local cow farm and the owner said they could maybe round bale it. Educate me on the economics of it - do we pay them? Do they pay us? Is it just a wash where they keep the field cleared for us and they get the hay (totally fine by me). Thanks!
I figure you are ahead if they just hay for free and take it away. Realize though that you need to grow the grass to maximum height and then get it cut super short. You are not going to get the groomed lawn look with an active hayfield.
I am sure there is some farmer out there with more time than money who would do this. I remember 40 years ago seeing people had hayed and bailed the median on the major freeway system.
I do exactly that with the L-shaped acreage surrounding my pastures. Roughly 2+ac.
Across-the-road neighbor who leases fields,cuts & bales this. Averages 100-125 small squares.
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹He keeps the hay & in return I get a civilized-looking property.
He sells me hay (not from my field) at embarrassingly low prices.
This barter sort of agreement has worked for me for the last 5yrs.
Before that I paid to have the field bushhogged.
First year hay was so-so, now it is some very nice orchard grass with a bit of Timothy & clover.
If they keep your hay, it’s free. If you keep the hay, you pay. I’m not sure what the going rate is for someone to bale your hay but we once paid someone $2.75 per bale to bale a 6 acre pasture. We got around 410 65# bales and paid $1125. That’s 13 tons of hay, $87 a ton. It was not high quality pasture mix hay, but was a good filler hay. The other option was for the guy to take the hay and he’d bale it for free. Some balers won’t come bale a small field because it’s their might not be enough of a return on their effort. Or, they’ll charge you more per bale if you choose to keep the hay.
Around here people charge $65 per hour to cut grass. What does it cost to have someone cut your field?
We have a very small plot in front of the house we bale. I get about 20-30 squares, or 2 round bales but it is well worth it.
If you don’t need hay then I would just let the farmer take the hay. If you need hay then just 70/30(you) is a fair split.
Keep in mind if you start haying it you should fertilize it yearly since you will be taking nutrients out instead of feeding the field by mowing.
It varies drastically, even in the same area.
I have 18acres I cannot get made into hay. =(
first 2yrs, had a deal with a guy 45min away. But he didn’t mow bad spots and then vanished one day.
People next door, 5miles up the road, 15miles or more have either said no, not enough land to be worth it or charge a ton.
worst is waiting for these people to hopefully squeeze you into their schedule.
One guy made it too full of dirt and molded.
Some have wanted to rent it for their animals, but never for a worthwhile price, especially with the damage they will cause in time.
$35 a bale made for me us the most recent quote for rounds. Almost no one deals with squares here, yet they’re available all over. I think they just don’t want to travel for it.
So, if you happen to find someone willing, you’ll be living on their schedule. unless it’s not fenced and they can come n go as they please.
Never hurts to ask but exceedingly unlikely such a small plot is worth the time it takes to move equipment to/from the field. Best shot is asking whoever is haying the land immediately around you. Even if you find someone, it will be the lowest priority field (since their cost per acre will be high) and therefore it will be the field that gets skipped over when they get behind due to rain, the first field they drop entirely when they find a better one, etc. If the appearance of the field is at all important to you, I suspect it would be more aggravation than it’s worth.
If you don’t need the pasture, may want to consider looking into whether it qualifies for various conservation grants, such as converting it to pollinator habitat.
I got curious and searched for small balers. I am rather fascinated with this mini-hay baler set that can run off a compact utility tractor: https://tractortoolsdirect.com/subco…RoCk34QAvD_BwE
It’d be $10k investment (assuming you already have a tractor). But depending on your local mowing and hay costs, maybe the payback on $10k would be acceptable*. That said, balers are notorious maintenance nightmares and may be hard to find anyone local to repair it.
*ETA: it would never pay for itself in my neck of the woods, not within the expected life of the machinery, anyway. Hay and labor are inexpensive here.
I have a farmer that drives by my farm to get to his fields. He bales my 4 acre field. We do it one of four ways
- I keep half the bales
- I get half the money from selling all the bales
- I pay him a low amount per bale and keep all the bales
- I trade him my half of the round bales for a discount on his nicer quality horse hay.
Standard split is 50/50.
I found him when we bought the property and the grass was 4 feet high and he refused to take it for free. It’s not very good stuff, but he sells it for cows. It works because he’ll drive by, cut it, do his work in his field, then drive back by and bale it. If he sells all the bales he’ll just swing by randomly and drop cash off.
He’s AMAZING.
When I trade him for nicer hay he’ll push a wagon into my barn in the morning then pick it up that night when we empty it.
This spring I kept half the bales, it’s terrible quality because the weather was awful and everyone got cut late but it was free so I feed double. Then the weather was awful and it was all foxtail so he sold the round bales for 65 a bale for cows and trade me some better hay.
I used to sharecrop 8 acres with my dairy farm in neighbor. He made me squares and roundbaled the rest.
It was okay at first, but I was always last on the list of fields he was bailing. In a rainy year I might get nothing because he couldn’t get it off the field. Even in a nice year, it might be cut so late the nutritional value was poor.
Also, their square baler was often on the fritz. Even when it was working, the bales were very loose and took up a lot of space relative to weight. Not optimal when you have a limited area.
I now buy really good, tightly bound orchard grass at $5/bale delivered and stacked. I buy 500 bales in advance (for 3 horses and 2 minis who are out 24/7 - it’s plenty) and they bring it when I want it. I fenced about 7 of the 8 acres and original neighbor still will knock it down and roundbale it for bedding his cows. He roundbales the lanes and an adjacent field for his replacement heifers. Everyone’s happy.
Very regional.
In our area, it is unlikely you could give this away, or hire out the work. There is just not likely to be sufficient product to warrant the effort of moving machinery, and they cannot charge you enough. (When my husband was doing custom work, machinery was billed at $125/hour from the time it pulled out of the driveway until it returned) Hubby turned down similar work, as he did not want people badmouthing him in the community for charging the going rate. Anyone taking on the work would be providing a courtesy to a neighbour, and would expect cookies as payment, and to take the hay home for free. Know that the work will be done as it fits into their schedule, not when you want it done.
Yep this was my experience when I first moved into my place. Someone had been haying about 3 acres for the previous owner so he was supposed to continue. I don’t recall what the financial arrangement was. But after we moved in the guy only came once, did a crappy job mowing and left a lot of ruts in the lower-lying areas, then left all the cuttings behind and never bothered to bale it. He stopped responding to phone calls and when we ran into him one day and asked about our field, he got aggressive and threatening. Clearly it wasn’t worth his time (which he could have just told us instead of being a jerk about it).
I like the idea of a conservation area! That 3 acres that used to be hayed is my pasture now but I would do that if I didn’t have horses. I remember watching a vixen hunt in the hayfield one spring day, pouncing on one mole after another and taking them back to her den. It was incredible!
This.
If you can find anyone to do it, they will assume they get to keep the hay. But that’s a big IF for only 2.5 acres. We could not find anyone willing to hay our 8 acres; there were a few farmers that might be able to get to it. It wasn’t worth it for me to lose access to the field (for running my dogs, etc.) only to find out it might not be hayed anyway.
