Acres sneaking up on me

I sat down tonight using a google maps acre tool and added up my haying acres. I'm about 7 years into my part time on the side in the spare time haying operation, and I realized I mowed almost 115 acres of ground this year, and will be starting over some of that again for second cut here soon.

I think I am done adding any hay ground now, getting to be a regular job in the summer. Started at only 7 acres and still doing all small squares. My hay crew is family, and getting less keen on the time commitment.

Next year more wagons, more shed space to park them, and hopefully an accumulator. We currently ride racks or buck off the ground onto flatbeds.

We do a lot of small squares also, sell to the horse market. I'm looking at a New Holland Stackliner but have hills, I have heard they don't work well on hilly ground, any body have experience with them?? Thanks.

When Dad raised oat hay all the bales were picked up from the ground and put on his flat bed. Didn't think much about it at the time, it was just something we had to do. When the bales were getting high we would hook a hay hook in a bale end, and use the other hook to pull the hay up to be stacked. The good old days? Stan

I used stackliner for a few years, and found the bales would often fall over on the first table when going up or down hills. I went to bale baskets and don"t regret it.
There are a lot of well used stackliners for sale that will give you nothing but grief (lots of moving parts that start to wear and go out of alignment); if you go this route make sure it is a gently used one. And your bales have to be completely consistent in size, and should be relatively heavy, for the stackliner to work properly.

I'm covering about 100 acres of hay ground while working a 9-5 job in town on the weekdays. In the summer, it seems like my full-time job turns into a part-time job (and it's not because I take any time off)

I only have about 25 of those acres in decent alfalfa, though. Run over the same 25 acres four times and it ends up being more ground than the other 75 acres (which is only 1 or 2 cuts of marsh or grassy hay).

I'm still trying to get some more hay ground, but now that I reflect on it, I'm not really sure why

I don't have much trouble with my 1003 bale wagon on hills. But I also don't get in a hurry either. Take it slow and have plenty of tractor on it and it will work just fine. Just wish I had shed space to stack hay and leave it, but I will settle for it being a one man show until the elevator to the barn loft though.

I feel you, I'm in a full time job too with 1.5 hrs commute time. My biggest complaint is the ground is in 19 separate fields spread over 7 miles, many are 0.5 to 1 acre patches.

I don"t know your location or situation Ken, but I too have a full time job with a 45 min drive each way. Started doing hay after Dad passed with the equipment on hand. Very soon it started growing with neighbors calling wanting me to do their hay. Well it grew fast till I was doing 1500 acres a year of grass hay along with my day job. My wife became a "Hay Widow" in the summer. In order to do this I had to have GOOD equipment that wouldn"t be down. I did mostly round bales but run 5-6000 squares also. Had 2 hay monsters, with crews, to move the squares. Well to be honest It got too tough and I"ve trimmed it down to around 300 acres now. Still did 5000 squares this year,but run an accumulater and graple to move as crews for monsters got hard to find. I remember my Dad saying "If you have to go across the road to put up hay it"s too far" I didn"t understand at the time but I do now. Yes the acres will climb up on you if your not careful. Be very selective on what you take on. You want "hay fields" not pastures full of trees and rocks. You MUST have good dependable equipment that is comfortable to be in for long hours.

I'm up in eastern canada, with our moisture, if the fields where limed and fertilized proper, I'd be getting about 3-5 tons an acre. Right now they are run down and still giving 2+ tons an acre, I had a neighbour help with a bunch of it this year and we delivered a bunch of wagons but I still had to put 4000+ bales up into our old dairy barn mow. Just 3 of us usually, and we don't have a nice conveyor running the length.

Honestly unloading hay into and taking it out to sell from that old mow is the worst part of the work. We had a 4x4 round baler for a while but found the hay unmarketable and it wasn't really faster than square baling. (twine tie) I'd consider getting a 5x4 rounder again for our own hay though if I found one cheap enough, that would cut my square baling about in half.

I am a full timer with a part time hay biz now also. I work full time out of the house so not too bad (computer jockey). I have a little over 50 acres in about a dozen fields. I feed 6 horses, 6 cattle, 7 sheep and sell any excess. I have refused some more fields because I would have to haul equip too far to be reasonable.

I hear you on needing the equipment to work well. Got rid of a moco this year (was breaking every other field) and mowed all of my first cut with a new drum mower with no problems whatsoever. Been repairing the V-rake lately but about got that nailed. My roller (A vermeer 605H) is working well, and the square good enough. Next year hope to have a couple of Alfalfa fields so will be doing more squares.

I made about 100 rounds on the first cut and we put up 475 squares. I have a mix of 100% cuts for me, 50% shares and 2 clients that keep it all and pay me custom cut.

I like the rounders. I have a couple of horse folks that come over all winter to buy a few at a time. Takes 5 min to load the pickup and puts pocket change in the pocket. Mine are 5x5 grass bales that I sort into cow and horse hay depending on my assessment during the cut. I charge $35 a bale which seems to be the going rate around here (at least last year)

Would love to get started on the second cut. Think it will be into October before we get there. Feeding hay now but occasional rain is starting t green things up.

My wife is also a "Hay Widow" at times.

John

Same here. Wife drove yesterday, I loaded 6 1/2 tons of small squares. Unloaded two wagons today. Handled it twice. Throw it on theconveyor, crawl up in the mow, stack it, crawl back down. About 3 tons today, rest tomorrow. And the power company sez they're cutting off the power tomorrow for repairs. May have to run generator to get it done.

What you need is one of these German bale haulers -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBkfXXB60c&feature=player_detailpage