Question for folks who have someone hay their field

[BigDogs & LittleHorses]

Hey everyone-

I just got an offer from someone to hay my field... they have been doing the lot across the street for years.

I have been just paying a guy to brush cut it every year, so have no experience with this.

Of course, I can use the hay so am wondering what is usually agreed upon in the verbal contract?

I did a little research on some internet forums and found an article saying splitting the bales 50/50 was the rule of thumb.

I want to be fair to this guy... I AM saving about $75 by not paying someone to brush hog it. In that respect, he would be doing me a favor and I can take the $75 saved and buy hay this year.

Should I ask for fifty percent? One third?

Any suggestions would be appreciated... thanks.

Daryl

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 100%, and 0%/$$ are just a few of the options. 50% seems to be pretty standard, but I've heard of people doing it for less. My field is being hayed for the first time this year and I'm paying cash for their services and keeping all the hay. Its a 15 acre field that will hopefully yield 500 bales, and I'm paying $625. If all goes well it'll come out to $1.25/bale, which is fine because I have them all sold at $4/bale delivered. I'd love to hear what other people do though, come second cutting/next year I will be wanting to keep the hay (need a storage place first!).

edited to add: if you ask for 1/3, that should be THEY keep 1/3, not you

 

[uwharrie]

it just depends on the person

50/50 is usually the deal, but a friend had someone agree to cut and bale for $150

since she got 90 bales and they are selling for $4 each 1/2 would be worth $180

 

[Shari]

Last year it was cut and baled in the field for $2.00 a bale or they took a little over half or the hay and we pay nothing out of pocket.

The Average price is running $2.00 a bale.

Am trying to get someone out this year to hay again but so far..even with all my calls, they have either not called back or made an appointment and not showed up. Sigh ~~

Is much nicer to have hay off your own place,,at least you know what it is.

 

[strass]

Around here, it largely depends on the value of the hay.

They'll do Alfalfa on halves, but on grass hays they are stepping up to wanting 2/3.

The best way to think of it is to figure out how much your bales sell for and then figure out how much the Diesel in his equipment will cost him. Then, he's hoping to make a little more for equipment maintenance and compensation for his time.

If the field is just sitting there right now, you are money ahead to let him hay it. We did that last year on a pasture that was just over-growing with weeds. They hay guy had someone to buy it right out of the field so I never had to even touch it. The end result in my eyes was that they guy paid me a couple of hundred bucks in exchange for the honor of mowing my pasture for me.

This year, I'm hoping to keep my 1/3 if it's clean enough.

 

[Just Us N Texas]

The first year we moved here, we didn't yet have all the equipment we needed to do our own hay. With all the horses we have, we really needed the hay. We found a local to put up the hay, they got 2/3, we got 1/3. It was the best deal we could get! What with the gas and oil prices skyrocketing, I would say it would be harder and harder to find someone to do it for you. And if and when you do, I am sure they are going to demand a little more than usual.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Considering I just coughed up $21.95 for one bale of timothy and $17.95 each for two bales of bad first cutting orchard grass....Boy I wish I had a potential hay field!!

$2 a bale sounds amazing. It's always been at least $10 here but now...wow. All I can say is I'm glad I have minis and can't imagine how people are affording big horses.

Leia

 

[minie812]

We do a 2/3 and 1/3 deal on our grass here and that is pretty standard

 

[Laura]

[SIZE=12pt]*We* do a 50/50 split with our hay guy, BUT and it's a big but, the majority of "hay guys" around here are NOT cutting hay for people this year. Diesel prices have pushed them out of it. They literally can't afford to cut the hay and then haul their share. People are scrambling all over to find ANYONE to do their hay.[/SIZE]

Our guy told us he couldn't do it this year. We offered to pay half of his fuel costs for the cutting, raking & baling and he said OK. He estimated his fuel useage to be about 100 gallons=around $425.00 bucks (off-road diesel). It sucks, but we're not having to buy hay, sooo..still 2-3 cuttings at over $200.00 each (plus our fuel to move our hay) is going to pinch a bit

We have gone through 2 other "hay guys" to get to this one though and the last two were LOOOSERS, liars and just plain infuriating! Keeping our current guy happy is important to us!

 

[Magic]

We pay the guy who harvests our hay a fee for cutting per acre, then a fee per bale for baling it (last year was fifty cents per bale but with fuel prices rising every day it will surely be more this year) and then another fee for picking it up in his hay wagon and putting it, stacked, in the hay barn. Last year we ended up paying about $1 per bale, not counting the extra costs for irrigation (which is a rip-off, but still WAY better than buying hay!!) If we went 50/50 we would really be paying lots more than what we do.

 

[susanne]

Daryl,

Have you asked Bob what he will be charging if you were to pick up from the fields he cuts and bales? That might be a good starting point.

We're still interested, so long as the cost is still in line...

 

[Shaladar]

Wow, you guys have it made !! $1-2.00 a bale!!!??? Of course, everything in California costs more, but we just had our 5 acre hay field cut, (fine stemmed orchard and rye, and a little trefoil) and we kept it all (200 bales.these are 3 wire, 100+ lb bales..not as much as last year, but we cut it a lot earlier this time) and sold it for $10.00 a bale, and that paid for the cost of having it baled, the hay that I kept for my own horses, and the cost of the irrigation water. It was cut, raked, baled and stacked. And they are busier than heck!!

We could of sold it for a lot more, but we sold it to friends.

planning on a second cut in Sept., and it is already spoken for.

Wow...can't get over only a couple of dollars a bale....you are very lucky!!

I'm not complaining though...the hay guys have to make a living too. And its a heck of a lot cheaper than the feed store.

Sue

 

[tigeresss]

TWO DOLLARS A BALE?!?!?! You guys are SPOILED!!!!!!!!! I just bought my hay for the year at $7.00/bale and the ONLY reason it's $7.00/bale is because we've been getting our hay from this guy for about ten years so he gives us a good deal. So the real price is more than $7. That is undelivered also! Depending on the hay, quality or if you get into mixes (timothy, or alfalfa blue grass mixes etc) then you're looking anywhere from $10.00-$25.00/bale. Life is so much cheaper ever since I sold my big horse!

 

[h2t99]

We just had our fields done and we had it round baled, big bales, and we paid our hay guy $18 a bale. We got 33 bales, we paid $60-80 a bale last season!! So we are saving a lot of money!! We just moved here so this is the first year doing our own hay!!

 

[Shari]

This is local Grass hay we are talking about. Not the super fine leafy stuff Timothy/grass.

Hubby got the hay guy to come out and hay for us. Will have bales this weekend. But he can't trade bales for work.....sigh ~~

Not sure what we are going to do with all of it because we have no place to store it. OH

Added:

There are daisys in the field but they are not toxic to the horses at all. We make sure there is nothing toxic in our hay, which is really important to me.

 

[CyndiM]

We have grass alfalfa mix hay about five acres. Our neighbors do our hay and we split 50/50. They did round bales this cutting and the next will be sm square bales that can go in the hay mow. I'll get all of the sm bales. They bring it in from the field and stack the big bales. My son and some friends stack the sm bales in the barn for me. Steve butchers so we give them pork during the year and he also makes deer sticks, jerky, ect out of their deer for them.

 

[chandab]

This is local Grass hay we are talking about. Not the super fine leafy stuff Timothy/grass.

Hubby got the hay guy to come out and hay for us. Will have bales this weekend. But he can't trade bales for work.....sigh ~~

Not sure what we are going to do with all of it because we have no place to store it. OH

There are daisys in the field but they are not toxic to the horses at all. We make sure there is nothing toxic in our hay, which is really important to me.

Well, if you got more hay than you need and can store off the field; sell the extra to help cover what it cost you to have it done. Have the buyers come pick it, after you've stored all you need/can store for yourself.

 

[Magic]

TWO DOLLARS A BALE?!?!?! You guys are SPOILED!!!!!!!!!

That's not the total cost for our hay, that's just harvesting costs; irrigation costs are rather high, it's time consuming to be continually moving sprinkler pipe (twice a day) and we ARE making mortgage payments and paying taxes on the land.

We also just spent over $20,000 for a big hay barn to be built so we'd have a place to PUT all the hay.

But, I do prefer raising our own to buying it.

Just two years ago when we lived at our old place, we had to drive at least an hour one-way to buy hay, we could only haul one ton at a time, we had to unload and stack it when we got home, and it cost about $195 a ton, which was about $6 a bale (60 pound bales). And you couldn't always get consistent types of hay. Friends have told me that hay costs have gone WAY up since then.

We can and do grow just the kind of hay we prefer (grass/alfalfa mix) and we know there are no chemicals, etc, put on it. And the hay guy now unloads the hay directly into our hay barn from his hay wagon, so it's a LOT less handling! Love that!!

 

[Shari]

This is local Grass hay we are talking about. Not the super fine leafy stuff Timothy/grass.

Hubby got the hay guy to come out and hay for us. Will have bales this weekend. But he can't trade bales for work.....sigh ~~

Not sure what we are going to do with all of it because we have no place to store it. OH

There are daisys in the field but they are not toxic to the horses at all. We make sure there is nothing toxic in our hay, which is really important to me.

Well, if you got more hay than you need and can store off the field; sell the extra to help cover what it cost you to have it done. Have the buyers come pick it, after you've stored all you need/can store for yourself.

I am hoping to because we really, really need that to happen!

 

[chandab]

This is local Grass hay we are talking about. Not the super fine leafy stuff Timothy/grass.

Hubby got the hay guy to come out and hay for us. Will have bales this weekend. But he can't trade bales for work.....sigh ~~

Not sure what we are going to do with all of it because we have no place to store it. OH

There are daisys in the field but they are not toxic to the horses at all. We make sure there is nothing toxic in our hay, which is really important to me.

Well, if you got more hay than you need and can store off the field; sell the extra to help cover what it cost you to have it done. Have the buyers come pick it, after you've stored all you need/can store for yourself.

I am hoping to because we really, really need that to happen!

If I lived anywhere near you, I'd be happy to buy some, but sadly I'm way too far away.