Making Your Own Hay, Originally Part of The Dexter Cattle Page. I have moved this section of that page to a blog post to make my core site less bulky and more to the point.

I think you should be as independent as possible, and one way of saving money and being more independent is providing for your own cattle feed needs. I have heard many people say there is no way baling your own hay is affordable or cost effective when you have a small operation, and they are often the same people who say there is no money in cattle. I am here to say it is just as important for a small operation to make its own feed as a large one.

Making hay is a simple operation, but can be daunting if you have never done so before. Currently we put up a couple thousand square bales and several hundred round bales every year. Our current hay equipment consists of a New Holland Haybine purchased for $750, a wheel rake purchased for $150, a Vicon round baler purchased for $850, and a New Holland 310 square baler purchased for $1500. The main tractors we use are a Ford 2000 purchased for $3500 and a Ford 8000 purchased for $3000. While all this equipment isn’t cheap for the most part we got a good deal. Most people have more wrapped up in a single tractor than I have in my entire fleet. The advantage of going this route is your equipment can often be paid for in one season. All my hay equipment was purchased with cash, it’s paid for and was paid for from day one. I worked many years with even older equipment to get here, all without borrowing money. It may be a slower way to build up, but you gain a lot of experience, and really respect a nice piece of equipment when you get it.

This article will focus on the equipment for the most part, and not the actual act of making hay. I may do another article on that in the future. I want to give examples of how making your own hay will save and even make you money, even for a small operation. We started our operation on 20 acres.

First never buy anything new when it comes to most things in life. I buy new undergarments and a few other things, but otherwise I let somebody else lose their money to depreciation. When it comes to equipment, land and other big purchases buy used and not abused. Used is fine and will save a small fortune. You will never be profitable buying new equipment running a small operation.

I currently have 40+ head of cattle, by no means a big operation. By baling my own hay I control the quality and gain some independence. A tractor, mower, rake and baler is all you need to get started.

Now we will look at price. I paid $1500 for my first useful tractor, a Ford 8N. I can find 8N’s and similar tractors for less or you can spend more if you have the money. Live PTO is really nice, but I managed to put up thousands of bales with that 8N that didn’t have live PTO. I started with a Ford 501 sickle mower and anything similar is a great way to start, although I will say a haybine or disk/drum mower is great.   I paid $250 for the Ford 501 sickle mower and you can find similar ones for around $400. My rake is a 5 wheel rake and it needed several wheels when I bought it. I spent $150 for the rake and had to put several wheels on it at an additional cost of $300. A deal like that is hard to come by but older rakes can be had for around $700. My baler is a Ford 530 that I got for $450 which was a great deal. To find a similar baler in rougher but working shape would run around $1000.

You can always spend more money for equipment. I recommend spending some free time every couple days checking for deals and saving some money. Don’t be afraid to travel if you are going to save money by doing so. I pulled both of my balers home from the Lake of the Ozarks. That is a long 150 mile trip, especially when the return trip pulling a baler is limited to about 35mph.

Okay, lets figure you look for the deals and buy an okay WD 45 tractor for $1200, which is the going price in my area. You buy a Ford 501 mower for $500. An old John Deere ground driven rake for $800 and an New Holland 68 hay baler for $1300. These are actual prices I have seen in the past month in my area for usable equipment, and that’s not considering the cash offer I would have done cutting the price considerably.

So our total is $3,800 for everything needed to bale your own hay. That is less than the price of one modern piece of equipment. Now lets see how long it will take to pay off the equipment. In my area the average price for a square bale is $4. So we would need 950 bales to break even on the equipment not counting fuel, twine and other things you will need when working. In my area you can get that much hay from less than 20 acres, if you ask around you can bale other property and have all the hay you need. You can see how I paid off all my equipment in the first year, not counting my time and sweat.

If you look around you will probably notice a lot of people own land with nice fields and do nothing with them. I have picked up as many fields as I want in my area by offering to pay for the hay off these fields. I could easily find enough of these fields to bale for free or low cost in my area to feed all my cattle. That can easily save hundreds of dollars or thousands for those with larger herds. Isn’t that worth your time?

Something else to consider is that in Missouri you can get permits to bale hay from state highway right of ways for free. Many other states have this option as well. This is a good source of hay for those living in Missouri or other states that have these permits. Check my blog where I did a post about this for a more in depth look at this great source of hay.

You might also check the Free Book section for some cattle books.