Northeast PA, mixed grass hay, about 28 acres (16 own, 14 neighbors)
I have more land available than I can make hay from each year.
We currently produce small squares (about 1200/year) which we use to feed our own animals (horses/goats).
The issues are:
1) It's becoming more and more difficult to get the bales into the barn due to the labor intensity of producing small squares and the lack of help
2) I've been brush hogging some adjacent neighbors' land as a favor, as I never have enough good weather days to get it all done into hay. Only cut what can be teddered, raked baled, and transported to barn, which ends up at about only 4 to 6 acres at a time.
The potential plan:
I am trying to figure out if it's possible to hay the whole lot by myself somehow, and what that would involve, and if it would make any financial sense.
Possible solution might be to switch to [mostly] round 4x4 or 4x5 baleage, wrap them individually, and store them outside and on-site. (Would not have enough barn space to store that much hay inside).
The execution:
Believe I could get the whole property done including the neighbors, as it can forgo the tedder & raking process (for 1st cut). And it wouldn't be as weather dependent of course.
Could produce MUCH more hay if I switched to baleage...at least that's what I am figuring.
(Would still produce some squares, and some dry rounds for own use.)
Equipment would need to purchased: a round baler capable of silage, and a bale wrapper.
The concern:
The advantage would be that we'd end up with ~180 round bales, but we'd need to sell them, as we have no use for most of them.
Not sure I can easily sell that many bales of baleage.
Questions:
Since these baleage bales are much heavier than dry hay bales, and not as universally palatable, my concern is that they may be difficult to sell.
May be wrong here, but from what I gather, baleage will likely travel less far than dry hay? Is this correct? Is the market for baleage smaller due to a smaller geographical area of potential customers, and not being fed to horses? Would most baleage be produced by those use use it themselves, as opposed to dry hay; i.e. is the baleage market much smaller in general?
Cheers,
I have more land available than I can make hay from each year.
We currently produce small squares (about 1200/year) which we use to feed our own animals (horses/goats).
The issues are:
1) It's becoming more and more difficult to get the bales into the barn due to the labor intensity of producing small squares and the lack of help
2) I've been brush hogging some adjacent neighbors' land as a favor, as I never have enough good weather days to get it all done into hay. Only cut what can be teddered, raked baled, and transported to barn, which ends up at about only 4 to 6 acres at a time.
The potential plan:
I am trying to figure out if it's possible to hay the whole lot by myself somehow, and what that would involve, and if it would make any financial sense.
Possible solution might be to switch to [mostly] round 4x4 or 4x5 baleage, wrap them individually, and store them outside and on-site. (Would not have enough barn space to store that much hay inside).
The execution:
Believe I could get the whole property done including the neighbors, as it can forgo the tedder & raking process (for 1st cut). And it wouldn't be as weather dependent of course.
Could produce MUCH more hay if I switched to baleage...at least that's what I am figuring.
(Would still produce some squares, and some dry rounds for own use.)
Equipment would need to purchased: a round baler capable of silage, and a bale wrapper.
The concern:
The advantage would be that we'd end up with ~180 round bales, but we'd need to sell them, as we have no use for most of them.
Not sure I can easily sell that many bales of baleage.
Questions:
Since these baleage bales are much heavier than dry hay bales, and not as universally palatable, my concern is that they may be difficult to sell.
May be wrong here, but from what I gather, baleage will likely travel less far than dry hay? Is this correct? Is the market for baleage smaller due to a smaller geographical area of potential customers, and not being fed to horses? Would most baleage be produced by those use use it themselves, as opposed to dry hay; i.e. is the baleage market much smaller in general?
Cheers,