50 acres is a lot around here to just "give to someone" we cut several 5 acre and under fields that are given to us but anything larger than that is done either on shares or rented out. You might try to do your acreage on the shares. Typically 50/50 for something that sized. Keep and store your half of the hay and market to your liking. That would give a good idea of the $ that could be made and make your purchase decision after that. If you do go this route I might suggest to do it for a couple of years to get a better handle of what the average year to year yield would be.

 

That’s not a bad idea to try for a season or two. I have kept up with how many round roles and squares they’ve gotten over the last few seasons. I don’t really need to hay production to justify the tractor it just makes it a little easier to justify it to my wife lol. But if I knew I could make enough to pay for the tractor and the implements then it’s a no brainer and I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble selling. There’s a lot of hobby horse and cow farms local to me.

 

Always so many variables when people ask this question. Will the land produce 2ton or 5ton per acre? Will you be making small squares and selling them for $7.00, or 1200-pound round bales for $30? Is the land free or are you putting a value of $300 per acre on it? You can buy equipment to make hay for $15,000 or $500,000. And finally when people ask can I justify the investment in equipment? Look at it this way If you bought a just for example A JD4440 tractor new in 1983 and put 150hours per year on and maintained and kept it looking nice, that tractor the past 2 years may bring $10,000 more then you paid for it and you depreciated completely and farmed with it all those years. If you want to make hay invest in haying equipment and hope the hobby makes you a little money. If you want to go fishing buy a boat and keep spending money, oh yea that happens in farming too.

 

I don’t want to shine a negative light but the answer to this question is almost always no.. but more than one person told me making hay was a bad idea and now I drank the koolaid so it’s really just up to you… agreed with the above 50 acres is a sizable amount to give away.. guys here would fight for it

I see the idea that you have some ground around and looking for a return..don’t blame you one bit.. ground is usually the hard part.. buying equipment is the easy part .. it’s really deciding if you have the time\want\willingness to make hay on its schedule or the weathers schedule and not ur own

I like the idea given above of shares, or even just starting to rent it. I would do something to produce some form of return for yourself.. charging nothing is the far left and doing it all yourself (without any current equipment) is the far right.. maybe something in the middle is the answer

 

The tractor I sold when I was just “playing” was a 2019 66 HP cab tractor. I’m pretty much looking for something around the same and around 10-15k in hay equipment. The ground I own is just a benefit to help subsidize the equipment. I don’t really have to make money to justify the purchase just a bonus. I think I can profit enough to at least make the equipment worth the purchase.

 

If your asking the question you did the answer is ..no... but you could also consider the tax write offset etc that could be used and the matrix could change....also you could use funds generated from the split mentioned above to pay for equipment with relatively low risk...if you want a tractor just go buy one I'm sure you can figure a way to justify if you need to....just buy a tractor with good resale and nothing is lost