Hay as a Profitable Endeavor

[Tony in SD]

My rules for producing and selling hay:

Rule #1. Make good hay
Rule #2. Sell it to horse people with money
Rule #3. Make good hay
Rule #5. Charge top dollar for my hay
Rule #6. Sell to the same limited number of customers for over 25 years.

I especially agree with rules #1 & #3. I also agree with rules #5 & #6 and I could agree with rule #2 except there are very few horse people with money. I know only one that is a multi millionaire and he has a hay source already.

 

[gf in S.IL]

Ditto on showcrop's list of rules. Having a group of loyal customers makes life much easier. You get to know them, what type of animals they have and what type of hay they want. Meat goat customers were my largest volume buyers. Yes horse owners are particular, but again, get to know them and (as has been said) make good hay. They have a large investment in their animals and I don't blame them for wanting your best hay. Perhaps I've been lucky, but never had any of my "regulars" try to negotiate for a lower price.
One other thing. Don't ever depend on finding manual labor help. If you are going to do small squares, mechanize.

 

[showcrop]

I especially agree with rules #1 & #3. I also agree with rules #5 & #6 and I could agree with rule #2 except there are very few horse people with money. I know only one that is a multi millionaire and he has a hay source already.

One thing that perhaps artificially tilts the scale in my favor is that I live in Rockingham county NH. It is an affluent area. We have many horse people with plenty of money. HOWEVER, over maybe thirty years, my best customer by far, was a couple who with their two kids operated a small stable. Originally it was a 4H club stable that they operated. They preferred to pick their hay up in the field for a discount. They were always ROCK SOLID DEPENDABLE. I had others who picked up in the field, and to cover myself I would usually have three coming, just in case of a no show. My standard procedure was to start early afternoon baling onto my own wagons, for my delivery customers, then onto the ground for my pick-up customers.

 

[Ray,IN]

We had sheep. They are very fussy. You can waste a lot of money buying cheap hay for sheep. They will just pull it from the feeder and walk on it as they search for something they like.

Thanks, the guy I know who raises sheep says they will eat anything he can roll up.

 

[Tx Jim]

My opinion from having raised cattle, goats & sheep is if cattle & sheep that have regularly eaten higher quality then they are more reluctant to eat lower quality hay. While goats prefer lower quality hay due to their grazing habits.

 

[Texasmark]

There's an old saying that goes something like "You better make hay while the sun shines".

Along those lines, early on in my "farming experience" I had a good field of hay and an approaching storm. Didn't want it to get rained on. I didn't realize what happens to haying when the sun goes down. The square bales I put up during the earlier part of the day were fine. The stuff I put up at night and stacked in the barn was smoking when I checked...forget when but within a day or two. I understand 140F is the danger zone. Had to be there as I stuck my hand down between some bales a couple of layers down and almost burned my hand it was so hot. I got it out of the barn without a fire and scattering the bales outside allowed it to cool enough to not ignite....but the hay was burnt inside the bale and nothing would eat it......lesson learned.

 

[Texasmark]

My opinion from having raised cattle, goats & sheep is if cattle & sheep that have regularly eaten higher quality then they are more reluctant to eat lower quality hay. While goats prefer lower quality hay due to their grazing habits.

A bit of humor. When I moved out into the country money was short as there were so many places for it to go. I bought some Nubian goats and put them out in a field and expected them to eat out there....had an electric fence but forget the design. Problem I had was they liked the wife's flowers around the house better than the field and they just amused themselves playing "king of the mountain" hopping up on the road vehicles and playing games. Couldn't wait to get rid of them.

 

[showcrop]

Along those lines, early on in my "farming experience" I had a good field of hay and an approaching storm. Didn't want it to get rained on. I didn't realize what happens to haying when the sun goes down. The square bales I put up during the earlier part of the day were fine. The stuff I put up at night and stacked in the barn was smoking when I checked...forget when but within a day or two. I understand 140F is the danger zone. Had to be there as I stuck my hand down between some bales a couple of layers down and almost burned my hand it was so hot. I got it out of the barn without a fire and scattering the bales outside allowed it to cool enough to not ignite....but the hay was burnt inside the bale and nothing would eat it......lesson learned.

But, it didn't get rained on!!! This is a good illustration of when I tell people that rained on hay is less likely to heat up and mold than hay that didn't. USUALLY, hay that gets rained on can be dried down and baled, and sold at a discount. I have done this many times. Customers are happy. BUT, when it is baled too early to "beat the storm". and it gets moldy, no one is happy.

 

[tom upton]

But, it didn't get rained on!!! This is a good illustration of when I tell people that rained on hay is less likely to heat up and mold than hay that didn't. USUALLY, hay that gets rained on can be dried down and baled, and sold at a discount. I have done this many times. Customers are happy. BUT, when it is baled too early to "beat the storm". and it gets moldy, no one is happy.

Like Dad used to say "better to let the weather spoil it than spoil it yourself"

 

[trackrat]

the problem with the hay business is if you have good hay and lots of it so does everybody else don't even talk to me about horse people, they don't know what they want but you don't have it when asked if I have horse hay, I say no, just good hay sprayed, fertilized not trash hay baled off of abandoned fields, but raised to be hay

 

[farmersamm]

Hay is a crap business. No Lie.

You get some moron with a 20 gallon hat, mustache as wide as the grille on his pickup, taking a bit of the hay into his mouth, chewing on it, and telling you it is/isn't suitable for his horses.

This leaves you with cow hay. Guys that have to make a living offa what they sell. They don't wanna pay you squat..............and always are looking for last years hay. It's lose lose.........unless it's drought time.

Wanna do hay???? Do it to feed your own animals.

 

[farmersamm]

Lemme put it this way.

I know what's acceptable hay................for my cows. I know what they eat.

Might not be beautiful hay, but they eat it. All that matters.

No d'kin around with buyers. No having to load when the ground is a sea of mud. No headaches.

This is why the 3-400 dollar cwt is a blessing today. None of us made this kind of money before. WE'RE FINALLY MAKING A FAIR PROFIT.

 

[farmersamm]

I'm gonna step on some toes. I WILL NOT WILLINGLY FEED MY ANIMALS SPRAYED HAY. The simply don't eat it with the same vigor. 2-4-D messes up the palatability. PERIOD. Don't tell me otherwise.

I have some serious broadleaf, stemmy weeds, in my hay. Doggone cows don't know the difference when it's in the bale. Put it up right, before the weeds head..............and you got hay. They eat it.

Gonna spray next year. Don't want to, but I gotta do it. I expect problems when feeding.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

My rules for producing and selling hay:

Rule #1. Make good hay
Rule #2. Sell it to horse people with money
Rule #3. Make good hay
Rule #5. Charge top dollar for my hay
Rule #6. Sell to the same limited number of customers for over 25 years.

Same thing I have done 20 plus years. Profitable if you can do your own repairs, not go hog-wild on new equipment and keep it small-scale.

 

[showcrop]

the problem with the hay business is if you have good hay and lots of it so does everybody else don't even talk to me about horse people, they don't know what they want but you don't have it when asked if I have horse hay, I say no, just good hay sprayed, fertilized not trash hay baled off of abandoned fields, but raised to be hay

Horse people were good to me all my 35 years of making hay.

 

[Texasmark]

Hay is a crap business. No Lie.

You get some moron with a 20 gallon hat, mustache as wide as the grille on his pickup, taking a bit of the hay into his mouth, chewing on it, and telling you it is/isn't suitable for his horses.

This leaves you with cow hay. Guys that have to make a living offa what they sell. They don't wanna pay you squat..............and always are looking for last years hay. It's lose lose.........unless it's drought time.

Wanna do hay???? Do it to feed your own animals.

"Wanna do hay???? Do it to feed your own animals." There was a problem with that. I wanted to do both but my operation was too small for the head I was carrying to be able to have anything to bale....so it was buy. Sold the herd and then could do hay.....but had no stock to feed it to. Catch 22....heard that expression but never knew how it came to mean what it originally meant.

 

[ss55]

"Wanna do hay???? Do it to feed your own animals." There was a problem with that. I wanted to do both but my operation was too small for the head I was carrying to be able to have anything to bale....so it was buy. Sold the herd and then could do hay.....but had no stock to feed it to. Catch 22....heard that expression but never knew how it came to mean what it originally meant.

Catch 22 was a book that was later made into a movie around 1970.

Catch-22 (logic) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Tony in SD]

One thing that perhaps artificially tilts the scale in my favor is that I live in Rockingham county NH. It is an affluent area. We have many horse people with plenty of money. HOWEVER, over maybe thirty years, my best customer by far, was a couple who with their two kids operated a small stable. Originally it was a 4H club stable that they operated. They preferred to pick their hay up in the field for a discount. They were always ROCK SOLID DEPENDABLE. I had others who picked up in the field, and to cover myself I would usually have three coming, just in case of a no show. My standard procedure was to start early afternoon baling onto my own wagons, for my delivery customers, then onto the ground for my pick-up customers.

I can see how you could make a profit with customers like you described. That is not the case here. Like I said, most of the horse people around here are broke.

Got a kick out of Farmersamm's post above. It describes the kind of horse people I saw more often than not, "You get some moron with a 20 gallon hat, mustache as wide as the grille on his pickup................."

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

So.... have we figured out a profitable path paved in idiot cubes yet?

One of youse has to be making the millions on those things!!

Mike

 

[Stan Coryell]

Ole friend had a mini baler built using a New Holland square baler. The chamber was modified to make 8" x 11" bales. Starting the first weekend in October. He would pull into a Walmart parking lot, flea market etc with 5 to 600 bales and sell them as fast as he could pull them off of the trailer for 5 to 7 dollars a bale to people wanting them for fall decorations. Being small made them easy to handle and get rid of when the time came. He sold 3 to 5000 bales a year and said it was the only time he made any real money with hay the few years that he did it.

Same here in South Jersey.

A small square goes for about $6 or $7. Those miniature squares, maybe a 1/4 of a small square, sells at the same price this time of year.