Trailer Hire

Big Ambitions

Member
Livestock Farmer
I’m getting an Ifor Williams 8x4 sheep trailer soon, and was looking into hiring it out when I’m not using it. I would have loved this service when had a few sheep, so hopefully I’ll be able to help other smallholders or farmers who’s trailers are out of service. My plan was to use word of mouth and take a fairly decent deposit for it, in the hope to prevent criminals trying to nick it. Has anyone else done this sort of thing? I was also thinking of putting a tracker on it if there are semi-cheap ones about. What insurances would I need? Assuming it wouldn’t cover theft if I hired it out, but willing to try to mitigate this risk in other ways. Any advice?
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Deposit is best taken with a pre-authorisation on a credit card, which then adds admin costs, obviously. To lend out a £2k trailer for £20 a day makes no sense to me, frankly. All you need is a careless bit of light damage or some chunky tyre wear and all the profit is gone - even with the hirer paying, the time to arrange will be a 'mare.

I'd say man and machine, or not at all.
 

Big Ambitions

Member
Livestock Farmer
Deposit is best taken with a pre-authorisation on a credit card, which then adds admin costs, obviously. To lend out a £2k trailer for £20 a day makes no sense to me, frankly. All you need is a careless bit of light damage or some chunky tyre wear and all the profit is gone - even with the hirer paying, the time to arrange will be a 'mare.

I'd say man and machine, or not at all.
I was thinking around £6 per hour with minimum 4 hours. So £24 minimum. Then day hire at a flat rate of say £30/35

EDIT: also I’d be buying it for less than half of that 😉
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Deposit is best taken with a pre-authorisation on a credit card, which then adds admin costs, obviously. To lend out a £2k trailer for £20 a day makes no sense to me, frankly. All you need is a careless bit of light damage or some chunky tyre wear and all the profit is gone - even with the hirer paying, the time to arrange will be a 'mare.

I'd say man and machine, or not at all.

I would echo this entirely. I’m be scared to let anyone hire my newest piece of kit.

That said, plant hire firms usually seem to work on something like a 1% hire fee if I remember right. Not too bad if it’s only ever hire, and never to be used by you. It’s made worse if your business reliant on that as your only machine that does what you need and you have no on-site mechanic to fix it.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Sawdust on the floor, pressure washed and disinfected on return and before it leaves

You'll do all that for £24 a time, but you also work full time off farm? Can't say that appeals as decent use of my evenings and weekends. Seem to recall one of The Sheep Game videos had Cammy using a blowtorch to clean down his trailer between scanning days.
 

Big Ambitions

Member
Livestock Farmer
You'll do all that for £24 a time, but you also work full time off farm? Can't say that appeals as decent use of my evenings and weekends. Seem to recall one of The Sheep Game videos had Cammy using a blowtorch to clean down his trailer between scanning days.
Third of a bag of sawdust on the floor, pressure washed and I’ve got disinfectant in a spray bottle. Wouldn’t even take ten minutes. £24 (take £3 for sawdust) so £21 for ten mins work, £126 an hour! I’ll take that any day 😉
 

Andrew K

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex
Third of a bag of sawdust on the floor, pressure washed and I’ve got disinfectant in a spray bottle. Wouldn’t even take ten minutes. £24 (take £3 for sawdust) so £21 for ten mins work, £126 an hour! I’ll take that any day 😉
Would it be worth risking disease in your own animals though? Others arent likely to be as picky as you when it comes down to best in class hygiene.
 

Big Ambitions

Member
Livestock Farmer
Would it be worth risking disease in your own animals though? Others arent likely to be as picky as you when it comes down to best in class hygiene.
Obviously I would make sure I’d ask a few questions to make sure they had fairly good infection control. I’ll ask him to show me his fingernails, make sure there is no dirt underneath them 😉
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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