Advice on kit for small scale hay making please.

[Alchad]

One thing you might want to consider when deciding which way to go is the suggestion to use contractors for any aspect of your hay making given that you'e only asking them to do a few acres. If it's been raining for weeks and you get a decent week or so to dry things out and you want to get it cut, so will everyone else local to you. Buy the kit and be in charge of your own destiny.

Alchad

 

[daven]

Hi and happy(ish) new year to you all.

We are planning to turn a field over to grass and make small hay bales for the local equestrian market. About 2.5 Ha total. We have a baler and handling equipment and a Vicon speeder 300 that's been heavily modified to fluff and aerate straw behind our neighbour's massive rotary combine.

So what else do I need? Mower, tedder and rake? Or will I get away with just a mower then bash it about a bit with our speeder?

Budget is low, so the less I can get away with buying the better. But we do want to make a good job of it. Also we're pretty handy in the workshop so don't mind buying very used and doing it up.

All help and advice appreciated.

if your horse people are like in the rest of the world... save yourself the headache of dealing with them... your hay will always be "too" wet,dry, light,heavy,expensive, early harvested,late harvested....
you'll never be able to charge enough to cover your labor and time handling the idiot cubes... if you insist on torturing yourself....
I've done it with a 45 hp, 160 drum mower, 3 meter tedder and 3 meter rake , and a welger ap45 baler....
i lucked into a class 90 cm roundbalert for 200 euro... no more idiot cubes for this guy....

 

[traineefarmer]

£5K for 6 acres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cheap?
Obviously wealthy in Norfolk, fair play.

Just to clarify. After decades of daft machinery purchases by my grandfather which have taken us further decades and to put right through gradual replacement, we now try to buy once and buy right.

If I can get away with buying one machine to get started, that machine will be a mower conditioner - as big and as good as I can find. I don't want to have to buy another if we expand the area and I don't want something that will be difficult to move on if we pack it all in.

As for using contractors or borrowing kit - we don't want such a time critical enterprise to be tied down to someone elses schedule. And who is going to travel for such a small job? A machine only costs what it depreciates. What's a 5 grand mower going to lose year on year?

 

[Flat 10]

Just to clarify. After decades of daft machinery purchases by my grandfather which have taken us further decades and to put right through gradual replacement, we now try to buy once and buy right.

If I can get away with buying one machine to get started, that machine will be a mower conditioner - as big and as good as I can find. I don't want to have to buy another if we expand the area and I don't want something that will be difficult to move on if we pack it all in.

As for using contractors or borrowing kit - we don't want such a time critical enterprise to be tied down to someone elses schedule. And who is going to travel for such a small job? A machine only costs what it depreciates. What's a 5 grand mower going to lose year on year?

No idea. Not a lot if farm machinery keeps appreciating like it has in the future. You still need £5k kicking around to invest in a job where it isn’t going to earn you anything like that amount for years and years. As @Dave W said I would expect my 5k to buy a mower Tedder and rake. The machines would not be crap either. Are you far from @carbonfibre farmer ? I reckon he’d come and mow 6ac when you want it done. At the end of the day you asked for opinions, most of us agreed cheap was the way to start, but you can do exactly what you want to do, it’s entirely your prerogative. .

 

[carbonfibre farmer]

No idea. Not a lot if farm machinery keeps appreciating like it has in the future. You still need £5k kicking around to invest in a job where it isn’t going to earn you anything like that amount for years and years. As @Dave W said I would expect my 5k to buy a mower Tedder and rake. The machines would not be crap either. Are you far from @carbonfibre farmer ? I reckon he’d come and mow 6ac when you want it done. At the end of the day you asked for opinions, most of us agreed cheap was the way to start, but you can do exactly what you want to do, it’s entirely your prerogative. .

I cut around 15 to 20 acres a year. Not all at once! Mower was £350.

 

[puppet]

As for using contractors or borrowing kit - we don't want such a time critical enterprise to be tied down to someone elses schedule. And who is going to travel for such a small job? A machine only costs what it depreciates. What's a 5 grand mower going to lose year on year?

£300 per year before repairs - more than the profit on your hay. After 10 years it will still only have done a day's work at 6 acres per year. I would argue that working the hay and getting it rowed up in the sunshine is just as important.
If you have another 50 acres to cut then crack on but the figures you are quoting don't add up for 6 acres.

 

[glasshouse]

Pah! That's nothing! My 4 rotor tedder was £1,000 and my rower only £300!

Ha
My six rotor tedder was£600
Two rotor rake £850
Large number of haybobs at £200-500
Got fed up fixing mowers and got a new kuhn 2.9 m

 

[holywell farmer]

View attachment 931116
I cut around 15 to 20 acres a year. Not all at once! Mower was £350.

Looks like you got a bargain there.

 

[bobk]

I think getting another wife would be easier than buying a s/h mower , fookin minefield

 

[steveR]

I think getting another wife would be easier than buying a s/h mower , fookin minefield

IKWYM. and agree.

I looked at a couple of 2nd hand disc mowers before deciding to go new, as I could not stand the idea of someone else's problems arriving here.... But that is for 120ac/annum... not 5ac.

 

[Grassman]

What's a 5 grand mower going to lose year on year?

The mower is the least important bit though. I would put £1k into a decent disc mower. The rest into tedder and rake if you are prepared to spend £5k

 

[Grassman]

For haymaking a mower conditioner isn't that important. I make quite a bit of hay and haylage for the last 40 years and have never owned a mower conditioner.

 

[carbonfibre farmer]

Looks like you got a bargain there.

Yes, a lucky find. Had it near 10yrs now.

It gets some abuse even on the small amount I do. Only about a quarter of the ground I do is nice and level. Rest very up and down and rough
I have the exact same model under a tilt for spares, doesn't go but all the castings etc ok so it would get me out a muddle if I need bits

 

[Dave W]

For haymaking a mower conditioner isn't that important. I make quite a bit of hay and haylage for the last 40 years and have never owned a mower conditioner.

You should go see your friendly local machine dealer and buy one with a conditioner. Just don't ask to trade those lelys in

 

[Grassman]

You should go see your friendly local machine dealer and buy one with a conditioner. Just don't ask to trade those lelys in

Nothing wrong with my lely's.
I will probably regret saying that

 

[Dave W]

Nothing wrong with my lely's.
I will probably regret saying that

I'll keep something in stock

 

[Richard98]

If I'd got a Welgar 830 and saw a haybob in the field ............

you laugh, I watched this for years until we got a Lely rotonde in 2015 - elderly great uncle pottering along on the international 276 and haybob with dad up his arse trying to keep the 830 full
in all seriousness @traineefarmer I think you're spot on to get a decent moco now and can always add other things later. we are also still sorting out grandads daft machinery purchases
Although they're slow, I think hay bobs get an unfair amount of stick on here - they can do a reasonable Job of both if they're set up correctly. we only moved to a 4 rotor tedder and rotonde rake to cover the ground faster, the haybob is sitting in the shed for breakdown insurance

 

[glasshouse]

you laugh, I watched this for years until we got a Lely rotonde in 2015 - elderly great uncle pottering along on the international 276 and haybob with dad up his arse trying to keep the 830 full
in all seriousness @traineefarmer I think you're spot on to get a decent moco now and can always add other things later. we are also still sorting out grandads daft machinery purchases
Although they're slow, I think hay bobs get an unfair amount of stick on here - they can do a reasonable Job of both if they're set up correctly. we only moved to a 4 rotor tedder and rotonde rake to cover the ground faster, the haybob is sitting in the shed for breakdown insurance

I hada rotonde, but they dont like ruts and bumps

 

[Richard98]

I hada rotonde, but they dont like ruts and bumps

That is true, luckily most of our meadows are fairly level except one. They also don’t like great uncle trying to row up an oak tree, or setting off without turning the pto on and go cultivating He didn’t use it many times before he got retired from raking

 

[essexpete]

To the op on a small area like that I would use a local contractor for the mowing and have a hay bob or equivalent. We have had a PZ (various names now Kuhn) 360 for years which will ted and row to one side. We have, for most of that time, had a dedicated tedder but the vicon has been used to ted when the big tedder was out of action. The OP also has the advantage of at least being able to move the crop with the existing Vicon in the case of a breakdown.