Once you get the cattle you will have fine hay for them and it will begin to payoff for you in fat cows. Which are happy cows which like to make more cows. You’ll have to feed the new cows too. Farming/Ranching takes a while but your doing fine. Keep up the good work!!!
Absolutely! Thanks man! Boy...read through that pile of insulting comments down there....ugh....anytime I do a video that explains how things aren't ideal....I get ripped into by "farm scientist" telling me how dumb I am....geeze...just a man making a go of it on his farm....shoot these pastures were forest 3 years ago! I guess I need a thicker skin if I post "real life" videos...reality isn't always what we want it to be! Thanks for always being nice and supportive Roadhog!
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer This is the good stuff man - it's just the nature of some to want to be negative. Everyone seems to be an expert nowadays. I appreciate channels like yours that show real life. I know for damn sure no one gets everything in life right the first time they do something - most of us get to make our mistakes in private. I appreciate you putting yours out there for the rest of us to learn from.
Stoney Ridge Farmer Josh when I was a boy we had a farm and my first job was following the tobacco setter, two guys sitting on the back of tractor on a board. I ate dust all day long. I chased cows worked tobacco and bailed the square bails all my early years. Farming is hard work everyday it’s hard work, 50 years later I’ve never forgot that and I never will. All these scientists are to busy acting a fool to know, or they’d try to help instead of being A’s. Your a hero everyday from your labor to take of your family and your land.
I’ve been farming for about 30 years and the best advice I can give anyone is find what works for you and your operation. What works for some may or may not work for others. I got in the custom agriculture business and out of the cattle business because that what worked for me in my area. And secondly never be afraid to try something new or different just be aware that it may not work and be willing to take that risk.
my grandpa and I square bailed . Just the two of us we attached the hay wagon behind the baler with an extended shoot that reached the wagon . My grandpa drove and I ran back and forth on the wagon stacking . Good memories .
Every old timer who farms for a living has told me 'Farming is about timing', and nothing could be more true. When your 'timing' is right you'll add cattle to your operation, and you will be so glad you invested the time and money into haying equipment and haying knowledge. You will never have to purchase those expensive bales mentioned in the comments below to feed YOUR herd . The number one killer of profits in cattle is feed costs. My wife and I enjoy watching your journey! Keep up the great work!!
I appreciate your sincerity in this video. Making hay is tough and not profitable on its own. My parents have run a hay farm that primarily sells small square bales for 35 years both with full time jobs on the side to make ends meet. Now I’m thinking about taking the place over but am looking for other ways to make money on the farm that don’t involve suburban development.
Josh, I love your channel. Even though your first foray into hay was a bust, the comments on this post are solid gold. Where else can you find so many expert opinions and varied strategies on the hay business? This is great information! Thanks for posting your failures as well as the successes. People learn more from failures anyway!
man...I tell ya..everyone has the instant solution...however...hay is stacked up all over the place around here...hay farmers simply can't sell all the hay because nobody is farming and or ranching around here....literally hay is all over the edges of fields rotting all over my county...yet still they want $40 per bale!
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer I think it’s like any other business. Capitalism tends to make all business transactions balance out so that only those who excel at their own business will make good profits. That’s why some make money and others don’t. The only way to get better is to keep on trying and finding creative ways to optimize both the production and the sale. It’s the same in all endeavors. Reading the market is key. One of your commenters said “farming is timing”. I think that’s incredibly relevant. Another said horse people will spend any amount on their pets. If I make hay it will be for high-end horse farms and I’ll ask them upfront what they want so I know what to plant. Keep up the good work!
You are right on about starting a 1st generation farm unfortunately. The numbers just don't work for the most part. It's very frustrating because small farms are very good for the country. We need more farms.
You need to find an old farmer who wants to retire but doesn't have kids to hand it off to. You can come in and work into a partnership. That's what I'm doing with my cousin. They sold everything but a few hundred acres because they weren't making enough money but now want to expand again. The problem is people think farming is just driving tractors. It's not it's a business and needs to be ran and treated as such. Tough business but rewarding if you can make it happen.
An old farmer once told me "if you get into the hay business, don't get into the cattle business. If you get into the cattle business, don't get into the hay business." He was right. I have close to $40k in hay equipment. It would be cheaper to buy hay. The hay you buy has as much fertilizer value as it does feed value. Feed where your soil is poor and you get fertilizer, organic material, and seed on that area. Good luck with the cattle.
Man, the memories I have as a kid bailing square bales on my family's farm in Oxford Ohio. Getting rides to the loft in the bale elevator were the best!
I’m learning too! I lost my butt trying to sell pasture raised pork. I found out nobody in my area even knows what organic pasture rotation grazed pork is. So now I just do it for my self
I used to be partners in a hay operation when I was in high school and college. Net wrap bales keep better outside, and after looking at y’alls rainfall from last year it looks like you guys had a great hay season which makes it tuff to sell bales. We had years when bales sold for $30 and then other years it sold for over $80. Having cows will help because years when you have abundance of hay and prices are junk you can turn that hay into ribeyes! Did that myself and then sold sides of beef so I made up for the poor hay prices! It will work itself out Josh! It is tuff but I think you’ll be just fine! I would either advise wrapping the bales, or storing them under cover! Helps make your hay more valuable! Here we can rent a bale wrapper! Not sure about your area but it’s added expense to keep your bales try. Or you can stack and tarp them too. Guys just hate buying hay they know they are going to throw away the outer portion on. Hopefully some of the tips help and look forward to more videos!!!
YES, farming is a lot of very hard work! My neighbor's farm all around us, and I watch them out in a lot of 18 hour days. I do what I can to give them a hand. By changing out the cutters on their sickle bars for their 40' headers on their Case ID combines every spring. I feel like I am always in debt to them because of all the help they give to this 75-year-old man.
I have experience with farming hay and the only way to make money is small squares for horse people stored in a barn. Or plant specialty grass like alfalfa or orchard grass. Sometimes hay farming is kinda a gamble.
We used to store round bales outside through the winter and would take whatever we could get as the hay deteriorated from weather. Usually about 30% of their undeteriorated value by springtime. Could never justify the cost per bale of constructing a permanent type structure for hay storage. What we did was search our community for old car/truck tires. We’d lay them down in a rectangular grid three bales wide and as long as you had room for. Stack the bales in a 3-2-1 pyramid on the tires and keep adding tires as you add more bales so you don’t have to drive on the tires while stacking. We were able to store 66 bales under a $200 hay tarp with about 2% loss. The tarp would last about four years making our storage investment under 80 cents per bale. The old tires were easy to accumulate locally from repair shops as they are costly for them to dispose of and I we would get them free plus our hauling (and they last forever). We would deplete the stack rolling the tarp back as we did and leaving the exposed tires in place and driving over them through the winter. Cheap easy to manage storage that was a game changer for us Good luck going forward
That’s some cold hard truth there. I bought 50 + acres in Chatham county and round bales we’re going at about 30.00 per round. I’m working a deal with my neighbor who has all the equipment to bale so we’re doing a 60/40 split this year just to get rolling. I do have excellent hay here orchard grass rye bluegrass clover mix. It’s an old farm. I want to do the rotational grazing next year when I get some cows. Good luck to you. Hope things work out for us both! That 40k tractor is a hard pill to swallow! Whew!
Mommymilestones, sound words of advice, thank you. I am fortunate that we have friends and family with equipment to borrow, definitely don’t want to jump in and be swallowed by debt. Bought a cow/calf last year that’s at a friends farm, she should be dropping again in August 😁. I definitely am not afraid of getting dirty, will be doing all the clearing and building except for a few things (concrete slab and rough in plumbing) want them done right, not that I can’t, just don’t want to worry in the future. Thanks again for the advice, much appreciated.
I'm 19 and from va and got into custom bailing last year and taking over my home farm this year the saying it's not what you know its who is what got me this far either people knowing people who need hay which I worked on farms my whole life and am trying to start a dairy that helped me know people but also if there is any hay auctions try that hay is going for outrages prices becouse of the weather we've been having I love watching your channel and how your expanding
It's a crazy buisness,you're exactly right.Its not easy to up and start a functioning farm,you basically have to build and modularize the whole thing.Alot of times it's a 4 or 5 Generation operation where they live in it,or have enough money up front to finance if ALL and hope for the best.Farming is often thankless and very stressful,there was a fella I knew took his own life when he couldn't keep a old family farm afloat and lost it to the Bank,when they came to serve the papers for Eviction and foreclosure he opened a Anhydrous tank on a wagon in a shed...sad stuff
Small square horse quality is where you will make money in hay. This winter around us it was between $7 and $9 a bale average years it's about 5 over winter 3 in summer. Buying brand new equipment is where you went wrong. I have less than 2k into my tractor, baler and sickle mower combined.
Charlies post is dead on. I have done the same thing for 30 years with about the same investment. This is on a small scale and really just amounts to a hobby farm. You do it for fun, not money, but you try to stay in the black just for the challenge. From what I can tell, Stoney Ridge is really just a hobby farm as well. I have lots of relatives that are real farmers and they don't have the time or inclination to make videos while farming a couple thousand acres in order to actually make a living farming. Hobby farmers need to face reality and understand that a huge investment up front is not likely to get payback. By the way, I have also raised cattle under the same premise and found that the best profits were to be found raising freezer beef.
78yr old country boy. Well your finally answering my questions as to why a city farmer boy has all of this new equipment. Made no sense. Me retired, bought old rocky homestead ranch in canyon above the Salmonriver. All my equipment is old used and paid for. Just finally getting a afford 8n with disk.
Advice from a western NC farmer, advertise with local feed mills and cattleman’s associations to sell it in the field rather than in the winter. People will pay more when it’s fresh and never been wet. Also, if you do store outdoors, get pallets from a local big box store to set them on. It saves the bottom. Consider stacking 3 in a row with 2 on bottom and one on top tight together. You have less surface area exposed and less waste. Tarps also help
In my area the cost of production on an average year is around $25 per roll counting land rent, fertilizer, mowing, raking, tendering, baling, and any weed control needed. That’s in the field not counting the cost of moving it. Nobody wants to pay break even for any hay here. Square bales are better but I use machines to get it up. Not much manual labor. Couldn’t get the help anyway.
Yep...but ya gotta store them in a barn for sure my brotha...so there I am buying a $40,000 barn for hay that I'm already loosing on ...my area is economically depressed....things just don't bring much around here
Man that’s too bad you can’t find labor, baling small square is my favorite thing to do, but I only get to help with 1,500 bales or so, I wish I could find farmers here in Indiana who would want help, it’s just hard to know where to start
Absolutely crazy! those bales would easily go for $40-$50 a bale here in Minnesota. Go further west and they would double in price. high-quality hay sells for $70-$80 a bale here.
The problem is trucking it out there. Figure you can fit 30 round bales legally on a semi. You are only pulling 2400 bucks top line at 80 bucks. Not going to be much room for profit. Unless im missing something here
My wife and I would love to start a farm, but we are still saving and investing. It’s so incredibly expensive to get started as a farmer these days. We don’t want to finance, so we will likely have to wait another ten years until we are forty.
My father has been doing small square straight alfalfa for years in SW MN. has had up to 60 acres, but had a bale wagon to pick up the bales (New Holland 1038). this was before he got a few beef cattle around to eat the poor hay that got rained on, he would have to give away and lose money just to move it. now we have the choice to feed the poor stuff off to our beef cattle and sell the premium hay to horse people. some years are very profitable$6-$8 / 55lb bale others were $2/ bale. just depends on the weather for that year. We have had to spray our fields twice already for bugs, and with the drought might not get a 4th cutting. only one other time dad remembers getting only 3 cuttings for the year. I enjoy the videos !!
Good day, Josh. I think your videos are really fantastic to watch. it has been very useful to pass the time and to keep my mind from being sick. I got an infection in the spine in my back after a (successful) hernia operation. I was after the operation of the terrible pain in my back and radiation pain in my left leg down to the foot and a week or 3 later I got back pain in the same way as the hernia. only after 3 months did they find out after an MRI scan that had a major infection / inflammation in my back wound in the old surgery. I have been in the hospital for 3 weeks. I received a PICC-LINE under CT scan in my arm with a 24-hour antibiotic pump on. I am somewhat fortunate now. I have had the picc line for 5 almost 6 months now. but enough about me now. I think your videos are really fantastic so Miss Stoney Ridge may come into the picture a bit more often and just do fun things together and she certainly doesn't have to be shy. about this video as a tip if you had placed some logs or logs between the wheel arches of the same or almost the same height as the wheel arches, the hay bales lay flat on your trailer in the middle. keep up with your videos i've learned a lot and think they are super fun. p.s. Question: Could I receive some of your music for your own private use ? . i like the beautiful and nice songs. especially those of the goats & chickens haha nice guide. Kind regards Hollandduck from the Netherlands. source of translations: Google translate.
1st Gen farm: I sincerely wish you the absolute best of luck. I was born in Dec 1945 and my parents moved to a farm when I was about 1 year old, we were there until I was 8 and they had to sell it. We moved on to other things and another life. I had a great time there and wish it hadn't ended, however a lot of first-time endeavors do end up going under. I sincerely hope all of you have the greatest success, with other family around it should help a lot.
After seeing prices of hay equipment at the auction I went to this weekend, the only way I would get into it is if I had livestock. Although I will say, it does sell a little better around here.
Nice video. If you want to do little square Bailes get a stacker for on the loader. Around here we have a auction every week where we sell hay and grain. We have a good market for little square bailes around here because there is allot of Amish in my area.
A baler with net rap will keep the outer ring of the bale a better quality. Now I’m not saying it can’t go bad but it will be less likely of going bad. Just some personal experience
I got lucky with my hay equipment. The gentleman that use to bale my hay sold the mower, rake and baler as a package deal to me. When I first got started was finding a buyer. Luckily I got a local buyer. I just left the small square bales in the field and they would come pick it up. I have noticed that baling twine has really gone up in price the last 5 years.
I have a spark also, love it. Found it on Walmart website on a sale for $299. I have alot of footage for my channel but havnt had a chance to edit being sick going on 2 weeks.
Here in south east Texas we haven’t been able to get hay and a round bale is $80. The feed stores didn’t even have hay in some parts and one of our feed stores is charging $120 per bale. It just depends on the market where you live. I bought a square bale for $12.75 that was full of pine needles once I opened it up this winter. It’s been a bad winter for hay. Thankfully spring has brought fresh hay and we don’t use but a little bit.
It's tough stuff,I see it all the time in Western North Carolina.Dairy and Tobacco are like Textile Jobs in the area.....Gone! I've worked on Beef/Dairy farms and as a Teen-early 20 year old I've worked in alot of Tobacco fields from setting out to hanging up...its been gone from here.Now I'm interested in Industrial Hemp as a cash crop in Western North Carolina,good vid man.
Hi Josh good vid thanks.I have my bales wrapped to store outside,it is an extra cost but the hay keeps fine for two years.If hay is that cheap where you are it might be better to buy it in and save the work and cost
Love your videos! I get round bales for $65 delivered in Iowa for horses. Stored inside cuz horses can't eat any mold. Sometimes hard to find a supplier tho.. Keep up the Good Work!
Have you ever checked into trucking hay to the ranchers in WY? Seems like to me they have to pay about $140 a bale, or so, because they only get one cutting out there, and they all have a lot of cattle to feed all winter long.
In my area, they sale square bales for $20, round for $35 and up. depending on the kind. We have a lot of Alfalfa Hay here but, when we had the horses, we bought it from the Amish about 10 miles away.
Back to my cattle days. Used pour on wormer: cattle got some and I got some when they would go bonkers in the head gate. No worries about me being wormy back then.If you get some cattle look for videos about "horn broke" and "bucket broke". Helps when chasing them through the neighbors place or down the road when they go through the nice fence you just built....
Selling right of the field the day you bale it is best. Up here in MInn some sales barns and auction sites were selling for $50 -$100.00 per bale but my family got $30 per bale for stored in side first cutting grass hay.
Hay is getting hard to find now in my area. We just converted a old round baler into a rebaler on our channel. We use a DJI spark. I’d like to get a mavic pro 2. Have a good one
Cutting on time or early and baling big squares adds so much value. Easy to ship and store and more hay in each bale. Rotating crops is important as a good alfalfa field becomes scarce after 4 or 5 years. Newer seeding produces a lot more than even a 3 year old hay field. Fertilizer is worth the cost. This year in Ontario hay is worth a lot! 100 a bale for 1st cut 800 lbs bales/ and so far 140-150 a bale for good 2nd cut
The price depends on the supply and demand. If the weather is favorable, the crop is good and supply outpaces demand so the price is low. If the weather isn't favorable, the crop is poor, supply is lower than demand so prices are higher. If the price gets too high, the people who raise cattle for meat sell many or all of them instead of buying high priced hay.
Hay pays! I sell small square bales of just grass hay a chic friendly product. Round bales always go for low money. I pay help to bale $30 an hour and still make money. Small square bales in my area go for $5 to $8 per bale prices and stay very steady.
I inherited a small farm with a few pieces of very old equipment. I bought a new tractor like yours, a $3,000 used square baler, a new 5 wheel rake, and I cut with a 1945 sickle that does a heck of a job. Bought a used 2 basket Tedder since it rains a lot anymore. I sell the square bales like candy!!! Yes, its a little more work but definitely more money. If I was close to ya, I’d buy those rims and turn them into square bales!!!!
I just bought 7 acres in south GA to farm with about 5k worth of hay equipment. The numbers are ALL over the place when pricing hay here, luckily where i live (metro atlanta) there is a ton of horse farms and no hay farms, so I'm hoping to make some money that way. I'm also planning on switching to 100% alfalfa next year. Hope i didn't screw myself here
Very light winter here as you know Josh. Any normal year prices would be double. A rough winter would be triple. But any way you cut it, you wont make profit from hay. Go get those cows and then you're set.
We trade two hay cuttings on about fifteen acres. It is clover, orchard grass, timothy, fescue mix. We trade the hay for plowing our driveways at my mother and my home. The person who cuts and bales the hay has horses and said he likes our hay better than some of the mixed grass hay he can get and is a family friend. Went to school with him K- 12. We all help each other around here and if we have a good garden we give our extra to the neighbors that can use it and we give some to the local food pantry.
I work as an auctioneer and we have been selling hay just like yours all winter for $110 to $170 a bale .Its crazy here in NW Missouri,You would probably make more in small square bales stored high and dry
My entire life has centered on labor intensive work. Grew up working my uncle's cranberry bogs and horse farm. Getting older now and feeling the labor pains, I could use a good rust inhibitor myself. I own the same drone, for more than a year and I am very jealous at the open space you have to fly it as well as a direct purpose of owning one in the first place. Loving the videos and really glad I found your channel! Woo baby!
Great video, great angle! I just picked up a DJI Mavic as well. Did a quick aerial shot on our channel of the dirt bike track we built with the Kubota Tractor and Grapple
I know a lady farmer who says she wishes she did grow her own hay for her cows because where she is (Norther New York state Dairy) ...forgot what she said about the area, basically the hay is good price but getting it to her farm costs more than the hay and she needs a lot of it.
I should imagine most people below have made suggestions. But what hit me first is that a drone is a bad gimmick way to sell rubbish hay. Next time store them in a stack so they will have a smaller surface area and thus less rain/moisture. Hope you get better hay by the time you have cows! Also time and motion. It would have taken less time and fuel if you had parked the trailer and pick-up close to the bales. I agree with someone's comment about square bales as well.
Yep Tim....I'm pretty sure you're confused about the relationship to me showing you how the drone works and the hay...neither of which are related. Trailer was parked out further because there was an area between the hay and the truck that was tilled up last year for a food plot...the ground was too soft to drive the truck or tractor...I'm not stupid dude. As for they hay insult...well...thanks...now square bales....I don't have a $40,000 barn to put them in...yep that's what things cost. I'm not an idiot...I'm telling ya...I can't sell it right out of the field fresh because nobody is buying hay around here until the dead of winter...I'm not putting up a$40k barn to store hay that's not profitable...
Some years are better, dry summers, or really snowy winters raise demand. Check into horse farms and stables or other specialty markets. You have semi access so shipping is no biggy.
To add to the drone segment of the video, those who plan on using the drone to capture monetized footage are considered commercial operators which requires FAA certification. The FAA has already fined plenty of content creators who have used aircraft for commercial purposes without being certified. No certification is required for checking livestock or fence lines (i.e. non monetized purposes) however still subject to FAA Recreational guidelines.
Endophyte free fescue is not necessary for cattle, just lactating mares. If you want to sell hay, start marketing, that is take orders, around Feb, March, or April before you cut and when baling to sell those round bales as quickly as you can if storing outside. Get pictures of your newly baled hay to help with marketing. You’re very lucky to sell nearly year old outdoor hay that’s gone to seed. Sometimes you can sell that old hay for compost or mulch and get more. Small square orchard grass, stored in a barn, for the horse market will bring the most. Buy a late maturing orchard grass variety for horse hay. I believe you said $120 for the last 12 bales? At ten dollars a bale, it only paid you to load it. Additionally, you have a lot of leaves in your field. It helps to rake those to the side in winter to avoid ruining the next hay crop. Also, people hate buying hay only to find leaves inside. Rather than leave hay outside for a year, you may be able take it to a hay auction in late summer or fall and unload it. You’re just starting out, so keep going, you’ll learn a great deal each year. If you go with small square bales, talk with your local HS football coach and have him send you four or five players when you bale and be ready for work else they'll just stand around and want to be paid for that. There are some good videos from some of the larger hay farms on TH-cam and you can learn a lot from their techniques. I enjoy your videos, all the best to you.
Targeting the horse market can be a plan. Square bales of orchard grass for horses and getting customers lined up beforehand adds value to the endeavor. Most horse people don't like round bales due to quality issues. Cattle are a commodity and horses are pets. You'll spend anything for your pet.
Ouch, $20 a bail is a hard pill to swallow after seeing how much time and money you have spent getting the farm to where it is now. The bails will pay off once you get your own beef on the ground. Josh, how are things coming along with the organic no pesticides part of the farm and land. I remember you were saying that you had to wait something like three years to be certified. Maybe you can touch on this on Wednesday night live? Thanks again for another great video, Woooooo!
You have top quality hay the problem is once a farmer/rancher gets hay he is happy with they continue to get it from the same supplier. You need to advertise better and gradual have a steady list. Who knows maybe that $20 sale will have new customers wanting your hay. Also think it as it is better to get $20 then none.
John Deere net wrap sells hay no matter the hay quality. Hay didnt grow much last year in my area and people were paying outrageous price. When i can sell hay it does not yield much because its so dry. Your right its hard to make a profit. But wait until you get cows and a few die and your still paying for them. Then the calves dont not bring what it cost to grow them. It's a hard business to be in. My advice is to buy some first calf pairs so you don't have to worry about calving the heifers and Ai them so you don't have to buy a $3000 or higher bull and keep feeding all year.
Unless you have a contract with a big farmer your hay sales depends on weather! The really big ones like in Washington state ship there products to areas that or can’t produce good hay and alfalfa. If you grow alfalfa you will have much more in sales ! A lot of farmers use hay as a filler .
We always did hay auctions with our excess hay. Stored inside and balled at 80-90 lbs small square bales because it packed them so tight they fermented well and held nutrients best at that density. Small squares sells best where I’m at with 4h and Amish population. We got out of hay years ago due to not being as profitable as corn/beans and now my kids are in 4h so we’re back to enough hay acres to cover that. If you get a client base you can get top dollar but it’s never convinced me that it’s been a high return on investment crop either other than I don’t have to buy hay for the small herd of show calves
Here in SE OK a bale of prairie hay (mid quality) sells for 65-75$ a bale. Everyone ran out except for a a few and nobody knows why. We had a great hay season last year.
Doin hay have some variety do rounds and small squares alot of folks that need hay dont always need rounds not have the equipment to move them but almost everyone can move small squares
If your going to buy cattle watch out now because it might not affect you but, with the flooding in the plains states Nebraska and Kansas the price of beef might shoot up just FYI. Later Josh love the videos take care and God Bless you.
Hi Josh, Here in Oztralia, where much of the country has been in drought for a number of years, rounds are selling for around $100 each as many farms are struggling to produce enough fodder to maintain essential breed stock to breed back to normal stock levels and maintain bloodlines when we get out of the drought. For the most part, hay producers are not being greedy tho, they set their price at the start of the season when there is plenty around, and generally maintain it at that level once it becomes scarce. The producers also donate some stock to ''hay drives', convoys of up to 20 semi trucks taking free hay into northern Oz to support farmers who have had long term droughts and have totally bare paddocks. Some 'enterprising' dealers do buy what the can at the start of the season to on sell later as it becomes hard to get with somewhat ridiculous markups. I agree with you tho, there is little point in making hay unless you have the stock to eat it, a pre-arranged and contracted market for it like Wes the hay baron, or you are convinced that it will be in very short supply. Most of the market hay produced in the southern part of Oz these days seems to be fully wrapped rounds, which do not deteriorate if stored in the paddock. I can understand how twine tied round would deteriorate during a snowy winter
Don't know if it'll work but have you thought about leasing some of your hay field for grazing pasture until you get your cattle. Maybe it'll offset some of your loss
@Stoney Ridge Farmer -- A good thing to do with those old round-bales that are passed their prime is Ruth Stout method farming. Don't know if you've tried it. You can roll it out in layers and grow some taters. Maybe you could advertise the bales as "No Till Ruth Stout Garden Beds" or something? :) I feel your pain, though. I grew up on a 200-ish acre farm, mostly cattle. We split the fields and rotated the grazing, but still had to buy hay for the winter because it was cheaper than paying extra hands to work square-bales and pay for the baling wire or twine (depending on the baler). Love what you're doing, and I wish you all the best. There's not enough people that aren't corporate-farming.
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer I get you. Hardly a way to make money at it otherwise. Farm Profit is all about scale. Most people don't realize how little the grower/farmer gets paid per bushel at market/silage. That's why the last of the family farm was leased-out when my grandma passed. That 200-ish acres were her passion. Her kids, my aunts and uncles, went into anything but farming. I was the only one of my cousins who helped-out much on it, the others were -- I'll say "discouraged". I went and joined the military, myself. Been out for 20 years, now. Nowdays, I really miss both the farm, and the Navy. Got a few acres, and I'm thinking of raising some goats and chickens, doing some small-scale veg. Trying to work the budget for replacing the L3901 I sold, or to get a Ventrac in the next year or so. Most of my land is between 14 and 28 degrees or 25 and 52% grade. There's a good local farmers' market scene, but I don't know if it'd be worth the time to try selling there at the scale I'm guesstimating I can output with what I have to work with. So thinking "farm-adjacent", I'm considering just brush-cutting, and maybe leaf-clearing when I replace the equipment. Anyway, keep-up the good fight, man. Rooting for you.
Once you get the cattle you will have fine hay for them and it will begin to payoff for you in fat cows. Which are happy cows which like to make more cows. You’ll have to feed the new cows too. Farming/Ranching takes a while but your doing fine. Keep up the good work!!!
Absolutely! Thanks man! Boy...read through that pile of insulting comments down there....ugh....anytime I do a video that explains how things aren't ideal....I get ripped into by "farm scientist" telling me how dumb I am....geeze...just a man making a go of it on his farm....shoot these pastures were forest 3 years ago! I guess I need a thicker skin if I post "real life" videos...reality isn't always what we want it to be! Thanks for always being nice and supportive Roadhog!
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer This is the good stuff man - it's just the nature of some to want to be negative. Everyone seems to be an expert nowadays. I appreciate channels like yours that show real life. I know for damn sure no one gets everything in life right the first time they do something - most of us get to make our mistakes in private. I appreciate you putting yours out there for the rest of us to learn from.
Stoney Ridge Farmer Josh when I was a boy we had a farm and my first job was following the tobacco setter, two guys sitting on the back of tractor on a board. I ate dust all day long. I chased cows worked tobacco and bailed the square bails all my early years. Farming is hard work everyday it’s hard work, 50 years later I’ve never forgot that and I never will. All these scientists are to busy acting a fool to know, or they’d try to help instead of being A’s. Your a hero everyday from your labor to take of your family and your land.
I’ve been farming for about 30 years and the best advice I can give anyone is find what works for you and your operation. What works for some may or may not work for others. I got in the custom agriculture business and out of the cattle business because that what worked for me in my area. And secondly never be afraid to try something new or different just be aware that it may not work and be willing to take that risk.
Or get cattle. Making a living with beef cattle. And horse's.
Reminds me of what an old guy told me “ the best way to become a millionaire farmer is to start out farming as a billionaire “. 😂 Love the videos man.
my grandpa and I square bailed . Just the two of us we attached the hay wagon behind the baler with an extended shoot that reached the wagon . My grandpa drove and I ran back and forth on the wagon stacking . Good memories .
Every old timer who farms for a living has told me 'Farming is about timing', and nothing could be more true. When your 'timing' is right you'll add cattle to your operation, and you will be so glad you invested the time and money into haying equipment and haying knowledge. You will never have to purchase those expensive bales mentioned in the comments below to feed YOUR herd . The number one killer of profits in cattle is feed costs. My wife and I enjoy watching your journey! Keep up the great work!!
I appreciate your sincerity in this video. Making hay is tough and not profitable on its own. My parents have run a hay farm that primarily sells small square bales for 35 years both with full time jobs on the side to make ends meet. Now I’m thinking about taking the place over but am looking for other ways to make money on the farm that don’t involve suburban development.
Josh, I love your channel. Even though your first foray into hay was a bust, the comments on this post are solid gold. Where else can you find so many expert opinions and varied strategies on the hay business? This is great information! Thanks for posting your failures as well as the successes. People learn more from failures anyway!
man...I tell ya..everyone has the instant solution...however...hay is stacked up all over the place around here...hay farmers simply can't sell all the hay because nobody is farming and or ranching around here....literally hay is all over the edges of fields rotting all over my county...yet still they want $40 per bale!
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer I think it’s like any other business. Capitalism tends to make all business transactions balance out so that only those who excel at their own business will make good profits. That’s why some make money and others don’t. The only way to get better is to keep on trying and finding creative ways to optimize both the production and the sale. It’s the same in all endeavors. Reading the market is key. One of your commenters said “farming is timing”. I think that’s incredibly relevant. Another said horse people will spend any amount on their pets. If I make hay it will be for high-end horse farms and I’ll ask them upfront what they want so I know what to plant. Keep up the good work!
You are right on about starting a 1st generation farm unfortunately. The numbers just don't work for the most part. It's very frustrating because small farms are very good for the country. We need more farms.
You need to find an old farmer who wants to retire but doesn't have kids to hand it off to. You can come in and work into a partnership. That's what I'm doing with my cousin. They sold everything but a few hundred acres because they weren't making enough money but now want to expand again. The problem is people think farming is just driving tractors. It's not it's a business and needs to be ran and treated as such. Tough business but rewarding if you can make it happen.
An old farmer once told me "if you get into the hay business, don't get into the cattle business. If you get into the cattle business, don't get into the hay business." He was right. I have close to $40k in hay equipment. It would be cheaper to buy hay. The hay you buy has as much fertilizer value as it does feed value. Feed where your soil is poor and you get fertilizer, organic material, and seed on that area. Good luck with the cattle.
Man, the memories I have as a kid bailing square bales on my family's farm in Oxford Ohio. Getting rides to the loft in the bale elevator were the best!
I’m learning too! I lost my butt trying to sell pasture raised pork. I found out nobody in my area even knows what organic pasture rotation grazed pork is. So now I just do it for my self
I told my neighbors they're gonna think I'm crazy once we get our cows
"You are what you eat...eats"
I hear pasture pork it's night and day.
I really appreciate your insight and honesty. It takes a big person to admit disappointment. Thanks for not blowing smoke up my...
I used to be partners in a hay operation when I was in high school and college. Net wrap bales keep better outside, and after looking at y’alls rainfall from last year it looks like you guys had a great hay season which makes it tuff to sell bales. We had years when bales sold for $30 and then other years it sold for over $80. Having cows will help because years when you have abundance of hay and prices are junk you can turn that hay into ribeyes! Did that myself and then sold sides of beef so I made up for the poor hay prices! It will work itself out Josh! It is tuff but I think you’ll be just fine! I would either advise wrapping the bales, or storing them under cover! Helps make your hay more valuable! Here we can rent a bale wrapper! Not sure about your area but it’s added expense to keep your bales try. Or you can stack and tarp them too. Guys just hate buying hay they know they are going to throw away the outer portion on. Hopefully some of the tips help and look forward to more videos!!!
You sold round bales for $30? I know this is four years ago, but my god, that crazy.
YES, farming is a lot of very hard work! My neighbor's farm all around us, and I watch them out in a lot of 18 hour days. I do what I can to give them a hand. By changing out the cutters on their sickle bars for their 40' headers on their Case ID combines every spring. I feel like I am always in debt to them because of all the help they give to this 75-year-old man.
Neighbors like you are a blessing to us small Farmers. ♥️
On a serious note God bless your farm and future expenditures, I’ll be watching regularly!
I have experience with farming hay and the only way to make money is small squares for horse people stored in a barn. Or plant specialty grass like alfalfa or orchard grass. Sometimes hay farming is kinda a gamble.
We used to store round bales outside through the winter and would take whatever we could get as the hay deteriorated from weather. Usually about 30% of their undeteriorated value by springtime. Could never justify the cost per bale of constructing a permanent type structure for hay storage.
What we did was search our community for old car/truck tires. We’d lay them down in a rectangular grid three bales wide and as long as you had room for. Stack the bales in a 3-2-1 pyramid on the tires and keep adding tires as you add more bales so you don’t have to drive on the tires while stacking. We were able to store 66 bales under a $200 hay tarp with about 2% loss. The tarp would last about four years making our storage investment under 80 cents per bale. The old tires were easy to accumulate locally from repair shops as they are costly for them to dispose of and I we would get them free plus our hauling (and they last forever). We would deplete the stack rolling the tarp back as we did and leaving the exposed tires in place and driving over them through the winter. Cheap easy to manage storage that was a game changer for us
Good luck going forward
That’s some cold hard truth there. I bought 50 + acres in Chatham county and round bales we’re going at about 30.00 per round. I’m working a deal with my neighbor who has all the equipment to bale so we’re doing a 60/40 split this year just to get rolling. I do have excellent hay here orchard grass rye bluegrass clover mix. It’s an old farm. I want to do the rotational grazing next year when I get some cows. Good luck to you. Hope things work out for us both! That 40k tractor is a hard pill to swallow! Whew!
It feels like I'm listening to Greg Judy and the pastures have recovered from animals and a hell of alot of hard work. Keep on growing and thriving.
Starting a 1st generation farm also, the struggle is real. Clearing land at the moment, so much work but it will it is worth it.
Mommymilestones, sound words of advice, thank you. I am fortunate that we have friends and family with equipment to borrow, definitely don’t want to jump in and be swallowed by debt. Bought a cow/calf last year that’s at a friends farm, she should be dropping again in August 😁. I definitely am not afraid of getting dirty, will be doing all the clearing and building except for a few things (concrete slab and rough in plumbing) want them done right, not that I can’t, just don’t want to worry in the future. Thanks again for the advice, much appreciated.
I'm 19 and from va and got into custom bailing last year and taking over my home farm this year the saying it's not what you know its who is what got me this far either people knowing people who need hay which I worked on farms my whole life and am trying to start a dairy that helped me know people but also if there is any hay auctions try that hay is going for outrages prices becouse of the weather we've been having I love watching your channel and how your expanding
Farming is a tough business! Almost sink or swim. Nobody works harder than a farmer! Power to you Josh and Mrs. Stoney Ridge!
It's a crazy buisness,you're exactly right.Its not easy to up and start a functioning farm,you basically have to build and modularize the whole thing.Alot of times it's a 4 or 5 Generation operation where they live in it,or have enough money up front to finance if ALL and hope for the best.Farming is often thankless and very stressful,there was a fella I knew took his own life when he couldn't keep a old family farm afloat and lost it to the Bank,when they came to serve the papers for Eviction and foreclosure he opened a Anhydrous tank on a wagon in a shed...sad stuff
Small square horse quality is where you will make money in hay. This winter around us it was between $7 and $9 a bale average years it's about 5 over winter 3 in summer. Buying brand new equipment is where you went wrong. I have less than 2k into my tractor, baler and sickle mower combined.
I bought a new tractor...but used bailing equipment...a new baler would cost over $20-30k my friend
Charlie Noreen
Stoney Ridge Farmer don’t have to buy a brand new baler
Please share where one can find a reliable tractor and hay equipment for 2k...
Charlies post is dead on. I have done the same thing for 30 years with about the same investment. This is on a small scale and really just amounts to a hobby farm. You do it for fun, not money, but you try to stay in the black just for the challenge. From what I can tell, Stoney Ridge is really just a hobby farm as well. I have lots of relatives that are real farmers and they don't have the time or inclination to make videos while farming a couple thousand acres in order to actually make a living farming. Hobby farmers need to face reality and understand that a huge investment up front is not likely to get payback. By the way, I have also raised cattle under the same premise and found that the best profits were to be found raising freezer beef.
78yr old country boy. Well your finally answering my questions as to why a city farmer boy has all of this new equipment. Made no sense. Me retired, bought old rocky homestead ranch in canyon above the Salmonriver. All my equipment is old used and paid for. Just finally getting a afford 8n with disk.
My dad use to grow alfalfa. He would sub out the cutting, bailing and stacking. Didn't sell the hay, but used for our livestock.
Also with hay sells higher in areas where more people have horses
a 4x4 bale near me is going for 65-80 a bale.
Its worth looking into doing small squares and getting an accumagrapple for the tractor
Advice from a western NC farmer, advertise with local feed mills and cattleman’s associations to sell it in the field rather than in the winter. People will pay more when it’s fresh and never been wet. Also, if you do store outdoors, get pallets from a local big box store to set them on. It saves the bottom. Consider stacking 3 in a row with 2 on bottom and one on top tight together. You have less surface area exposed and less waste. Tarps also help
It’s a shame you don’t live in closer to Kentucky. Hay was so scares this year. I sold 4x4 rolls for 50 bucks a roll
In my area the cost of production on an average year is around $25 per roll counting land rent, fertilizer, mowing, raking, tendering, baling, and any weed control needed. That’s in the field not counting the cost of moving it. Nobody wants to pay break even for any hay here. Square bales are better but I use machines to get it up. Not much manual labor. Couldn’t get the help anyway.
Yep...but ya gotta store them in a barn for sure my brotha...so there I am buying a $40,000 barn for hay that I'm already loosing on ...my area is economically depressed....things just don't bring much around here
Man that’s too bad you can’t find labor, baling small square is my favorite thing to do, but I only get to help with 1,500 bales or so, I wish I could find farmers here in Indiana who would want help, it’s just hard to know where to start
Absolutely crazy! those bales would easily go for $40-$50 a bale here in Minnesota. Go further west and they would double in price. high-quality hay sells for $70-$80 a bale here.
The problem is trucking it out there. Figure you can fit 30 round bales legally on a semi. You are only pulling 2400 bucks top line at 80 bucks. Not going to be much room for profit. Unless im missing something here
Pallets between the fenders work well.
Agreed. I do the same
I got out of the hay bidness in 1996 for the exact same reasons. Nothing ever changes :(
Need a baler that wraps the bales if you cant store in a barn
It sucks that hay isn't worth that much where you live but hey, what can you do. Keep the videos comin' Josh!
Thanks buddy...yep...lessons learned.....bale hay for my own animals...not for sale
My wife and I would love to start a farm, but we are still saving and investing. It’s so incredibly expensive to get started as a farmer these days. We don’t want to finance, so we will likely have to wait another ten years until we are forty.
My father has been doing small square straight alfalfa for years in SW MN. has had up to 60 acres, but had a bale wagon to pick up the bales (New Holland 1038). this was before he got a few beef cattle around to eat the poor hay that got rained on, he would have to give away and lose money just to move it. now we have the choice to feed the poor stuff off to our beef cattle and sell the premium hay to horse people. some years are very profitable$6-$8 / 55lb bale others were $2/ bale. just depends on the weather for that year. We have had to spray our fields twice already for bugs, and with the drought might not get a 4th cutting. only one other time dad remembers getting only 3 cuttings for the year.
I enjoy the videos !!
Good day, Josh.
I think your videos are really fantastic to watch.
it has been very useful to pass the time and to keep my mind from being sick.
I got an infection in the spine in my back after a (successful) hernia operation.
I was after the operation of the terrible pain in my back and radiation pain in my left leg down to the foot
and a week or 3 later I got back pain in the same way as the hernia.
only after 3 months did they find out after an MRI scan that had a major infection / inflammation in my back wound in the old surgery.
I have been in the hospital for 3 weeks.
I received a PICC-LINE under CT scan in my arm with a 24-hour antibiotic pump on.
I am somewhat fortunate now.
I have had the picc line for 5 almost 6 months now.
but enough about me now.
I think your videos are really fantastic
so Miss Stoney Ridge may come into the picture a bit more often and just do fun things together and she certainly doesn't have to be shy.
about this video as a tip
if you had placed some logs or logs between the wheel arches of the same or almost the same height as the wheel arches,
the hay bales lay flat on your trailer in the middle.
keep up with your videos i've learned a lot and think they are super fun.
p.s. Question:
Could I receive some of your music for your own private use ? .
i like the beautiful and nice songs.
especially those of the goats & chickens haha nice guide.
Kind regards Hollandduck from the Netherlands.
source of translations: Google translate.
Get well soon my friend
@@jphickory522
Good day.
Thank you .
(source of translations: Google translate)
Hay in Alaska, round bales 190.00, square bales out in field about 10.00, in the barn 14.00
shew! How much is a hamburger in Alaska?
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer about 5.98 pd
1st Gen farm: I sincerely wish you the absolute best of luck. I was born in Dec 1945 and my parents moved to a farm when I was about 1 year old, we were there until I was 8 and they had to sell it. We moved on to other things and another life. I had a great time there and wish it hadn't ended, however a lot of first-time endeavors do end up going under. I sincerely hope all of you have the greatest success, with other family around it should help a lot.
After seeing prices of hay equipment at the auction I went to this weekend, the only way I would get into it is if I had livestock. Although I will say, it does sell a little better around here.
Amen! Expensive!
O my gosh just beautiful footage w drone thanks for Sharing !!
Nice video. If you want to do little square Bailes get a stacker for on the loader. Around here we have a auction every week where we sell hay and grain. We have a good market for little square bailes around here because there is allot of Amish in my area.
A baler with net rap will keep the outer ring of the bale a better quality. Now I’m not saying it can’t go bad but it will be less likely of going bad. Just some personal experience
or a plastic wrap when dry and store them
Lots of work starting up! That hay will come in handy soon I hope.
You should cover it would help
ya don't need to cover rolled hay my friend....it's a waste of money if you're feeding it in less than 6 mos
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer looks alot better if your selling it
I got lucky with my hay equipment. The gentleman that use to bale my hay sold the mower, rake and baler as a package deal to me. When I first got started was finding a buyer. Luckily I got a local buyer. I just left the small square bales in the field and they would come pick it up. I have noticed that baling twine has really gone up in price the last 5 years.
Myron Parks
Myron Parks
I have the DJI Spark. It doesn’t do 4K like the Mavic but it still does 1080. You can get those under $500.
I have a spark also, love it. Found it on Walmart website on a sale for $299. I have alot of footage for my channel but havnt had a chance to edit being sick going on 2 weeks.
Round bales sell for $50 or more stored inside a barn in nj!
Here in south east Texas we haven’t been able to get hay and a round bale is $80. The feed stores didn’t even have hay in some parts and one of our feed stores is charging $120 per bale. It just depends on the market where you live. I bought a square bale for $12.75 that was full of pine needles once I opened it up this winter. It’s been a bad winter for hay. Thankfully spring has brought fresh hay and we don’t use but a little bit.
It's tough stuff,I see it all the time in Western North Carolina.Dairy and Tobacco are like Textile Jobs in the area.....Gone! I've worked on Beef/Dairy farms and as a Teen-early 20 year old I've worked in alot of Tobacco fields from setting out to hanging up...its been gone from here.Now I'm interested in Industrial Hemp as a cash crop in Western North Carolina,good vid man.
I find your videos very interesting and informative. Thank you for sharing what you're doing - especially videos like this.
in Illinois we can sell round bales for $300 a bale
Wow how much does it cost to winter a cow eatin 25 pounds a day at them prices?
That cost is because most the land is subsidized for Corn and Soybeans .
Hi Josh good vid thanks.I have my bales wrapped to store outside,it is an extra cost but the hay keeps fine for two years.If hay is that cheap where you are it might be better to buy it in and save the work and cost
Great video sir love them all. Living life through you and folks alike. !! God bless and happy good Friday!!
I wish I could get bales for $20, I'm paying $35, but it has been stored indoors.
Chestnutgirlz
Love your videos! I get round bales for $65 delivered in Iowa for horses. Stored inside cuz horses can't eat any mold. Sometimes hard to find a supplier tho.. Keep up the Good Work!
Have you ever checked into trucking hay to the ranchers in WY? Seems like to me they have to pay about $140 a bale, or so, because they only get one cutting out there, and they all have a lot of cattle to feed all winter long.
In my area, they sale square bales for $20, round for $35 and up. depending on the kind. We have a lot of Alfalfa Hay here but, when we had the horses, we bought it from the Amish about 10 miles away.
Same here it’s really tough to get started from scratch, if a person had an endless budget more power to them, so much money and time to get going!
Back to my cattle days. Used pour on wormer: cattle got some and I got some when they would go bonkers in the head gate. No worries about me being wormy back then.If you get some cattle look for videos about "horn broke" and "bucket broke". Helps when chasing them through the neighbors place or down the road when they go through the nice fence you just built....
Selling right of the field the day you bale it is best. Up here in MInn some sales barns and auction sites were selling for $50 -$100.00 per bale but my family got $30 per bale for stored in side first cutting grass hay.
Hay is getting hard to find now in my area. We just converted a old round baler into a rebaler on our channel. We use a DJI spark. I’d like to get a mavic pro 2. Have a good one
Cutting on time or early and baling big squares adds so much value. Easy to ship and store and more hay in each bale. Rotating crops is important as a good alfalfa field becomes scarce after 4 or 5 years. Newer seeding produces a lot more than even a 3 year old hay field. Fertilizer is worth the cost. This year in Ontario hay is worth a lot! 100 a bale for 1st cut 800 lbs bales/ and so far 140-150 a bale for good 2nd cut
The price depends on the supply and demand. If the weather is favorable, the crop is good and supply outpaces demand so the price is low. If the weather isn't favorable, the crop is poor, supply is lower than demand so prices are higher. If the price gets too high, the people who raise cattle for meat sell many or all of them instead of buying high priced hay.
Hay pays! I sell small square bales of just grass hay a chic friendly product. Round bales always go for low money. I pay help to bale $30 an hour and still make money. Small square bales in my area go for $5 to $8 per bale prices and stay very steady.
I inherited a small farm with a few pieces of very old equipment. I bought a new tractor like yours, a $3,000 used square baler, a new 5 wheel rake, and I cut with a 1945 sickle that does a heck of a job. Bought a used 2 basket Tedder since it rains a lot anymore. I sell the square bales like candy!!! Yes, its a little more work but definitely more money. If I was close to ya, I’d buy those rims and turn them into square bales!!!!
Rolls not rims
I just bought 7 acres in south GA to farm with about 5k worth of hay equipment. The numbers are ALL over the place when pricing hay here, luckily where i live (metro atlanta) there is a ton of horse farms and no hay farms, so I'm hoping to make some money that way. I'm also planning on switching to 100% alfalfa next year. Hope i didn't screw myself here
Very light winter here as you know Josh. Any normal year prices would be double. A rough winter would be triple. But any way you cut it, you wont make profit from hay. Go get those cows and then you're set.
Hi..... Thank you 🎥👍👍👍
We trade two hay cuttings on about fifteen acres. It is clover, orchard grass, timothy, fescue mix. We trade the hay for plowing our driveways at my mother and my home. The person who cuts and bales the hay has horses and said he likes our hay better than some of the mixed grass hay he can get and is a family friend. Went to school with him K- 12. We all help each other around here and if we have a good garden we give our extra to the neighbors that can use it and we give some to the local food pantry.
I work as an auctioneer and we have been selling hay just like yours all winter for $110 to $170 a bale .Its crazy here in NW Missouri,You would probably make more in small square bales stored high and dry
My entire life has centered on labor intensive work. Grew up working my uncle's cranberry bogs and horse farm. Getting older now and feeling the labor pains, I could use a good rust inhibitor myself. I own the same drone, for more than a year and I am very jealous at the open space you have to fly it as well as a direct purpose of owning one in the first place. Loving the videos and really glad I found your channel! Woo baby!
Great video, great angle! I just picked up a DJI Mavic as well. Did a quick aerial shot on our channel of the dirt bike track we built with the Kubota Tractor and Grapple
I know a lady farmer who says she wishes she did grow her own hay for her cows because where she is (Norther New York state Dairy) ...forgot what she said about the area, basically the hay is good price but getting it to her farm costs more than the hay and she needs a lot of it.
Hey Josh thanks for this video and your honesty about the economics of the farm. I'm sure that, in time, you'll become profitable. Don't give up!
I should imagine most people below have made suggestions. But what hit me first is that a drone is a bad gimmick way to sell rubbish hay. Next time store them in a stack so they will have a smaller surface area and thus less rain/moisture. Hope you get better hay by the time you have cows! Also time and motion. It would have taken less time and fuel if you had parked the trailer and pick-up close to the bales. I agree with someone's comment about square bales as well.
Yep Tim....I'm pretty sure you're confused about the relationship to me showing you how the drone works and the hay...neither of which are related. Trailer was parked out further because there was an area between the hay and the truck that was tilled up last year for a food plot...the ground was too soft to drive the truck or tractor...I'm not stupid dude. As for they hay insult...well...thanks...now square bales....I don't have a $40,000 barn to put them in...yep that's what things cost. I'm not an idiot...I'm telling ya...I can't sell it right out of the field fresh because nobody is buying hay around here until the dead of winter...I'm not putting up a$40k barn to store hay that's not profitable...
Some years are better, dry summers, or really snowy winters raise demand. Check into horse farms and stables or other specialty markets. You have semi access so shipping is no biggy.
To add to the drone segment of the video, those who plan on using the drone to capture monetized footage are considered commercial operators which requires FAA certification. The FAA has already fined plenty of content creators who have used aircraft for commercial purposes without being certified. No certification is required for checking livestock or fence lines (i.e. non monetized purposes) however still subject to FAA Recreational guidelines.
Good video. Interesting points.
thank you Josh for doing this volg i relay like see you work and doing thing on your fram thank you agen
Endophyte free fescue is not necessary for cattle, just lactating mares. If you want to sell hay, start marketing, that is take orders, around Feb, March, or April before you cut and when baling to sell those round bales as quickly as you can if storing outside. Get pictures of your newly baled hay to help with marketing. You’re very lucky to sell nearly year old outdoor hay that’s gone to seed. Sometimes you can sell that old hay for compost or mulch and get more. Small square orchard grass, stored in a barn, for the horse market will bring the most. Buy a late maturing orchard grass variety for horse hay. I believe you said $120 for the last 12 bales? At ten dollars a bale, it only paid you to load it. Additionally, you have a lot of leaves in your field. It helps to rake those to the side in winter to avoid ruining the next hay crop. Also, people hate buying hay only to find leaves inside. Rather than leave hay outside for a year, you may be able take it to a hay auction in late summer or fall and unload it. You’re just starting out, so keep going, you’ll learn a great deal each year. If you go with small square bales, talk with your local HS football coach and have him send you four or five players when you bale and be ready for work else they'll just stand around and want to be paid for that. There are some good videos from some of the larger hay farms on TH-cam and you can learn a lot from their techniques. I enjoy your videos, all the best to you.
Targeting the horse market can be a plan. Square bales of orchard grass for horses and getting customers lined up beforehand adds value to the endeavor. Most horse people don't like round bales due to quality issues. Cattle are a commodity and horses are pets. You'll spend anything for your pet.
Hay in south texas is in neighborhood of 75 to 90 bucks I wished it was 20bucks brother🙏 great videos by the way proud subscriber
shew...not gonna be that cheap this coming year I know that!
Ouch, $20 a bail is a hard pill to swallow after seeing how much time and money you have spent getting the farm to where it is now. The bails will pay off once you get your own beef on the ground.
Josh, how are things coming along with the organic no pesticides part of the farm and land. I remember you were saying that you had to wait something like three years to be certified.
Maybe you can touch on this on Wednesday night live?
Thanks again for another great video, Woooooo!
You have top quality hay the problem is once a farmer/rancher gets hay he is happy with they continue to get it from the same supplier. You need to advertise better and gradual have a steady list. Who knows maybe that $20 sale will have new customers wanting your hay. Also think it as it is better to get $20 then none.
larry moore
I'm sorry for you Josh I will keep you in Prayer
I am the first generation of my family that doesnt farm. Its a hard way to make a living! Thumbs Up!
Yes it is...very hard work...much easier to just go to work...come home and take vacations to disneyland...depends on the life you wanna live honestly
John Deere net wrap sells hay no matter the hay quality. Hay didnt grow much last year in my area and people were paying outrageous price. When i can sell hay it does not yield much because its so dry. Your right its hard to make a profit. But wait until you get cows and a few die and your still paying for them. Then the calves dont not bring what it cost to grow them. It's a hard business to be in. My advice is to buy some first calf pairs so you don't have to worry about calving the heifers and Ai them so you don't have to buy a $3000 or higher bull and keep feeding all year.
Unless you have a contract with a big farmer your hay sales depends on weather! The really big ones like in Washington state ship there products to areas that or can’t produce good hay and alfalfa. If you grow alfalfa you will have much more in sales ! A lot of farmers use hay as a filler .
Another great video. Congrats Josh👍
We always did hay auctions with our excess hay. Stored inside and balled at 80-90 lbs small square bales because it packed them so tight they fermented well and held nutrients best at that density. Small squares sells best where I’m at with 4h and Amish population. We got out of hay years ago due to not being as profitable as corn/beans and now my kids are in 4h so we’re back to enough hay acres to cover that. If you get a client base you can get top dollar but it’s never convinced me that it’s been a high return on investment crop either other than I don’t have to buy hay for the small herd of show calves
Have you tried exporting to Asia I tell you cuz I deliver hay from winnemucca nv to Wilmington ca
Here in SE OK a bale of prairie hay (mid quality) sells for 65-75$ a bale. Everyone ran out except for a a few and nobody knows why. We had a great hay season last year.
For a lot of farmers, the one ot the best ways to store hay is on the hoof!
Doin hay have some variety do rounds and small squares alot of folks that need hay dont always need rounds not have the equipment to move them but almost everyone can move small squares
Awesome channel
If your going to buy cattle watch out now because it might not affect you but, with the flooding in the plains states Nebraska and Kansas the price of beef might shoot up just FYI. Later Josh love the videos take care and God Bless you.
Thanks for the tip!
I work in a retail store and you work in the Medical field but, I have been a farmer first.
Hi Josh, Here in Oztralia, where much of the country has been in drought for a number of years, rounds are selling for around $100 each as many farms are struggling to produce enough fodder to maintain essential breed stock to breed back to normal stock levels and maintain bloodlines when we get out of the drought. For the most part, hay producers are not being greedy tho, they set their price at the start of the season when there is plenty around, and generally maintain it at that level once it becomes scarce. The producers also donate some stock to ''hay drives', convoys of up to 20 semi trucks taking free hay into northern Oz to support farmers who have had long term droughts and have totally bare paddocks. Some 'enterprising' dealers do buy what the can at the start of the season to on sell later as it becomes hard to get with somewhat ridiculous markups.
I agree with you tho, there is little point in making hay unless you have the stock to eat it, a pre-arranged and contracted market for it like Wes the hay baron, or you are convinced that it will be in very short supply. Most of the market hay produced in the southern part of Oz these days seems to be fully wrapped rounds, which do not deteriorate if stored in the paddock. I can understand how twine tied round would deteriorate during a snowy winter
Don't know if it'll work but have you thought about leasing some of your hay field for grazing pasture until you get your cattle. Maybe it'll offset some of your loss
If we had fences built we'd have cattle on them ourselves...hopefully fences go up later this year
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer Ahhh. I thought I saw some already fenced. Oops
@Stoney Ridge Farmer -- A good thing to do with those old round-bales that are passed their prime is Ruth Stout method farming. Don't know if you've tried it. You can roll it out in layers and grow some taters.
Maybe you could advertise the bales as "No Till Ruth Stout Garden Beds" or something? :)
I feel your pain, though. I grew up on a 200-ish acre farm, mostly cattle. We split the fields and rotated the grazing, but still had to buy hay for the winter because it was cheaper than paying extra hands to work square-bales and pay for the baling wire or twine (depending on the baler).
Love what you're doing, and I wish you all the best. There's not enough people that aren't corporate-farming.
I agree with ya on the corporate farming...but there's hardly a way to make any money at it otherwise
@@StoneyRidgeFarmer I get you. Hardly a way to make money at it otherwise. Farm Profit is all about scale. Most people don't realize how little the grower/farmer gets paid per bushel at market/silage. That's why the last of the family farm was leased-out when my grandma passed. That 200-ish acres were her passion. Her kids, my aunts and uncles, went into anything but farming. I was the only one of my cousins who helped-out much on it, the others were -- I'll say "discouraged".
I went and joined the military, myself. Been out for 20 years, now. Nowdays, I really miss both the farm, and the Navy. Got a few acres, and I'm thinking of raising some goats and chickens, doing some small-scale veg. Trying to work the budget for replacing the L3901 I sold, or to get a Ventrac in the next year or so. Most of my land is between 14 and 28 degrees or 25 and 52% grade.
There's a good local farmers' market scene, but I don't know if it'd be worth the time to try selling there at the scale I'm guesstimating I can output with what I have to work with. So thinking "farm-adjacent", I'm considering just brush-cutting, and maybe leaf-clearing when I replace the equipment.
Anyway, keep-up the good fight, man. Rooting for you.
I'm selling little square bales for 10 a piece in Oklahoma . I see them listed as high as 14 for higher quality stuff
Great video thanks!