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NW IL | Just doing some end of year figuring. We take hours at the beginning of each month on each tractor. It's been helpful to get a good picture of whats working when for how long.
Farm total across 5 tractors = 2,546 hours for 2020. The highest tractor got 926 hours. JD5115M loader. Lowest around 175hr. JD5400 loader that is basically retired.
Per acre that is around 5hr/ac. But some of that is hay ground, and some time is in mowing pasture and field edges, and a good share is animal care - feed/manure. And we are organic so there's weed control time in there too.
By animal it's around 19hr/head all ages, calve->cow/finished steer.
I'm curious if others keep track of hours this way and how they compare. It seems high per unit to me, but obviously there is overlap in both directions since we grow more than we feed and do some custom hay. We don't let things idle unnecessarily.
What are standard hours/unit for primarily row crop vs primarily animal vs mixed? Organic? How efficient can it be pushed? I'm guessing economy of scale is a big part...
Any better/other metric to look at? | |
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Tractor hours per acre, per head
