Southern IA | superpuller282 - 9/25/2018 11:30
Live in eastern Ohio and have 30-35 brood cows in a small cow/calf operation. We rotationally graze, moving cows every 3-4 days and make all of our own hay. We like to have 400-450 4x5 rounds to get the cows through winter, plus a few calves that we may keep and feed. We're looking at the idea of fencing another 15 or so acres of owned hay ground and turning it into pasture, therefore running the cows on grass longer and decreasing our needed hay supply. This will effectively fence all of our owned ground and leave us with just our rented hay fields. All of our equipment is payed for and both our discbine and round baler are less than five years old, so there's some value there. Hay is available in our area and decent first cutting can be bought all day for $20-30/bale. If I can graze longer, and need less hay...let's say 350 bales at $30 = $10,500 hay cost. Right now, my 75ish acres of rented hay ground at an average of $30/acre = $2,250 for rent. Last year, fertilizer costs ran me close to $4000 for my rented ground. Net, sunfilm, and wrapper rental (bc we live in OH and the weather is great lol) ran me $2000. I'm already up to close to $8500 and I haven't began to factor in equipment (purchases, cost of ownership, repairs), diesel fuel, or burnt vacation time (I work full time off the farm). $$$$ wise, it looks like it makes sense to sell the hay equipment and go down to a tractor or two, the skidloader, a batwing, and a manure spreader! Problem is......WE'VE ALWAYS MADE OUR OWN HAY!....Its a hard decsion to make. Anybody else our size ever done this?
Do you want to control your fate and destiny, or do you want others to do it for you? I buy all the hay I can when it is under $70 a ton delivered to me. I'd never sell my hay equipment, but I'll sure use it a lot less if somebody else wants to run theirs on their farm for less than I can do it. |
talk me into selling my hay equipment
