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Little River, TX | If your field is a mile long and 80 feet wide his cost will be minimal. Almost as good as if the 9 acres were in a perfect circle.
Next would be if it is a perfect box shape with only 4 turns to make a round, and no funny little triangles to finish up.
If it requires both right and left hand turns and he ends up with 8 major turns and a lot of short windrows then his cost will be a whole lot more.
We are talking about time of equipment operation. Sure you want to pay by the bale or by the acre, but if your field requires 25% more time to complete each operation it will cost him that much more to go out the gate.
Then if the field is nice and smooth, and heavy yielding and he is using net wrap, and can pop 40 bales an hour out of the machine that is one thing, but if the best he can do is 12 bales an hours and it cost him $200 an hour to run the baler you can see where his cost per bale will be much more.
In the past, when fuel and supplies were a whole lot less expensive I have invested $5 pre small square bale to just drop them on the ground. Say 3 hours to cut, 3 hours to rake, & 30 minutes to bale at less than 250 bales an hour. Going and blowing on a smooth field that was a half mile long at that time my cost was $0.72/bale.
We have not mentioned the cost of equipment travel. Say 30 minutes one way by PU and over an hour with the tractor. All that is time and someone will end up paying for that time. If not you then the Custom operator will have to increase his charges to compensate.
Nothing is ever simple! | |
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Haying
