| Can't say as this will help you or not, but as a child I grew up
on a farm. We ourselves rented out our hay fields to another nearby
farmer, in lieu of money we kept enough of the bales to feed my
horse ( I generally only had one at a time) through the winter.
In the summer the horse had pasture (a different field) and did
not get hay. The fields that were hayed out were about 5 acres each,
what we kept was a very small portion of the resulting harvest.
The pasture that the horse was on in summer was actually two seperate
fields (it was a rather big farm) that together were I'd guess about
9-10 acres of grass. A neighboring farmer actually worked his land
and raised beef cattle, he hayed his fields himself...it was great
fun, we used to ride the hay wagons and help out a bit!....and fed
his cows (about 50) and two saddle horses off it, plus sold the
excess. His fields were probably 20-25 acres in all. They, too ,
were kept strictly for hay, the cattle being pastured seperately.
Sorry I don't know the exact numbers involved, but I do know that
we never bought hay at all, even in winter, and what we kept was
just a small portion of what was harvested. I know this is a bit
vague....
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I would go to your local Cooperative Extension Service office to
get information about forages and such for your area of the country.
Amount of hay per acre varying widely depending on the types of soil,
your weather, what KIND of forage will grow in your area, growing
season length...
The Extensive Service should have written information as well as an
Area Agronomist available.
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We had looked into this, and may still go with it as we have
a seven acre field that could be used as a hayfield. Our 'research'
indicated that an average of 100 bales of hay could be gotten
an acre. (I used number as a 'best case').
If the field contained a poor selection of grasses, it could
possible require being plowed, harrowed and reseeded, which requires
a tractor, special equipment and probably several days. Seed
alone goes for $28.00 to over $100 per acre covered depending
on mix selected. This would then require a full years growth
before haying.
If the field hasn't been worked, but contained a decent grass
mix, it would most likely require lime. You would have to have
soil tests done to be absolutely sure, however in the Northeast
it wouldn't be far fetched to assume you would need 1 1/2 to
2 tons per acre. This would have to be applied. We found a service
at local farmers coop that advertised bulk spreading of lime
for $30 a ton , ten ton minimum.
Now that the field is in order, haying is the next step.
Protien availble from cut hay varies greatly as to when it
is cut. Letting a field go by can decrease available protien
and nutrion greatly. That's why farmers work such long hours
getting hay in. We use only first cut hay, so this is done
sometime in June. You can get up to three cuttings a year,
usually two though. At this point you may have some bargaining
power if you find a cow farmer who will cut first time for you
and take the second cut for his cows. Arrangements like these
are common and a typical charge would be about 50 cents a bale
for the farmer to cut your hay.
Even without the investment of tractors, mowers and balers, it
may take several years to realize a true savings if the entire
field needed to be reseeded. You are also at the mercy of the
person you hire to cut the hay, like everyone else, he may
do the best job possible or be so slipshod as to drive you nuts.
Visit the extension agent, ask around and have someone look over
the field to make a better judgement.
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