crops to hay?

[pippy]

Hubby and I have 20 acres. 14 of it he has always farmed w/ his father...meaning he helps his father w/ his land in exchange for use of father's equipment to farm our own small amount. I have hated this arrangement for years for various reasons.
I don't think it is worth planting 7 acres of beans and 7 acres of corn each year. We simply don't profit from it at all by the time you figure in seed cost, herbicide costs, figure in the land payment portion of our mortgage, property tax portion, time involved, aggravations involved and once or twice, we actually paid someone to harvest them because he didn't have time to due to his job. We do not get any farming kickbacks on our small acreage to offset losses like big farmers have (farm bill) in the past.
We are only fooling ourselves at the end of the year when we get the check for the crops in thinking we are coming out ahead. It would be different if we owned more land. No chance of buying more, so this is all we will ever have & it's not worth it to do corn/soybeans.
So- all in all I am trying to convince my hubby that we should just plant all hay- create a second larger pasture for the horses and then the rest be meadow to harvest the hay and sell what we don't need. He does not seem all that convinced but likes the idea of not doing the crops..just not sure if hay is right either. I thought atleast a pasture mix of hay is perennial and so will not have to plant and till each year for several years once established and so only have maintenance on it to do. We currently have a 2 acre meadow we bale, and it's not enough hay now that I am feeding all year round, because my pasture is so small for the amount of horses we have, so I am spending about 1000 additional $ a year to buy the hay vs if we grew our own.
How many of you sell hay? Do you have a hard time finding buyers? I would think if it is nice, good quality horse hay, there would be no shortage of buyers around here, but he is not sure we'd find any buyers.
Does my train of thought make sense to anyone else or am I missing something?

[Sonseeahray's_girl]

We have harvested our own hay for a few years, and have sold it for three years in a row. Let me say...hay is stressful. You are so dependant on the weather, and it's a tricky thing to harvest horse-quality hay properly. Not to mention that horse owners are generally very picky about their hay, which only adds to the stress, since so many factors are beyond your control.

I've also been burned several times by people ordering large amounts (upwards of 250+ square bales) and then not showing up to get it. We have our own horses and feed them our own hay, so we've never lost $$, but it's still aggravating to have buyers ditch you for the guy down the road who sells for 10 cents a bale cheaper, especially when you've slaved and stressed over each bale.

Harvesting hay is HARD work, unless you have a lot of expensive and fancy equipment, which cuts down on your profit margins for several years. If you have to pay help, that cuts down on your profits as well.

Planting good quality hay is not cheap either. I'm sure you have the equipment at your disposal, but I'd look into how much $$ per acre you're looking to invest to get started.

We are seriously considering not selling hay to anyone next year, with the exception of two people who proved to be reliable and easy to deal with. Providing enough hay for our 5 horses for the long winter is enough work, and pays for the equipment that we need to accomplish that. We come out ahead, even if we don't sell it to anyone.

Add to that the fact that we have more pasture and so don't have to feed hay year round, it's a good situation to be in.

If I were you, I'd increase your pasture, plant enough hay to do your horses' needs, and stay simple. You will end up ahead, IMO.

[pippy]

Thanks for the input. I do know that hay is hard work and I am not fond of stacking, also the weather issues- we've baled our meadow and ditches and fil large pasture for years now, so basically we'd just be adding on additional land to that, so I am not going into it completely blind.
The pasture mix costs 140 an acre, that is slightly less then what we are paying for corn and bean seed each spring but the savings come in not having to plant it each year like we do the corn/beans.
We have small square bale equipment to use, we have paid the neighbor to come round bale and have paid the other neighbor to do some large squares (equivalent to a round bale), to see which we like better. All in all, we'd probably either buy our own round baler or cont. w/ the little squares.

But- the other that you said, is basically what I was wondering about- the buyers, the market for it and other people's experience. If we plant it all in meadow, because I know my 5 horses won't eat THAT much we would need an outlet for it.
Like you said, maybe we should plant it all in meadow and just not harvest it all- harvest what we need, pasture the rest and not worry of selling it. Plant some more trees. Let loose some pheasants.
Hubby and I each work 40+ hrs in our normal jobs, so the crops thing is just a side deal because we don't know what to do w/ it otherwise. CRP is not an option. I don't want to be involved in something that would limit the use of that land.

[Sonseeahray's_girl]

Sorry, I missed the part of your OP that said you already do your own hay a bit...so you DO know how hard the work is Forgive me for not reading it more carefully.

Keep in mind that if you do rounds, you're not going to make as much $$ as small squares. Easier work because of the equipment doing the work, no stacking, but not a lot of profit in comparison.

I don't know, I hate to be negative, but the more I have had to deal with people, the smaller my business plan has become. We used to have plans to run a boarding stable, sell hay, sell eggs, etc etc, but I'm seriously starting to rethink that whole idea, and become more of a hermit!

[pippy]

I don't think I am a real big people person either....thanks for the info though, negative or not, I appreciate it and it gives me some more to ponder.

[laughter777]

We pay a guy $2/bale to bale our bermuda fields (we have no equipment or time to do it) and we store it for our animals (cows, goats, horses, etc) and sell a few bales for $6/bale. Hard work, but we don't rely on feed store for hay...and we know we can use what we have baled...right now we are baling something like 30 acres. For 4 cows, 6 horses, 10 goats, ... We have one customer that buys around 400 bales each year and then we sell 10 -50 here and there...if someone sucks as a customer we don't answer when they call back....Don't have to deal with people that way....If I don't like your attitude etc you don't buy my hay!