[symber]

Hello,

  I'm looking for a way of turning a small profit from about 8 acres of land and wonder if simply growing grass for hay would make sense?  I was hoping somebody could give me some idea of the costs involved, whether large bales or smaller bales are best and how much hay I could make from 8 acres.  The land is well draining, about 150m elevation in NE Scotland.

  Any advice at all would be a great help, as I know practically nothing about this sort of thing   

Thanks very much,

Symber

[suziequeue]

I'm looking for a way of turning a small profit.........

I wouldn't get your hopes up Symber!!

Have you thought about just renting the land out for grazing? Making hay does cost as - if you're not planning to make the capital investment in tractor, hopper, baler etc - then you would need to contract this out which will probably wipe out all your profits.

Sorry to be a bit of a downer but making a profit from small pieces of land is - I'm sure - possible..... but not easy.

[symber]

Hi Suziequeue - thanks for your reply... 

...maybe the word "profit" was a mistake there  

I'm keen to do something with the land myself rather than just have it sit there or, as you suggest, let somebody else use it.  How about if I had a tractor (something medium sized like a Japanese compact) and could borrow a baler and hay-mower...could I at least break even, do you think?

[Fowlman]

I would rent it out for grazing, at least you will have no outlay that way and a small  income from the land.

[robert waddell]

8 acres you Will get up to 100 small bales and 10 large bales per acre  from a heavy crop
the Scottish weather would be the decider on the quality of the hay  and if it ends up as haylage or shite
a jap compact would not be capable of working a turbo mower or a baler   the minimum you need is is a mf 35 or equivalent
so that is a tractor    mower     hay bob      baler   good luck that they all work   a better than hands on experience at running repairs   and 4-5 days of good weather   and that is without a manure spinner and manure to get a bit of bulk    so hay at £3 a small bale that is £2400 if it is good  your tractor could cost that to start with      now don't think i am trying to put you of far from it  that lovely smell of new mown hay and the smell of sweet bales in a shed  is something to remember for life    but there are a lot of hurdles before that stage  and your grass is it grass just because it is green does not make it a good crop

[lachlanandmarcus]

The other thing is if its anything like our land you will have to go through with a very fine toothcomb pulling out all the ragwort - every single scrap, as otherwise the hay could kill the livestock (esp horses) it is fed to - hay with ragwort in is classes as unfit by trading standards for that reason. If theres a lot of ragwort you would maybe have to spray and thats more cost and effort.

We make small bale hay on our land but only for our own sheep (who do adore it) and we handpull any ragwort (it blows in from neighbouring cattle baron so not easy to eradicate totally). We buy in hay for the horses even tho we have masses of land because we cant be sure we have got 101%.

The other thing is do you have storage for the hay - must be indoors with good airflow. Thats the main thing that restricts us from making more hay.

For info we use an old 1976 John Deere 2030 (bit like a MF135) with a New Holland ancient Superliner baler, a hay mower,  PZhaybob to wuffle and row it up and a large flat bale trailer. Hard work and no change from 10-12 k even for old equipment.

[symber]

Thanks very much for your honest replies - they're very much appreciated.  Without any experience, it's hard to know what will work and what won't, so I'm grateful to you for your knowledge.

Thanks