[egglady]

we live on a 6 acre smallholding (approx) and have various animals and veggies.  as some of oyu know we are considering how to take hay or haylage off one of our fields but now i am wondering about something else and i'd appreciate some thoughts from more expereinced peeps please.

one of our old neighbours has various fields here and there, one of which is right next door to us.  it's about 2 acres - long and narrow.  at the moment it is full of docks.  i'm wondering if we should ask him if we can rent his field and then seed it so we can take hay or haylage from it too.  surely between both fields (after initial cost is recovered of course) i should be able to make enough to feed 4 horses and a small flock of sheep.  maybe i'd even have some left over...

last year i was paying between £15 - £25 for a large round bale of hay and by the end of a very long and cold winter i was paying £40 a bale for hay.  nearly bankrupted us and not keep to be in that position again if i can help it!

hubby has an old (red) tractor - not sure what breed it is but presumably we could get the attachments we'd need over time.

also, how much should i expect to pay in rent for a 2 acre field that i'd need to seed?  (PS - buying it isnt a option as we cant afford it right now)

[doganjo]

Don't know latest rates, but we got £85 an acre for the season - April to October.  That was in 2002 before hubby died and I moved.

[old ploughman]

Hi, my personal opinion is that you should expect to pay between £80 and £100 per acre - guys paying £100 here!! The owner will probably consider the fact you are resseding it as irrelevant.

As for buying the kit and doing the hay yourself - you will have to spend a minimum of £1500 (mower,haybob, baler) and at that money they will probably want some money spending on them. If you dont find this out until your hay is ready and the rain is threatening it will be a double pain! Dont forget, we havent had a hay season like this for 20 years. If you cannot afford to buy all the kit in one year you will have to call in a local farmer/contractor to do some of the work - for that acreage you will struggle - especially on a wet time.


I would suggest you are paying well over the odds for your hay - round here in the depths of winter you could still get 300kg big sq bales of hay for £30 delivered locally and rounds for £15 - might be worth you travelling a bit further to find your supplies?

What about spending your money on some decent storage (even some decent stack sheets) and buy your hay straight off the field - always a good deal to be struck for cash sale off the field in summer time- £10 for rounds, £20 for squares? - depending on how much you use the saving would buy you some decent stack sheets - 20 bales = £200 saved - get a proper stack tarpaulin for that.

Doing it yourself you run the risk of getting poor quality hay - buying in you can keep looking until you find some good quality stuff. If you want to do it just because you want to - fine, but if you are doing it to save money I struggle to see it working.

[gingerninja]

Hi , we have 7 acres of which about 2.5 is used for grazing and the rest we cut for hay , a local farmer cuts, turns and bales then takes half the amount for himself as payment for the job , we had about 380 small bales last year and 32 big bales the year before which when halved , still went a long way to feeding two riding horses and 2 rescue shets. If you could find a willing farmer , It may be better that buying the kit yourselves? Sounds like you are paying loads for your hay , a big bale here is about £22 delivered. All the best Alix.

[Pony-n-trap]

We pay £15 per large round.

This year we have 12 rented acres (£100 per acre for 10 month season).

We went to a farm machinery sale last week and bought a mower, haybob and small square baler for total of about 2k.  It all works although the haybob needed a good oiling.

Just waiting for Oh to come back from offshore now to get stuck in, hope the weather holds!!