Welcome
Depending on many things, you might expect perhaps 180 small bales from 2 acres. That's properly packed by a baling machine - so there would be many, many more if you are making them by hand.
A 20-25kg bale of good hay would fetch anything from £3 to £4.50. Home-made squishy bales less, of course.
We calculate that it costs us approx. £2.50 per bale to make, if we paid for all the operations and labour.
I'm not sure why you would want to make it yourself if you aren't really looking for a financial return, and don't have livestock to eat it. If your local farmer is happy to take it again, that would seem like the best option. He might even be prepared to give you something in return, depending on how far he's having to travel to do the job.
Otherwise, if you decide to make it and sell it, I'd explore getting the local contractor to do it. Home-made bales aren't particularly appealing - they're difficult to handle because they're not very tightly packed (and that gets worse as they dry and age), take up more space because they're not very tightly packed, and, because they're not very tightly packed, the stack can become unstable and dangerous, and/or fall.
If you decide to have a go yourselves, you need, as a minimum:
There are older pieces of kit I haven't used, like tedders; I'll leave others to tell you about those.
The process is, when you have 4 dry days ahead of you:
- Day 1. Mow when the dew is off the grass.
- Later Day 1 or Day 2 when the dew is off - turn and spread
- Later Day 2 or Day 3 when the dew is off - turn and spread again
- Possibly turn and spread a few more times until dry
- Row up, into lines for the baler
- Bale and stack
For us, here in Cumbria, we'd always need 4 or 5 dry days, and really need a 'killing' (very dry, hot) day for baling. In some places further south, less days are needed, and the hay can't be worked so many times or it becomes dry and dusty. (But doesn't need to be worked so many times, as it dries better in the warmer, drier conditions.)