[edstrong]

Hi, can anyone kindly give me some guidance on how much it would cost to cut and bail (but leave on field) 3 acres of haylage (in Shropshire). Thanks!

[Buttermilk]

Our contractors charge by the bale but he does us when he is doing next door so does not have to factor in travelling.

[edstrong]

We had 28 bales (big round 4 foot bales) off the field this year.

[bj_cardiff]

Not much help I'm afraid but I think it will be a lot.. You need to take into account that the contractor will charge you for his travel and time taken to do the actual job, so £30ph x how ever many hours it took (including travel).

The travel will probably cost a lot, especially if he traveled to cut, came back a couple of times to turn, then row up and another time to bale up.

[SallyintNorth]

I've no idea if your local rates will be similar to ours, but we have just had a 4.4 acre field mowed, turned, baled and wrapped for small bale haylage by a local farmer.

We got 230 bales and his bill was £720+VAT.

The sward was reasonably thick, but the grass was not overlong, so that's not a huge number of bales for that size of field.

Our guy is very local to us, and didn't charge us for travel time.

There was a price per bale for baling and for wrapping, plus an hourly rate for mowing, turning and rowing up.

I imagine large bales will be cheaper for the same amount of grass.


Oh, and despite the username, I'm in North Cornwall  

[Backinwellies]

I've no idea if your local rates will be similar to ours, but we have just had a 4.4 acre field mowed, turned, baled and wrapped for small bale haylage by a local farmer.

We got 230 bales and his bill was £720+VAT.
 

Which works out at £3.75 per bale ………..  I bought some  and had it delivered to barn for little more ……… without panic of watching weather.