hay

danielgage

hay got 1770 square bales in the barns the last two days and beat the rain thank you Lord

sure looked like rain but missed all but just a few drops sure not enough to hurt anything

dpmule

We got 83 4?x4?x8? ?s up 10 days ago, and like you, it had gotten a sprinkle.
But, we were a whole month late and the alfalfa was still prebloom by 10 days or so and we ended up right at 22 ton short from last years first crop.
Late spring and cool early summer really cut tonnage for everyone in South East Idaho.

Hoping for a bumper crop 2nd cutting.

Mule

danielgage

dpmule wrote:

We got 83 4?x4?x8? ?s up 10 days ago, and like you, it had gotten a sprinkle.
But, we were a whole month late and the alfalfa was still prebloom by 10 days or so and we ended up right at 22 ton short from last years first crop.
Late spring and cool early summer really cut tonnage for everyone in South East Idaho.

Hoping for a bumper crop 2nd cutting.

Mule

this was our second cutting we have had lots of rain and that made a lot of hay we could barely get the windrows small enough for the small square baler(Bermuda)

danielgage

forgemonkey wrote:

Danny/David ,,,,,,

Good year here for hay if you're selling ,,,,,,,, thousands of local acres have been planted to commercial 'hemp'.

Buddy has all his alfalfa sold 'in the field' for $200 a ton.

yes I hear that is happening in Oklahoma as well

so far I have most of my square bales sold but we had to round bale part of it so they are not sold yet

it was too good of hay to round bale but when the barns get full and the rain is coming you have to do what you have to do at least we have the net wrap on it Danny

danielgage

I wish we could have got fertilizer out because it looks like the hurricane/tropical storm rains are just about to hit us

allen griggs

I spent the summer of 1977 loading hay bales with my cousin on a dairy farm in Idaho, right on the Washington border north of Spokane.
Alfalfa. Those Yankees make big bales and average weight was 95 pounds. We had a pop up loader, one guy stood in the back of the truck stacking bales while the other guy drove around the field. Then at the barn, one guy threw the bale off of the truck and the other guy stacked it.
The goal was to do 1,000 bales a day, which we usually did. Good God, 12 hours of loading hay bales, what a workout.
And we split 9 cents per bale. Twelve hours of that for $45.

He Dog

Good for you Daniel, nothing more useless than moldy hay, except maybe a few posters on these boards. :twisted:

I too hauled many tons of hay in my youth, four guys and a truck split ten cents a bale to move it from field to barn. We sold the truck at a small profit at the end of one summer and paid for two years of college.

danielgage

I remember when I was a teenager we(3 of us) loaded 47 bale at a time on the old half-ton Ford long-wheel base truck and took it to the barn for $0.25 a bale (split 3 ways mind you) and then the farmer we worked for sold it for $0.50 a bale more out of the barn but back then it gave me a little spending money

I wish he could see how we do it now with a 15 bale accumulator and grapple and 32 and 40 foot cotton/hay wagons and take it to the barn 300 or 360 bale per trailer and then unload it with the grapple and put it in the barn with the grapple and tractor

maybe that is why I'm fatter than I used to be

Ditch-Runner

congrats glad you beat the rain

I only helped during two seasons loading and unloading hay / straw . 45 years + ago a Gf family were farmers I got rewarded but no money


both my sons when in school use to help local farmers . I know it was a good work experience for them . and gave them spending cash
as for me now just the thought of even trying it I would run for cover :oops: :oops:

select-fire

Farmers in 72-73 were paying 1.5 ( penny and a half ) per bale. I put up about that much to get a bell helmet. Farmer stiffed me and Dad went over to his house and gave him about 1 min. to get the cash. In which he happen to find in his wallet. I wasn't the only one he stiffed on payment.

Mobuck

I baled 165 1200+# big round bales this year. Last year (drought) produced 92. This year I had help and was finished in less than a week total.
Good quality (RFV = 92) brome hay sold for a nickel per pound($100/ton) loaded on the buyer's semi. Probably worth more but I don't have to worry if this guy's check is good.
My equipment is "vintage" (meaning it's old and "well used"). My Cousin 60 miles away baled that much in one afternoon with his one year old outfit.

danielgage

yes sir I reckon I was overpaid for hauling hay but I had one friend that I would ask if he wanted to help me haul hay and he would always tell me he was not hungry enough to haul hay

wundudnee

Talking about it is making me tired. Back in the olden days, I hauled my share. I bought a 1 1/2 ton International and at fourteen I was making $14.00 a month payments. I charged 1o cents a bale. I had two friends and I each got 2 1/2cents a bale and the truck got 2 1/2cents. I was working construction and my friends would take the truck and haul hay all day, pick me up at quitting time and haul hay half the night.

The old truck had a crank out windshield and pins on the doors. We would remove the doors, crank the windshield tie down the steering wheel, put it in low low or sneak gear and let the truck go down the field. It had a hand throttle so you could set the speed.
When I wasn't hauling hay I had grain sides and hauled grain at harvest. I almost felt guilty taking money hauling something I didn't have to load.

After a day hauling hay we would stop at the local drive in and order $2.00 worth of nickel root beers. The drive in had a sign that said "honk horn for service." I had a set of air horns mounted with an air bubble under the bed. Good times.

TRAP55

The day they unloaded the brand new New Holland baler/stacker, I knew there truly was a God.

hillbille

used to spend the summers at an uncles farm, never forget he had a spring that supplied the drinking water for the house, it was sulfur water, he would freeze about half a gallon milk jug the night before and then fill it the rest of the way up in the morning before we went to the hay field, his was all done loose stack with pitchfork, the smell of hay to this day brings back the taste of that stinking water, but when you are hot and sweaty you will drink almost anything cold........

danielgage

Flying Clay Disk wrote:

Makes my back hurt just thinkin' about it!

I remember one time back in about '78 or so when me and two other guys loaded up an entire semi the hard way (no stacker, all by hand). I think it was the hottest day in the history of Wyoming that day, and those 90lb bales just never seemed to end. I don't remember how many bales it was now, but it was a long way down from the top of the stack! There were no bridges or wires all the way back into town, so we were over height for sure. I was just praying for a rest during the drive back into town.

Dumb * driving the truck cut the corner too sharp leaving the field and ran the trailer tires down through the borrow ditch. The bales didn't fall off into the ditch, but when the trailer tires came back up out of the ditch the stack went the other way and dumped the entire load across the highway! Had to get right back out of that truck and start humpin' hay again, 4x as hard this time, to get the road back open. That thoroughly SUCKED!

Stacked those same bales THREE times in one day (twice loading, and once unloading). Never forgot that day!

edit - I didn't even have the energy left to kick the truck driver's * after that!

yes sir I had a cotton/hay wagon break on the highway and had to reload 300 bales by by hand no fun

bpost

At the ripe old age of 14 I worked for a small dairy farmer. It paid $1.00 per hour. One day we did 3,000 bales of hay, all of it for $1.00 an hour. I was so wore out when I got home and so filthy I just jumped into the swimming pool, clothes and all to get the top layers of grime off. It took the pool filter about two hours to clean up all the dirt.

Ah, a toast here to good memories and hard work!

allen griggs

I was telling about working on an Idaho dairy farm in 1978. The one good thing about the job, at the end of the day we got a jug of milk.
We had a 2 gallon glass jug with a big mouth, about 5 inch diameter screw on lid. We went back to the barn and he had a 5,000 gallon stainless steel tank where the fresh milk was. Had a paddle to keep the cream stirred up, and it was about 33 degrees.
We filled up our jug with milk, we would stop by the store and get a package of Oreo cookies.
We had a 1 hour drive to get home and we would eat those cookies and drink milk straight from the jar. Damn, that ice cold milk, with all the cream in it, that was like liquid ice cream.