How to calculate hay amount?

[Minimor]

Not always equipment; I have gotten mine delivered by s squeeze truck--one of those where he can pick up a stack, haul it somewhere & then set it down again--but then it generally falls over when it's set down here so I have to restack it & tarp it or else haul it into my hayshed & stack it there. My 200 bales this year I'll be hauling home on my truck (36 bales per load) and then stacking it in the shed.

Used to be we'd haul it all in (several hundred bales at that time) and stack/tarp it here. Sometimes we were lucky & could load off a stack in a shed but 2 or 3 years we picked the bales up out in the field. Mom & I did it all, several loads per day to get done before it rained. Now of course Mom cannot do that work any more, and I cannot load many bales out of the field on my own even if she drives, so I buy from people who can deliver or who have the hay stacked in the yard/shed.

Round bales we haul from the neighbors on our trucks and then roll them out here. When I get rounds delivered they are usually 800 lb bales & we just roll them off the trailer by hand.

 

[mydaddysjag]

I have 20 bales of alfalfa in my barn now, I could probably squeeze 10 more if I needed to. The rest of my hay I keep at a friends close by, I pay her $20 a month to use a storage area big enough to hold about 100 bales.

I have 40 bales of grass hay stacked at her place now, but Im going to try to resale it. I didnt get to look at the hay before it was delivered, and I dont want to feed it to the minis. Its a bit more coarse than what I like to feed. Im hoping to sell that so I have the room to replace it with 40 bales of second cut.

Monday Im going to pick up 60 60lb bales of second and third cut alfalfa at $3.50 a bale, I want to snatch it up while I can, thats usually what plain grass hay goes for in my area, and its pretty hard to find alfalfa here.

If all goes well, Ill get rid of these 40 bales of first cut, then have room to go back to the alfalfa guy for 20 more bales of alfalfa.

After stacking just 40 bales of hay, I have a TON of respect for those of you that have been doing it for years, I broke out in hives, cut my hands up, and my whole body hurt. Man, what a pansy huh?

 

[chandab]

After stacking just 40 bales of hay, I have a TON of respect for those of you that have been doing it for years, I broke out in hives, cut my hands up, and my whole body hurt. Man, what a pansy huh?

While I haven't been doing it as long as some, I too break out after hauling/stacking hay; I've found if I really wash up good with soap and water after I'm done most of the "rash" goes away, as does the itching. And, Aleve or Motrin works pretty good for the bodyaches. Guess I'm a pansy too.

 

[Magic]

We used to do it all by hand as well. A lot of the places we used to buy hay from we'd have to load it ourselves, then we'd get home and unload and stack it. Usually we'd only be getting 50 bales or so at a time though. Our first year here we picked up our very first crop of hay out of the field, and it was HUNDREDS of bales. That was the LAST time we picked up our hay by hand!