Well I definitely have to agree with Linda about this land along Highway 2...it is way to expensive to grow feed or grass or grain on...maybe dope??? I doubt $2000/acre would touch the very worst!
And I will agree with you grassfarmer that 5 tons is pretty tough to get anymore because it is so dry, but I did get 762 1250 lb. bales on 147 acres last year...no fertilizer! Sub irrigated land...a nice way of saying an old lake bed.
I don't know if you have to have the newest haying equipment available...and Lord knows parts are out of this world!
I just know that even in 2002 I had a decent year because I didn't have to go out and buy a lot of feed. When hay was $40/ton it made a lot of sense to buy it but when it gets up to $80/$90 I think it gets a lot tougher to make a buck on cattle?
Plus I am a firm believer in a lot of straw...good straw...my cousin has one of those chaff savers, blows it right on top of the windrow, baler right behind the combine. So for me free straw goes a long way...in fact I sold some hay right in the field...$50/bale..works out to around $90 ton?
And yet having said all that, it still cost me over $90 a ton because I could have sold it all for that...plus I had to haul the darned stuff home 2 miles!
Now without a doubt it sure would be nice to spend the summer at the beach or something, but for me it sort of works...actually it is still a losing propostion because no way am I getting a fair return on my land. So it still sucks but not as bad as grassing cows on? And in the end any money I made was wasted keeping my losing cows fed! What can you do?
And I will agree with you grassfarmer that 5 tons is pretty tough to get anymore because it is so dry, but I did get 762 1250 lb. bales on 147 acres last year...no fertilizer! Sub irrigated land...a nice way of saying an old lake bed.
I don't know if you have to have the newest haying equipment available...and Lord knows parts are out of this world!
I just know that even in 2002 I had a decent year because I didn't have to go out and buy a lot of feed. When hay was $40/ton it made a lot of sense to buy it but when it gets up to $80/$90 I think it gets a lot tougher to make a buck on cattle?
Plus I am a firm believer in a lot of straw...good straw...my cousin has one of those chaff savers, blows it right on top of the windrow, baler right behind the combine. So for me free straw goes a long way...in fact I sold some hay right in the field...$50/bale..works out to around $90 ton?
And yet having said all that, it still cost me over $90 a ton because I could have sold it all for that...plus I had to haul the darned stuff home 2 miles!
Now without a doubt it sure would be nice to spend the summer at the beach or something, but for me it sort of works...actually it is still a losing propostion because no way am I getting a fair return on my land. So it still sucks but not as bad as grassing cows on? And in the end any money I made was wasted keeping my losing cows fed! What can you do?
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