|
Good advice from Mike, get somebody to do it a year or two and look at their stuff, what they do, and how it works. Next (not trying to start a war here, just my opinion) you need to get a tractor with live (or preferably independent) PTO and hydraulic remotes plus a little more hp if you plan to do 15 acres of hay. Didn't say where you lived (influences hay yields) but for unfertilized or lightly fertilized grass hays a sickle mower should be ok. Conditioners are nice, but I've almost quit using them in favor of the speed and low down time on a disc mower/tedder combination. Need a decent rake and baler (if you can hire the baling might be best, balers are tempramental beasts). Need some flat wagons to put the hay on. I'd use 16' with the 8N, if you get a bigger tractor go 18's or 20's. Figure: $3000-4500 will get you a decent Long or Case/David Brown diesel tractor in the 50-52 hp range. $300 for a decent Ford 501 sickle mower, $500 for a decent NI rake. Balers will run at least $500-$1000 for a decent used one $2500 for a good one, any less and you should expect to spend some time as a baler mechanic. A good used haybine could replace the sickle mower for about 1500. Price may vary a lot in your area, this is based on central KY. If you are in decent driving distence National Farm Machinery Show is in Louisville in mid Feb. Can see a lot of stuff under one roof. I'll be there on Feb 14th, if you are interested can pint out some stuff and some differences. Curse you can spend a bunch more. Figure I've got $30-40K tied up in my hay equip plus another $30-40K in tractors but doing a lot more than 15 acres. Didn't start out this way though, started out with $6000 worth of tractors and equip plus a rented round and square baler.
|
