Alfalfa

Whether you’re baling small square bales for your own use or to sell commercially, one of the most critical factors in producing a better hay bale is retaining moisture.

Establishing a price for hay on the stump can be a little tricky. A fair price is somewhere between the seller’s cost of production and the buyer’s estimated value minus the cost to harvest.

Here’s a question I hear a lot: How much soil fertility does grazing remove from pastures compared to hay? To ask this another way: If I graze a flock of sheep on the field and then sell the lambs, do those lambs and ewes remove as many soil nutrients as when I make hay or balage from that field?

How much money do I have in each bale? What does it cost me to produce an acre of hybrid bermudagrass? How do I calculate my equipment and labor costs?

Hay producers are often focused exclusively on cash costs or variable costs of production such as fuel, repairs, fertilizer, hired labor and rent. Whereas, the fixed costs of depreciation and interest on equipment are often ignored.

Undoubtedly, the most important influence on dairy farm profitability is forage quality. But what metrics of forage quality are most important? What metrics of forage quality are most important to you and your nutritionist?